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First Witness—Christopher Oriko

“YOU’RE WASTING everybody’s tio to Abazon Finish! Kabisa! Any other business?”

“As Your Excellency wishes But…”

“But me no buts, Mr Oriko! The matter is closed, I said How many times, for God’s sake, am I expected to repeat it? Why do you find it so difficult to s ?”

“I a and digesting your rulings”

For a full minute or so the fury of his eyes lay on me Briefly our eyes had been locked in combat Then I had loweredsilence But he was not appeased Rather he was row rapidly into its own kind of contest, like the eyewink duel of children I conceded victory there as well Without raising ain: “I ao I would never have said it again that second tirave violence to myself Now I did it like a casual favour to hi at all toto him

I have thought of all this as a gae and poisonous But I ht, then looking back on the last two years it should be possible to point to a specific and decisive event and say: it was at such and such a point that everything rong and the rules were suspended But I have not found such afor it And so it begins to seea only I was too blind or too busy to notice But the real question which I have often asked o on with it now that I can see I don’t know Simple inertia, maybe Or perhaps sheer curiosity: to see where it will all… well, end I aues, eleven intelligent, educated men who let this happen to them, who actually went out of their way to invite it, and who even at this hour have seen and learnt nothing, the cream of our society and the hope of the black race I suppose it is for the farcical entries in the crazy log-book of this our ship of state Disenchanto into detached clinical interest

I find their actions notQuite a! And to think that I personally was responsible for reco nearly half of them for appointment!

And, of course, complete honesty demands that I mention one last factor in my continued stay, a fact of which I’ this if I didn’t hang around to observe it all And no one else would

I could read in the silence of their any table, words like: Well, this is going to be another of those days Meaning a bad day Days are good or bad for us now according to how His Excellency gets out of bed in theOn a bad day, such as this one had suddenly beco for it but to lie close to your hole, ready to scra is safe, not even the flattery we have beco as debate

On ht sat the Honourable Cohtened of the lot As soon as he had sniffed peril in the air he had begun to disappear into his hole, as soathered his papers together and was in the very act of lifting the file-cover over the them into his hole after hier alarms from deeper recesses of instinctact and a sla of the door in the face of His Excellency A fantastic thing happened then He drops the file-cover in such panic that everyone now turns to hiest act of all: the scattering again of his Council Papers in panic atonee he has colances round the table until his eyes any The silence had not been broken since y I was quite certain that the poor fellow (never a strong one for originality) was getting ready to speak my very words, strictly in the saht to his sides as though to diminish his bulk; and clasped his hands before him like a supplicant

But His Excellency speaks instead And not even to him the latest offender but still toes The fiery sun retires temporarily behind a cloud; we are reprieved and i I can hear in advance the many compliments ill pay him as soon as his back is turned: that the trouble with His Excellency is that he can never hurt a o to sleep over it

That’s one refinement, by the e’ve not yet lost: we do wait for his back to be turned And some will add: That’s a pity because what this country really needs is a ruthless dictator At least for five good years And ill all laugh in loud excess because we know—bless our dear hearts—that we shall never be favoured with such an undeserved blessing as a ruthless dictator

“Do you realize what you are asking , make no motion, not even of the head At these h ical it seeh a telescope I note for what it’s worth that he has dropped the icy distancing of Mister Coer allow such niceties to distract reereement It was neither Pure, unadulterated disinterest

“You are telling ence of these people,” he says, his tone mollified and rather superior I shake my head then, slowly “Yes, that’s precisely what you are telling me to do,” he says spiritedly, spurred to battle by ent opposition “These people believe in rainnorance for cheap popularity That’s exactly what you are telling et that I am still a soldier, not a politician”

He is in mufti as he now tends to be more and more within the precincts of the Presidential Palace: a white danshiki tastefully e trousers By contrast ues, especially the crew from the Universities, aspire to thebut khaki safari suits co how the intellectual envies the man of action

I think His Excellency noticed the faint sht to my face by that reminder that he was still a s

oldier; he has such a knack for reading faces I could see hiwas neither of those but soaze on ed at the same time to convey by his voice that I was excluded fro; that his words were too precious to waste on professional dissidents