Warlords slam Saint Bob Lord Sir Geldof

Whilst recriminations echo around Britain and Europe following Saint Bob Lord Sir Geldof's announcement that Live Ate will take place on 2 July, African leaders are welcoming the news. As Madonna, Sir John Elton, Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox (whose combined ages are older than the African continent itself) line up for the worldwide songfest, an equal number of crusted demagogues wait patiently for the resulting windfall.

"Great news for Zimbabwe," Robert Mugabe told The Rockall Times this week. Speaking by clockwork phone from his Italian villa in Italy, Mugabe gushed: "I have a fleet of Mercedes Benz motor cars which have been off the road for eighteen months, but now I'll be able to get them serviced and the people of Zimbabwe will once again be happy to see their government driving in their Mercedes Benz motor cars. D'you know, I used to think the west was a stupid colonial place full of interfering ignoramuses. But now I change my mind; you're just stupid."

Omar el-Bashir, President of Sudan and great grandson of ITV telepundit Martin Bashir, was equally welcoming of the Live Ate principle. "Write our debts off, by all means," Mr el-Bashir told us. "Let us start again with 'a clean slate' as you say in your English pubs. Al-Qaeda costs us a fortune to commission, so any bit of aid money you have lying around would be most welcome. I thought the Chinese government was generous, but they're tightarses compared to you."

A spokesman for Nigeria's President Obasanjo was more cautious about the news. "Beware of these Trojan horses," he said somewhat enigmatically. "If there are preconditions attached then they will not be quite so welcome." Pushed to give more details Mr Mbenzi, who handles President Obasanjo's personal bank accounts replied: "We have Charles Taylor here; a much maligned man in the west. But he is a good friend of President Obasanjo and any pressure to hand him over to the authorities in Sierra Leone would be resisted. But we have our own oil, so we don't need to care too much what happens." He then offered to buy my 1997 Renault Megane for four times its asking price, but I politely refused.

However, the news of Live Ate's ambitions has not received universal approval. Militia representatives in the Congo district of Ituri, where 60,000 people have been killed in fighting over rich mineral resources, were incensed by the plan. "Mind dey's own fu*cking business, we's have de war on here," an angry twelve-year-old boy told a doctor from Medecin sans Frontieres. "I make $12 a day; if white man starts de aid programme and puts me back in school I have fuc*k all. I work for Western African Minerals Corp, based in Washington and Johannesburg. You ask dem what dey think of aid. Dey spit in your eye. Leave us alone."

In Somalia, made famous by the America film Black Hawk Down in which a bunch of American guys crash a helicopter, fighting warlords were united in their dismay. "We were not consulted," said Osman Ali Atto at a joint press conference. Sitting next to him, Mohammed Qanyare Affra told the assembled journalists: "We never received our royalties for appearing as extras and consultants for the film, and now the west is taking the piss again. We decide what happens here; not Mister Brown or Mister Blair or Mister Bush, or those sissys in Nairobi claiming to be the government." Also at the table were Hussein Aideed, back from his holidays in Tonga, and Muse Sudi Yalahow who didn't speak because of a bad headcold.

Similar affront was expressed by Joseph Kony, leader of the Lords Resistance Army, currently hacking the heads and limbs off great swathes of Uganda. "You people in the west do nothing for decades, and then suddenly you're here. What is a man like me to do? There isn't even any oil here! I am a victim of your whims and fantasies. I offer a ceasefire, because we're all a bit tired at the moment, and you think we're giving up. No aid. No grants. I don't want to spend the rest of my life working in a call centre in Kampala."

Share prices tumbled in Western African Minerals Corp as news spread of the initiative to rid Africa of debt, corrupt leaders and increase aid to undermine civil war and tribal disputes. As the realisation dawned that removing corrupt leaders was off the agenda prices rose again and closed 1.3 points up on the day. "A big relief," said an eighteen-stone spokesman for the company. "We want to see the status quo maintained here, not Hyde Park. If people left everything as it is and let the markets sort it out Africa would be back on its feet in less than 340 years."

Previously

• Bob Geldolf fires tsunamic broadside
• Rwanda threatens armed occupation of Congo
• UK Porn industry in Third World humanitarian airlift