Part 1: When I peeped into the African Presidents’ WhatsApp group

MUGABE: Have you people decided to run because of this WikiLeaks nonsense? Come back, I have fresh jazz for you.
MAGUFULI: Are you sure it’s fresh? I hope it is not like your recycled speeches. Hihihi, indeed ‘old age is such a malignant bitch’… #runs into hiding…

MUGABE: Hehehe, I deliberately repeated that speech because people had liked it the first time.

SANTOS: Happy 93rd birthday, Bob, and greetings from Angola. Wow! You are about to hit a century! By the way guys, I am stepping down next year. My gesture should show the world that it’s not true that we overstay in power. These 38 years are enough. I hope these fools don’t send me to prison at this age.

OBIANG NGUEMA: Santos, I can see what old age is doing to your reason! Pinch yourself to check if you are still conscious.
UGANDAN REVOLUTIONARY: Well, the Banyankore say:  orwaza kwita nyakabwa, rugiigara enyiindo (the disease that will kill a dog, first blocks its nose). When I was still young and ideologically naïve, I also used to think that Africa’s problem was leaders who overstay in power. I have ruled enough to prove that I was obscenely misguided.

NKURUNZIZA: That is how I had also foolishly subscribed to these term limit things. Hmmm! Now I’m wiser. If people want to slaughter themselves, let them take their pleasure to do so but I’m not going anywhere. Santos, think twice, don’t you see Jammeh? Lol…

MAGUFULI: Bob, I can’t wait for the jazz you promised. Did you discover a remedy to dosing in public?
MUGABE: Magufuli, comrades are exuberating words of wisdom up there and you shamelessly come in to divert us! If you are idle, go tint your beards. If I meditate in public about how to keep my chair, what is the problem?

BASHIR: So, even today you people are saying nothing about ICC?
KIIR: Hahahahahahaha, LMAO.
BASHIR: Kiir, one day I will help you trim those things you call beards. Learn to respect other people’s pains. What was funny there? You took the oil wells but are still acting jittery!

KIIR: Bwahahahahahahahah…

UGANDAN REVOLUTIONARY: Young men, what do you think of Trump? For me, I’m not sure what he is capable of doing to us; so, I decided to preventively heap praise on him. I am okay with him as long as he doesn’t come blabbering like Obama did in Ghana that “Africa should build strong institutions, not strong men”. How can you have weak men in charge of strong institutions?

MUGABE: YK, who are you calling young men?
UGANDAN REVOLUTIONARY: Sorry, Bob; you know I am used to using that expression on my people here.
UHURU: I heard you told them off, that you are not their servant…

UGANDAN REVOLUTIONARY: Hahahaha… But I was right, since they say they didn’t vote for me. You see, I don’t want them to get so used to the ideology of telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. Hehehe, when they see me appointing advisors, they think that I actually need their advice!

(Magufuli has left).

PAUL BIYA: What was he waiting for all along?

MUGABE: Let him first come back and I tell him I won’t miss him. I think he needed enough time to walk around inspecting hospitals and schools like a prefect. Now I can rest. I was tired of reminding him here that the job of an African president is to ensure his STAY, not to engage in petty things like service delivery and fighting corruption.

KAGAME: Maybe we can do both.

OBIANG NGUEMA: By the way, Kagame, please stop throwing those little developments in Kigali into our faces. We all can do that, only that our pan-African commitments do not permit us to senselessly imitate Europe like you do. What is African about a rigidly organised clean city and a country without freedom to carry plastic bags?

(Admin has added Magufuli)

MAGUFULI: Hmm, you have added me again! Are you still discussing your usual stuff?
MUGABE: Kagame, we shall strip you of the administrative role here. You brought him back!!
KAGAME: Hehehe, he is pretending. He sent me a message in private that he missed the drama and entertainment here.

UGANDAN REVOLUTIONARY: Wululuuu, guys ,I am in one of my best moods now. Who needs a ‘handshake’?
ZUMA: Haha, what is it this time, YK? Is Besigye arrested?
KABILA: I hope your joy has nothing to do with our timber and gold #runs away.

UGANDAN REVOLUTIONARY: Joseph, careful… I can see where you are going! Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Go to Morocco and ask Mobutu’s ghost what I am capable of.
KABILA: I am sorry YK. About the gold and timber, I was joking. Eh! You also take things too seriously sometimes. Won’t I speak my mind because …?

MUGABE: Ensure another term for Mugabe.
MUGABE: Sorry guys, Grace was sending that to ZANU-PF party members.

jsssentongo@gmail.com

The writer works with the school of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi.