My dad used to tell me that when he was a foreign correspondent in the 1960s he was once assigned to the Gambia where, upon arriving at the airport, some man started trying to sell him a watch. Brushing aside the persistent chap, dad finally said ‘sorry, I’m going to be late for my meeting with the foreign secretary’, only for the man to tell him ‘I am the foreign secretary’. They got on famously, my dad said.
I imagine the standard of African politician at the time was probably higher than it is now. The current Gambian president, Yahya Jammeh, is a borderline lunatic who once claimed to have invented a cure for Aids using African herbs, forces suspected witches to drink hallucinogenic drugs, and recently said that homosexuality was one of the three greatest threats to humanity.
Still, even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, and I can’t help but agreeing with President Jammeh in his recent assessment of the Commonwealth of Nations: that it’s a total and utter waste of time.
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