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Chapter Seventeen
- LANGAA RPCIG
- Chapter
- Additional Information
101 Chapter Seventeen rom weeks to months and from months to one full year, there were no official results. The electorate had given up any interest in the election. This was a trick to hang on to power a little longer. No information was filtering out of political circles about the Head of State’s intentions. The police and the military had reinforced security measures. Jampassdie remained under house arrest, and some of his activists were confined to prison cells. There was a generalised social malaise. Every professional group was anxious for a strike, but there was no room for trade unions to vent their feelings. Surprisingly, even the military was tired of going on aimless missions to quell an uprising that was neither seen nor felt anywhere. They were tired of sleeping in the open every night while in search of political suspects. Kutumians were used to their lot. A wonderful people, they could pretend that all was well even when nothing was. Every day, although they were disgruntled, people went about their daily tasks. Yet the atmosphere was one of social discontent. Children returned from school with empty exercise books, saying that the teachers spent time conversing in the corridors or sleeping on the tables. There were no drugs in the hospitals and, if a nurse was not motivated, she would not attend to a patient. Prices of most basic commodities shot up. Even farm produce became expensive, as the farmer needed to compensate for the higher cost of industrial products. Then a strange plague known as come no go befell the whole country. This was an incurable skin disease that was resistant to all drugs. Scientists claimed that it was a fatal F 102 sexually transmitted disease. All its victims had rashes that lacerated the body, leaving scars. The opposition explained that this was a malediction brought on the country by bad governance. Church ministers thought it was a sign of the apocalypse because God was angry with man’s sinfulness. One man, Prophet Joshua, took advantage of the situation, going door to door preaching repentance. Prophet Joshua could not arrange a public crusade for fear of the police’s reaction. “Repent, dear brothers and sisters, for the time of the Lord is at hand.” Youth in search of employment, frustrated civil servants and childless couples joined his Ministry of Salvation, draining the mainstream churches of their Christians. Some of the converts were truly convinced that the world was ending. The prophet even attempted to prophesy the day of the week, but mentioned neither the month nor the year. He claimed that the world would end on a Friday, so each Friday his worshippers were ready; however, the date proved as unpredictable as the Presidential election results. Certain unusual events gave credence to his prophesies. Firstly, after a very difficult delivery, a young woman gave birth to Siamese twins with two heads and four legs. The mother survived through God’s mercy, for she gave birth in the hospital waiting room, unattended by any nurse. She had come to the hospital with severe labour pains, but the striking nurses ignored her. It was only after the delivery of her strange baby that they rushed to her, more out of embarrassment than sympathy, and picked up the infant which, fortunately, was a still birth. To the prophet, this was an ill omen, warning those whose faith was not strong. Next, a woman stole a bag of groundnuts from another’s farm and started bleating like a goat. She had been caught by a powerful medicine that was planted in that farm against [3.91.245.93] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:21 GMT) 103 thieves. When this trouble befell her, she had already sold the bag of groundnuts and held only a few grains in her hand as explanation for her guilt. Other medicine men attempted to reverse the medicine but could not. She became dumb and went about bleating with the groundnuts in her fist. Her plight was similar to that of a policeman who received a bribe of five hundred francs from a driver. This policeman was so notorious for harassing drivers that one man prepared to take vengeance on him. He came along with a bank note carefully arranged with a spell. When he handed the note to the policeman, it immediately transformed into a chick that could never part with him. It got stuck to his palm, and every effort to remove it...