Konganoga

It was getting increasingly difficult for Professor Johnson to contain opposition to his policies of punctuality, transparency and accountability in Board matters in the Tin Mining Company. This was in spite of the fact that such a policy was almost entirely responsible for the progress so far made by the Company’s new management to pull out the company from the doldrums which the corruption-ridden former Board had thrust it. Professor Johnson saw himself and his Board as having been appointed into a board for a mission. That mission was to revamp the Board, make it more profitable, more productive and more serving of the needs of the people of Konganoga. To Professor Johnson ingratiation of self was secondary. Achievement of the set goals was primary. But to the other members of the Board and those that appointed them, it was not “nation first”. Self for them was the primary motive. The choice of Professor Johnson for the post of Chairman when the Board was economically down was only to satisfy the need for a capable hand that would make the Board more profitable once more for the returns to resume flowing to the masters in Kumbrujaa. It certainly was not the intention of the Kumbrujaa cabal that the goose that laid the golden egg should be killed. The latter needed to be alive for the golden egg to continue to be laid. Members of the cabal were no fools and the appointees to the Board were no fools either. The only apparent fool was the man who saw the appointment as a messiah mission, a mission to save planet Earth from damnation and the notion of such a mission being divinely ordained. It was the latter notion which informed Professor Johnson’s oft repeated admonition to the members of Board whenever they complained about his apparent tight-fistedness thus:

“We need to save this Board. We need to make it more profitable for our people. We need to tighten our belts and we need to do this as a sacrifice in the interest of our dear country.”

Yes, the Company needed to be saved for the monetary proceeds to continue to flow. But beyond that, the other Board members saw no further need to tighten their belts. Besides they saw no reason why they would continue to tighten their belts when the people in governance and especially in Kumbrujaa and in the seat of regional power in Kiba continued to loosen their own belts.

With time the opposition to the belt-tightening policies of Professor Johnson began to be openly challenged.

During one of the Board meetings the chairman had vetoed the decision of the members who had voted to increase the number of days which they sat so as to increase their monthly allowances.

‘This proposed increase in the running cost of this Board even in the face of the economic downturn of the nation is hereby vetoed by me in the interest of the overall good of our country”, Dr Johnson had said.

All hell was let loose after the Chairman’s veto was announced.

The assault was led by Mrs. George who was still reeling with rage over the refusal of the Board to let her supply cars to the Board Members. The other members of Board were unhappy with the persistent refusal of the Chairman to let them have greater allowances under different guises. Most importantly the godfathers in Kumbrujaa were unhappy with the man who was reported to be the stumbling block to the returns which they received from their protégées. Tempers had run to fever pitch during the subsequent day’s meeting after the Chairman had vetoed the proposed allowances to the Board members. A meeting of the entire Board members excepting the Chairman had been held in a private residence of one of the godfathers in Kiba to discuss the issue of the “Chairman who wanted the Board members to starve.”

All the members of Board including a member who was a bishop of one of the new generation churches in Kiba were present. The reverend gentleman used to be one of the voices of reason whenever there was a division in the house or when issues got thorny. But he was also known to be very insistent on the issue of increased allowances and increase in the number of “sitting days” which increase invariably translated to increased pay for the Board Members. His modesty did not extend to money matters otherwise he and the Board Chairman could be counted as the only voices of reason in the midst of wolves in sheep’s clothing. The highly respected Bishop must have been lured into the meeting of “Dissolutionists “ with a promise that participants would benefit materially if the Board was dissolved and that they would be either handsomely compensated or they would be re-appointed to a new reconstituted Board under a new Chairman.

The decision after the short meeting of the “Dissolutionists” was unanimous: The Chairman Professor Okon Johnson must be overruled. A second motion that called for pressure on the authorities in Kumbrujaa to dissolve and reconstitute the Board was however narrowly defeated. Some of the members were afraid that if the Board was dissolved that they might not make the new list of appointees especially those of them who had not been making adequate returns to their godfathers.

One of the sponsors of the dissolution motion was a colleague of Professor Johnson in the University Hospital. Dr Ezemtubo was the lazy Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology who having been frustrated by his lack of promotion in the University system had resorted to political party activities and had been appointed as a protégé to one of the political godfathers. He had carried his opposition to Professor Johnson a little too far into the Board of the Tin Mining Company. His mission in the Board appeared to be to oppose any and everything that was raised by Professor Johnson.

Dr Ezemtubo had fought very hard to get the dissident members of Board of the Tin Mining Company holding a secret meeting in the residence of his godfather to endorse a motion calling on the Federal Government to dissolve the Board of the Company. He had hoped that he or somebody close to him would be appointed the chairman of the Board in place of Professor Johnson.

When the secret meeting failed to approve the motion to apply pressure for the dissolution of the Board, Dr Ezemtubo and two of his dissolution campaigners had resolved to go it alone. Each of the three dissolution campaigners had a powerful godfather and through them the message was relayed to Kumbrujaa that progress was being made in the University Hospital because Professor Johnson was starving the godfathers of funds and was indeed plotting to cut off all extraneous sources of funding for sustenance of the cabal in Kumbrujaa. They also had alleged that Professor Johnson was indeed secretly working for the political opponents of the powerful godfathers. The “Dissolutionists” as Dr Ezemtubo called their group had also promised their godfathers that success for them in their cause would triple or quadruple the monthly monetary returns to the godfathers. With this promise in view and the glaring fact of diminishing returns to the powers in Kumbrujaa since after the commencement of Professor Johnson’s era, it was relatively easy to persuade the Kumbrujaa powers to consent to the dissolution of the promising Board of the Tin Mining Company of Konganoga under the Chairmanship of Professor Johnson.

Thus without any forewarning or any prior indication a letter was made to the Board of the Tin Mining Company of Konganoga that they stood dissolved. The tone of the letter of dissolution was however quite mild and adequate recognition was given to the enormous successes of the Board especially in resuscitating the ailing economy of the Company.