OBBO: An African president wages the strangest of wars

This has opened up a deeply philosophical debate; who is more important to society, a teacher or grave-digger?

The Guardian caught up with Mr Bruce Reid, a grave-digger, at a pub where he had gone to discuss the pay dispute with Gilchrist.

Reid is worried that if Gilchrist’s case for a salary raise succeeds, people like him might have to take a pay cut to accommodate it. He argued: ‘‘Everybody has a level of danger in their job. She has all the children that can flare up. We have cave-ins in the grave.’’

Reid believes his job deserves higher, because ‘‘nobody wants to be a grave-digger. It is quite a stressful job’’. He also argued that a grave-digger cannot go home and talk to his wife about his job.

The paper also found road worker Adrian Livingstone, who defended his Sh187,000 pay: ‘‘We are out in rains and blizzards. We are not sitting in a warm building [like Gilchrist]’’, he said.
So who is right? Hard to say. Let them call in President Jammeh to sort it out.

cobbo@nation.co.ke