By Isaac Christopher Lubogo
The Velvet Entrance of the Twin Devils
They never come as beasts. They come as velvet.
Loans smile with polished teeth: “Take me, I will build your house, your business, your future.”
Politics sings in a honeyed voice: “Choose me, and paradise will bloom under your feet.”
But velvet hides chains.
The handshake of loans is a shackle; the embrace of politics is a leash. Both demons understand one thing—to conquer you, they must first romance you.
The Seven-Headed Dragon They Hide Behind
Once the door is open, you’re not facing one problem but a hydra with many heads. Each head represents a stage in your slow colonisation.
The first head isolates you. It whispers that nobody will understand, nobody will support you. Friends drift, family mistrusts you. Both borrower and politician discover the same loneliness: power and debt are empty castles with no loyal guards.
Another head is the craving demon. It turns your initial relief into a permanent addiction. Loans multiply like rats in darkness; political appetites grow like weeds in a wet season. You end up fighting for survival rather than shaping a future.
Then comes the hustler in the shadows, making desperation look like opportunity. It convinces you to borrow again to repay the first loan, to promise again to win the next election, to sell your soul one clause at a time.
The next head is the inversion of values. Yesterday you spoke against debt; today you defend it. Yesterday you promised clean politics; today you bribe openly. This is not compromise — it is metamorphosis into what you once hated.
The illusionist follows, architect of the false horizon. It blurs all exits, makes it appear there is no other way. Borrowing becomes the only oxygen; politics becomes the only relevance. You will drown while insisting you are swimming.
The auctioneer of dignity strips the last garment of honour. You bow before lenders, you crawl before voters. Cameras flash as you kneel in dust, eat street food for clout, beg for grace from those you once ruled.
And finally, the grave-digger mortgages your unborn children’s future. Loans chain your descendants; political misrule chains your country. Tomorrow is buried while you’re distracted by today’s applause.
The Infernal Symphony: How the Cycle Tightens
Debt and politics form a duet. One plays the violin of quick relief, the other beats the drum of future power. Together they create a trance. The victim starts as a dreamer, becomes a servant, and ends as a captive.
Debt begins as a solution, ends as a sentence.
Politics begins as a calling, ends as a curse.
This is not arithmetic; it is compound interest of enslavement. It doesn’t just take money or power — it colonises your identity.
The Court of Eternal Judgment
Picture a vast courtroom at the edge of time. The ceiling is carved with national flags, the floor tiled with personal loan agreements.
Loans stand there, dressed as a smooth banker, briefcases full of fine print.
Politics arrives in flowing robes, a charismatic messiah with manifestos dripping with honey.
Behind them, the accomplices gather: the friend-killer, the hunger-maker, the desperation-merchant, the betrayal-midwife, the illusionist, the auctioneer, the grave-digger.
The judge is the citizen’s conscience. The jury is the next generation. The evidence is your own life. The verdict is inevitable: guilty of soul-theft in the first degree.
The Prophetic Warning to Africa and the Global South
The tragedy of our age is that entire nations are now playing this same game. IMF loans, donor politics, patronage economies — all dressed as velvet. But the pattern is identical. Countries lose sovereignty, leaders lose credibility, citizens lose hope.
> “Pharaoh no longer wears a crown; he wears a three-piece suit and carries a grant agreement.”
Our people must learn that freedom isn’t only about waving flags or voting every five years. Freedom is the ability to refuse a toxic loan and to reject a toxic promise.
Breaking the Chains: Towards a Liberation Ethic
There is an exit door, but it requires courage.
We must build systems where credit empowers rather than enslaves.
We must reinvent politics as stewardship rather than spectacle.
We must educate our people that dignity is worth more than debt, and principle is worth more than position.
> “A wise man’s signature can be more dangerous than a fool’s gun.”
Let this be the anthem of a new generation.
Final Invocation
This discourse is not just an essay — it is a mirror, a prophecy, and a courtroom drama. You who read it are both witness and jury. Before you sign the next loan or cast the next vote, remember the velvet demons waiting behind the curtain.
> “Chains wrapped in velvet still cut the flesh.”
