I refused to join the anti-Trump chorus that has resounded across Africa for two reasons.

First is because of Senator Hilary Clinton’s recognition of Donald Trump’s election by her congratulatory call to him when the results came out. For I cannot conceivably be more aggrieved than her.

Second, my country’s electoral process is neither more perfect nor freer and fairer than that of the US, and the concept of a log in the eye is one of the few things I remember from the Bible.

But as the complaints against Mr Trump’s election continued on social and even traditional media, it occurred to me that Africans need to attack Mr Trump for therapeutic reasons. For it is not Mr Trump that they are attacking, but other guys whom they do not dare criticise directly.

This is how it works. Many years ago in high school, I watched a classic French movie on an old projector with big reels of film rolling and being rewound to ensure the next watchers didn’t find it going backward. It was called La Femme du Boulanger – The Baker’s Wife.

A young herdsman came and seduced her and she ran away with him. The elderly baker was so shattered he even stopped baking the delicious bread for which he was the darling of his small town.

After concerted interventions by community leaders, the young wife was lured back. The baker was too shy to tell her those sweet words of endearment he had been storing up to welcome her back and instead he told them all to his pet cat.

Now in the reverse, African commentators are calling the US president- elect all the names they would like to call their own presidents but lack the guts to.

As a simple experiment, you can pause here and call your boss, if you are employed, or your biggest customer, if you are in business, the same words you have called Mr Trump — with the well-articulated reasons that you have. After that, you write to your national president’s office calling him similar names using your true identity.

Like the clumsy old baker too scared of upsetting his pretty young wife, you won’t do it. You would rather address the pet cat and get the words off your chest. Your pet cat is Trump, he who won’t hear your little voice, like the clumsy baker’s pet that never understood the words meant for his young wife.

For has any African been offended by America’s 45th president more than their own president whose policies (or failure to follow laid-down policies) affect them more than Mr Trump’s campaign language?

Joachim Buwembo is a social and political commentator based in Kampala. E-mail: [email protected]