In a development so predictable it could have been written by a committee of bored civil servants, a former Kenyan justice minister has been barred from entering Uganda. This, we are told, has prompted London to 'urge' East African nations to respect the 'rule of law.' One can almost hear the collective tutting from Whitehall, a sound as ineffective as a chocolate fireguard.
The minister, who reportedly planned to attend a conference on judicial independence, was met at the border by men in crisp uniforms who, with the unblinking courtesy of a hotel concierge refusing a booking, informed him that his presence was no longer required. No reasons were given, because reasons are for people who care about due process. The ticket, the hotel, the carefully prepared speech on the sanctity of the law all went the way of the dodo.
Meanwhile, a Foreign Office spokesperson, speaking from a leather armchair that cost more than most Ugandans earn in a year, said: 'We urge all parties to respect the rule of law and due process.' This is the diplomatic equivalent of telling a lion to please stop eating the gazelle because it's bad for tourism. The irony of a former justice minister being denied justice at a border is so thick you could cut it with a machete, and indeed the whole saga has the vague, uneasy scent of a banana republic's bad dream.
But worry not, chaps. London has urged. They've been urging for years.
Urging is what they do when they don't want to do anything else. The only question left now is: where will the next former minister be barred from? My money's on a zebra crossing in Mombasa.
