Where is my Voter’s Card?

Patrick Sikana

By Patrick Sikana

“Where is my voter’s card?” I shouted from downstairs, spilling all the contents of my old brown briefcase on the floor. “You don’t need a voter’s card to withdraw money from the bank” answered Mwansa, wryly. I felt all the adrenaline inside me rush up and down my spine. “Stop mocking me! Or else…” I retorted. “Or else what?” she dared.

At that moment I decided to go upstairs and confront my wife. This was not about football where she can get away with asking me which evening Zambia is playing in the ongoing world cup in Brazil so that she can watch. Or why the referee can’t give a penalty for a serious foul committed in the centre circle! This matter is far more important, and I will have none of this level of willful ignorance in a wife.

So, with the speed of a monkey, I swiftly leap my way upstairs and, with the voice of a headmaster, I order her to stop polishing the kids’ shoes and listen to me. “What is it?” she quizzes me, wielding a shoe brush in her right hand and a tired black Bata shoe in her left. “Are you the only one who doesn’t know there is a bye election in Zambia?” I deride. “Which bye election are you talking about?” she replies. “Stop pretending! A presidential bye election has just been announced and we must all get ready to go and vote,” I chided her, with beads of perspiration now foaming on my angry nose.

“Look, I have a number of tasks to attend to now, and I have to prepare for my afternoon shift at the hospital. If you can excuse me, please,” she dismissed me, reverting to her shoe-polishing chore. I couldn’t believe this level of indifference. The whole country is gearing up for a presidential bye election and here is one citizen so sanguine about it? How, for the life of me, did I end up with a wife this unpatriotic?

As I began to amble away from the girls’ bedroom in total shock, she accosts. “Wait a minute, I have a few questions for you.” “Go ahead,” I retorted, hoping that she was not about to ask me why Spain lost 5-1 to Germany (not even Holland).

“Why is the bye election happening now, when there has been no president for more than 2 years? Do we really need a president when the country has been running this long without one?” Before I could answer those questions there was a loud knock on the door! I woke up. “It’s almost 7am, dad, we’ll be late at school,” announced Kandafula. I jumped out of bed like a warthog. What a nightmare!