{UAH} Allan/Edmund/Gook/Pojim/WBK: My boss the president of Bahatiya is a liar, a cheat… Bang! - The East African

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/oped/comment/If-Michael-Cohen-was-in-Africa/434750-5009972-fnuqoj/index.html

My boss the president of Bahatiya is a liar, a cheat, a threat to national secur… Bang!

TUESDAY MARCH 5 2019

    

 

 

Michael Cohen, former attorney and fixer for President Donald Trump, testifies before the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill February 27, 2019 in Washington, DC. PHOTO | ALEX WONG | AFP 

In Summary

• If Michael Cohen had been here in Africa and behaved the way he has been behaving, by now we would have been asking the same questions the Turks are asking about the whereabouts of the body of a certain Jamal Khashoggi.

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By JENERALI ULIMWENGU
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Could Michael Cohen have done what he did to Donald Trump had he been in an African situation?

Had he served a number of years as "attorney and fixer" for the president of Bahatiya in the south of our continent and then fallen out with the head of state, would he have had the guts to come out and snitch on his former boss the way he did last Wednesday when he testified before the American Congress?

Would an African fixer for any of our all-powerful potentates even think of breaking ranks with the Big Man, work with investigators who look like they are hell-bent on removing him from power and possibly sending him to prison into the bargain? In Africa? It is a prospect that is almost impossible to contemplate.

When you are given the opportunity "to eat" under the protection of any of our all-powerful potentates that we call presidents, then you sit down and eat until it pleases him to tell you he does not want you to eat anymore. When that happens, then you can go and set up your own new feeding arrangements far from where he can see that you are still able to eat.

You are in trouble if you think you cannot stand your boss any longer and you want out, unless he says it is okay for you to go, but even then you must not show him, or his people, that you are perhaps eating more than you used to eat under him.

I have known people who were seriously frustrated with their jobs but would not dare call it quits, because walking out on your boss is an unacceptable slight; by quitting you are guilty of denying him the pleasure of sacking you. 

But to go out there and start telling his enemies that your former boss is a liar, a cheat and a threat to your country's security, now that is a bit rich, and you will be made to pay for it with your blood. Once you have committed this crime of lese majeste, there is no shortage of volunteers for your execution, even before they are ordered by anyone.

Cohen is in a very different situation than he would have faced had he been here. He is going to jail next month to serve time for his lies and other transgressions against the American system. 

Very few people sympathise with him because he has proven himself to be an inveterate liar after a high-flying, arrogant and unscrupulous career as enforcer for a high-flying, unscrupulous boss with all manner of issues related to moral decay.

Jail time is not a holiday, and he knows what to expect. He leaves behind a family that has been dishonoured by his conduct and a former boss who hates his guts because he believes he has betrayed him. Loss of freedom will surely be followed by loss of income, and upon his release he may have to start from the bottom of the ladder.

But at least Cohen has a chance of coming out of prison alive and picking up the pieces of his life like you pick up pieces of broken china. 

In the 1970s, a fresh-faced young man in the White House named James Dean III went to jail for lying to protect his boss, Richard Nixon, during the Watergate scandal. Dean is now out and guess what he is doing? With wrinkled face and grey hair, he is a television pundit commenting on the Russiagate scandal and what may be lying in wait for Trump and his merry band of fixers.

Cohen will probably survive jail, but he still could send his former boss tumbling out of the White House, and maybe find himself facing jail time of his own. It is highly unlikely, though, because Trump has long decided to turn the Russia investigation into a political campaign bogeyman, whipping up town-hall support wherever he goes to address rallies packed with his supporters.

Cohen suggests that Trump could refuse to give up the White House if he loses the election next year, which would make him interestingly Africanesque.

As for Cohen, he must thank his stars that he is far from an African setting. If he had been here and behaved the way he has been behaving, by now we would have been asking the same questions the Turks are asking about the whereabouts of the body of a certain Jamal Khashoggi.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: ulimwengu@jenerali.com

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