For the first time in the lifetime of the kingdom of Zibazako, it felt like living in an alien world. The kind that you see in a movie where there is hopelessness and a fear sense of no direction.

A long time ago the people were very very happy with their way of living. Every morning, women and children would go in the bush to collect firewood and bring home and cook their most delicious meat which their husbands would have hunted during the night. Every kingdom admired the kingdom of Zibazako and their way of living.

Confusion started when one man from chamba volley village discovered a rare commodity from a far fetched planet called Lussia. After smoking a-lot of chamba, it seems, the chamba took him to a distant planet of discovery. After years of walking, he came back with a magic liquid which could cook ten times faster than firewood. He called it fuel and apparently it could also be used to drive cars and their treasured hammer mills. This soon became the diamond of the kingdom as everyone scampered for it whenever they found it. Few people were privileged to know the source and started bringing the commodity for a few goats and chicken.

Due to this demand, the long lived king and his indunas at the time decided to build a long pipe which went straight to Lussia and would bring fuel and supply the small fuel taps that were placed in designated places. They called these designated places as ‘fuelo stations’.

Again the people lived happily and would go and get fuel for free. Their good leader paid for all the fuel cost out of his own pocket money.

Over time, the man from Chamba volley had other ideas. One day, after smoking too much chamba, he visited the king and his indunas and had a brainstorming meeting with them. He talked to them about how he had a horrible dream about the future of Zibazako. He narrated how he saw in his dream the kings pocket money vanish in an instant-pew and how there was no money to buy more fuel. It was a five hour glueing session, and to every word he uttered, the indunas would shake their heads in agreement. The king himself actually confessed that of late, he had been having a small challenge in paying for the fuel cost because he was servicing a small billion dollar loan which his close relative had mistakenly borrowed from some named shylocks to buy suits.

To solve the problem, the man suggested that people should be made to pay heavily for the fuel, after all they are the ones that use it. The King however, was distressed at that thought. He advised the team that only a small amount should be charged to his people barely to take care of the fuel cost from the source. He even wrote them a small formula that he had learnt from his early years in university that the team could use to calculate how much his people could contribute. From his formula, each villager could at the least pay, 1K for one bucket of fuel.

It was unanimously agreed at what the king said and they appointed a team of experts whose job was to buy the fuel and calculate the amount of offering expected from each of the villagers. They called this team of experts as the kingdom ERB which translated to Energetically Rambo Bombers because of their prowess in thinking and bombarding people with solutions

With the powers vested in the team, they hit running. They quickly called a village meeting and announced to the people that they were now in-charge of the fuel allocations, and that they would be charging a small fee as an administrative fee like the ones they pay when they get admitted to university. They explained to the people that these fees are there to process the paperwork that goes to Lussia, a planet far far beyond the horizon. The people nodded their heads in agreement saying this made a lot of sense and the fees were reasonably fair.

For the first time, the fuel could be bought at a small fee of 1 K per bucket. But this was short lived. Soon after one week, the team of experts held another press briefing saying that they had decided to increase the amount of fuel from 1K to 10K because they had increased on the amount of paperwork that needed to be done as Lussia was a very far place. People murmured and wondered if they had not seen this earlier.

A week later, they called another meeting with the people and told them that there was a small challenge they were having with the pipe they had laid. It was explained that a few brave termites had managed to eat up the pipe and therefore it had developed leaks. They therefore were increasing the price of one bucket of fuel from 10K to 20K so that leaks could be mended. As usual the people listened to their wit leaders.

Soon, press briefings became the order of the week. Week in week out. The price of fuel kept increasing and the experts diligently explained the increase in the price.

“There are a lot of factors” they said. “Sometimes, even having a board meeting to decide on the price can increase the price.
Sometimes, we look at how our neighbors are charging and we adjust accordingly!” they would say.

The people understood and trusted the experts. They were hopeful that one of these days, the experts would find a solution to these challenges and the price would drastically drop. Even to 1K again.

And indeed, in one particular instant, their faith came true. One day they woke up only to find the price had dropped by 1 ngwee. There was celebration in the kingdom in praise of the experts. The price dropped from 28k to 27.9k. In their excitement, one man from chawamilatu wondered how the experts had managed to achieve that. The team of experts, explained that sometimes it was necessary to reduce the price so that it could be increased. That was very wise of the experts, people would praise.

Recently, the experts called yet another meeting and pointed out that they were going to make a major change. People from all corners decided to attend this particular meeting especially after seeing a reduction in the previous week. They were hopeful that perhaps it was going to drop by another ngwee. But Hurray, the opposite happened. There was an upward adjustment. One bucket was now costing 30 pieces of silver. The people screamed in dismay throughout the press briefing. One man asked if there was anyone who had betrayed the kingdom because that was the equivalent amount that Jesus was sold for. He was kicked out for asking such a dumb question. Another man asked if there were still leaks on the pipe in relation to their last briefing, and him too was sadly kicked out for asking such a treacherous question.

For a moment It seemed everyone started to have questions, and therefore everyone got kicked out for asking them. At last the team of experts were left alone in the news room. Shortly after, experts were seen walking majestically out of the Dead NBC news room. The people are now waiting for the next briefing most of whom have lost their teeth.

Disclaimer: this story is extremely fictitious and has no bearing on real events. All characters and places in the story are just imagined. Enjoy reading.