Satire: Slay Queens petition Mzee over ‘missing’ cash

However, Slay Queens selling hair weaves in the market have questioned the fairness of the audit report. 

According to the Slay Queens, who displayed placards that said “Weave Us Alone”, the cash has not gone “Missing”. It has gone “Mister-ing”. 

That is because Missing implies a Miss took the cash or caused its abracadabra-ification into nothingness.  

Yet Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer, an annual survey of more than 60,000 households in more than 60 countries, found that women, when compared with men, are less likely to be corrupt.

The Slay Queens issued a take-it-or-weave-it ultimatum when the audit report stated that something was “amiss”; the Slay Queens thereby demanded to know why something was not “amister”. 

Then when their complaint was ignored, they took it up a notch by saying that they would petition Mzee on such gender insensitivity. 

Again, they say, if the culprit is or culprits are found they should be sacked. To dismiss them would also be gender-insensitive since the two syllables that make up the word “dismiss” are “dis”, which is short for disrespect in urban colloquialism, and “miss”. Together, they disrespect every miss (or missus). 

“Also,” the petition reads, “why must a good song be a hit and a bad song be a miss? This is clearly gender bias. We demand that good songs are a miss and bad songs are a hit. Besides, it is already happening. The musician Alien Skin released ‘Sitya Danger’. It is a bad song which is a hit.”

The Slay Queens say that apart from men trying to feminise corruption and failure by liberally using the words missing and miss, men forget that words have power.  

“Used with skill, each word can contain power and energy that shifts mindsets, opens dialogue, motivates, and inspires other people and even yourself. Used ineffectively, words can demotivate, discourage, disengage, and, in extreme cases, make someone ill. Our words are powerful,” says George Kohlrieser, a professor of Leadership and Organisational Behaviour and a man the last time he checked.  

Indeed, corruption has many euphemisms making it seem less harmless than it actually is. 

Instead of simply calling corruption “theft”, we use certain words to sex it up and make it more acceptable. Words like graft, malfeasance, and misappropriation only serve to put lipstick on the pig of corruption. 

Take the word graft, for instance, it sounds like craft. Craft is an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill, esp. manual skill. The only bad craft there is witchcraft and the Emirates aircraft behind Arsenal Football Club’s failed Premiership bids. 

So we see the point the Slay Queens are making: why not just say the money was stolen instead of missing? 

Front teeth go missing, cars go missing, and even weapons of mass destruction go missing. 

You recall the incident when the Pakistani ambassador to the US was confronted by a CNN journalist over poor Pakistani intelligence allowing Bin Laden to be living in a villa in Pakistan. 

He replied by saying it was just as shocking as the US finding out that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!

Anyway, the point is that everything goes missing. But money never goes missing, it just gets eaten. 

This is Uganda, a place deficient in Vitamin M (money). So people get their Vitamin M from cash grabs. While they get their Vitamin O from listening to Ragga Dee and their Vitamin L (for life) by ensuring Mzee rules for life!

In the end, if there is ever an end in sight, corruption should never be massaged by words. 

But, you can do so if you spell “massage” as “message”. Then you can message corruption as evil, so the public takes heed. 

However, you can never massage the public against corruption. Well, you can if you want to be accused of sexual harassment by the same Slay Queens who are currently in Mzee’s inbox.