Dr Alabo Halliday was Minister of Coal in the newly independent African country Atamgba. Some said he was haughty, others that he was aloof or shy. But everyone agreed he was brilliant, and that he did all he did for his love Atamgba. His first victim was Mr Schaffer, the Belgian managing director of the Atamgba Coal Corporation, who had contemptuously called Dr Halliday the Black Minister. Dr Halliday is removed from his ministerial post following a coup d'etat by the new military president, General Ango Buba, his cabinet colleague. Four years after he left office Dr Alabo Halliday is...

Several simultaneous plots were going on in Abuja, capital of the giant African country, Silliland. Here politics is not politics as it would be recognised elsewhere. It is truly peculiar, with what the natives term "the Silliland factor" - the military might take over power at any time, democratic elections are really always selections, and the constitution is cruelly malleable, interpreted to suit each situation and the wishes of powerful interests. Now the president of Silliland has disappeared, incommunicado to the two hundred million citizens of the country, power holders as well as the...