Comedy of Naked Vampires

THE COMING OF THE MINI-LOOTERSThe day finally arrived for the first meeting of the Board of Directors of the University Hospital Kiba.Dr Etibor was relieved that at last the meeting of the body for which his life had been made almost miserable had arrived.For the first time he was able to meet face to face with the other members of the body for which he had been disturbed so much.It was a very uneventful meeting. The other members of the body ten in all were either political party appointees or appointees of one government Ministry or another. Others were appointees of special interests who were appointed from their organization's headquarters in the different provinces or they were people who the party big wigs wanted to reward in one way or another.Two were representatives of Central Government Ministries, Education and Health. Virtually all the members were gorgeously dressed in full native suits. Only Dr Etibor was simply dressed in coat and tie.The chairman of the 'Governing Board' as the office was called had walked into the air-conditioned conference room of the hospital. There was no public power supply in the hospital that morning and so a power generating plant had been procured and stationed close to the conference room solely to supply steady power to the large Board Room and the adjoining rooms to the Board Room.A large photograph of the President of the Federal Republic of Konganoga was conspicuously hung on the wall overlooking the large oval table where the members of the Board of Directors were to sit.As the Chairman of the Board entered the room dressed in his large flowing gown, the Administrative Head of the Hospital and two other members of the Board who were seconded from the Ministries of Health and Education immediately sprang up to their feet.They appeared, as public servants, to have been conditioned to demonstrate their loyalty to the political office holders by such open demonstration of meekness and humility.The other six members of the Board who were obviously privately employed or who were non-political appointees sat glued to their seats and merely responded with a chorus of "Good morning" to the spontaneous greetings of "Good morning ladies and gentlemen" as uttered by the Chairman of the Board as he entered the room and made to his seat at one end of the large oval table.Every member of the Board had been provided with writing materials and numerous packs of spiral-bound booklets. The latter were the order papers, the agenda for the day's meeting and numerous other booklets some of which contained plans of the hospital premises.A full bottle of plastic-bottled water was also stationed in front of each Board Member with the name of the member conspicuously placed in front of the relevant member.