And lawyers made my week

My strongest urge to blog always checks in when am sitted on the hard benches of the criminal court in the city centre, like today and trying not to get irritated by
a) the pungent smell of remandees deprived of a variety of sanitary luxuries,
b) the Prosecutors lamest excuses for not producing his witnesses in court,
c) the mumbling of the witnesses while i struggle to scribble notes,
d) the guy sitting beside me dosing and always finding his head ON MY SHOULDER!!!!, etc

Wednesday i had a fresh irritation...well, fresh but sad. You know how we cry that Prosecutors in this country are incompetent; today i encountered a totally lost Advocate attempting to prosecute a matter on behalf of a governmental agency. This guy had totally no idea bout how to lead evidence. Almost all witnesses he called turned out to be useless because they were the wrong person to produce the documentary evidence. The Magistrate actually took time out to give the guy a quick class on evidence. The poor guy had to close his case without much documentary evidence. Sad day.

But Oh! Thursday compensated for the sad Wednesday. Guess who decides to stand in front of a bulldozer at 2am in the morning! Tsk tsk tsk.... one of my good old Professors! So this guy gets a call in the wee-est hours of the morning that some church is to be demolished by City Council and jumps out of bed- bundles his security detail out of their slumber ... and quicky rushed to the scene of the drama. Prof, upon reaching the scene, while still panting tries to reason & negotiate with the askaris. When this doesn't work he lifts his hand (hitler fashion), positions himself right on the monsters path and dares the askaris to continue.


Shock on the man... for the askaris either have no clue who this mad guy is; or they jua him but need to get back to swatch and thus have zero time for politics. NWAY! In the darkness of this busy night, the Hon. Prof gets bundled into the mouth of the bulldozer (for want of the right word!) and the story thereafter is the subject of a few hospital sheets, many press conferences and several good laughs.

You'd imagine that the Prof. would take up the matter with his peers (Minister for Local Govt or at worst the Mayor/ Town Clerk) instead of negotiating with Askaris (and later on branding them as drunkards at work). But again, what doesn't kill you can only makes you stronger (or wiser). Am confident the guy has gotten a hint or two on how not to stop midnight demolitions.