In order to present her motion at the Bawo Club general assembly, Nasibeko made it all the way from the University of Mpatse Abwile through the heavy rains and the strong winds. As it turned out, her motion was not as idle and vexatious as some had claimed it would be.
As we all know, Abiti Mwenye delivered her State of the Bawo Club address a few weeks ago. Following that delivery, a man arose in the Bawo Club main chamber. His name was Sadaka Moya. He was a wealthy man who had made his riches bribing Bawo officials and players, and rigging Bawo championships in the Lower Shire and all over the Eastern Region. Sadaka Moya had bribed his way into every administration that had run the Bawo Club.
Claiming he was Abiti Mwenye’s number one supporter, he asserted that Abiti Mwenye was a gift of the gods to the club and that the Bawo Club should adopt the speech as the message from the gods themselves. Her speech, he appealed pointing this way and that and posing as Priest of the Bawo club, contained many innovative and inspirational ideas that would transform the Bawo Club beyond recognition.
Not everyone believed him. For did not disgruntled whisperings commence even while he was still speaking, with some senior members like Dr Alberto Murius even walking out long before he had finished his brainless perorations? So much was the murmuring and the unimpressed grunts and yawns at Sadaka Moya’s speech that Gogo Sinsamala had to invoke a point of order and ask him to sit his well oiled bottom down before he found himself fumigating his “wisdom” into an empty chamber!
The disgusted ones, those that were unimpressed with Abiti Mwenye’s speech and sickened by Sadaka Moya’s defence of it, pointed to the selfish “I”s that had dominated the address. They questioned why at a time when neighbouring Tanzania was taking control of a large section of the Big River that has always belonged to the Bawo Club, Abiti Mwenye deliberately failed to address this matter in her State of the Bawo Club address. Surely a threat of war because a foreign power was encroaching on Bawo Club territory was an important part of the state of the Bawo Club and worth addressing in the speech?
And what of the drug shortages that had began to bring hospitals to a stand still, and the claim of recovery in an economy with its currency in free-fall and prices of the sour brew and minibus ride rising every day?
It was on this basis then that Nasibeko, suspecting quite rightly that most members would grumble but be too afraid to do anything about it, took matters into her own hands and presented the motion to Gogo Sinsamala.
In her motion, Nasibeko asked the Bawo Club general assembly to reject Abiti Mwenye’s State of the Bawo club address in its entirety as lacking in substance. She called upon the members to exercise a vote of no confidence in Abiti’s leadership of the Bawo Club by stripping her of her championship title and speeding up the next Bawo tournament to crown a new champion. After all, there was even evidence that in her self-obsession, Abiti Mwenye had several times lost easy bawo games, and could be observed in a trance, smiling to herself and claiming that although she had not been formally recognised as such by the University of Mpatse Abwile, she was still an honorary doctor of Bawonomics!
The motion was greeted with strong resistance. The streetwise methods of Sadaka Moya and his team were brought to bear. There were reports of members being seen in dark corners, receiving bags of Makaka and Bonya from Sadaka Moya as Moya worked hard to defeat Nasibeko’s motion. Unfortunately, being busy assisting Gogo Sinsamala and Professor Mpandadzina in the investigations relating to a certain resignation letter, the Chief Mourner was unable to investigate and verify the allegations.
It is not important that eventually, Nasibeko’s motion was defeated and Abiti Mwenye’s State of the Bawo Club address was ultimately adopted. What is important is that it is now clear that a large number of Bawo Club members have lost confidence in Abiti Mwenye. Although Abiti Mwenye remains the leader of the Bawo Club, Nasibeko’s motion has cast over her leadership a shadow of doubt as dark as her own sour brew pots. These are doubts that will continue to hound Abiti Mwenye.
But then, as Gogo Sinsamala pointed out to the Chief Mourner the other day, there always was going to come a day when Abiti Mwenye would have to realise that she either raises her management skills, or accept being consigned to administrative history.
Meanwhile, the concerned silence that has descended over the Bawo Club ever since the defeat of Nasibeko’s motion in being blamed on the rumour going around that Sadaka Moya has already started manoeuvring and positioning himself so that he again is included in the next Bawo Club administration, should Abiti Mwenye lose her position in the forthcoming championships.
