Behind Every Stupid Plan, Judge Not!

We need to organize a school debate with a motion , "village life is better than town life". I will be the proposer and town people like Emma Bwayo will be the opposer while Ezzy Brian shall be time keeper.

Village life is better because it is real life; town life is fiction. At around that time when the Bodaboda riders in Kampala and other towns were discussing the warship "emeeri", my village buddy was discussing real stuff with me.

He parked his motorcycle for 7 days and went to Kyabazzala in Kayunga to visit his sister with the hope that his sister's husband (his brother in law) will give him some money to clear his daughter's school fees. He spent a week in Kyabazzala and true to his expectations, he was given 100,000. Upon returning, he cleared the 70,000 fees balance. He thanked his muko and he thinks that he should be doing this every term.

The only thing I forgot to tell you is that he spent 60,000 traveling to Kayunga and back. The damn comfort felt after robbing even if the cost of robbing was higher than the loot. 

"How much do you make riding your motorcycle everyday", I asked him to which he said 20,000 or more.

I went on with a barrage of friendly insults, lecturing him about the basics of life and how he should have known that 7 days on his motorcycle would have earned him more than what he actually got from his brother in law.

Educated people move around with a lot of lugezigezi and think that they can lecture everyone about life. So, this guy asked me whether I have ever gone for holiday and returned with a pay check.

"I went off duty for 7 days and returned with enough fees for my daughter. Can any bodaboda rider go for a holiday return with pay?"

That is why town life is better than village life!

Before You Can Fight

Since I got my first beard, I stopped fighting useless battles; those battles which you fight, win but they do not add value to you. I learned it the hard way. That will be a story for another day, let me tell you this one.

One time I received a call from some guy, an acquaintance. It was too noisy in the background and could not hear what he was saying. Therefore, I decided to hang up but he immediately called back and I had no choice but endure the noise to pick out what he was saying;

"Are you near Busiu Police Station?", he asked.

I was working from nearby and I replied in the affirmative.

Then came this guy's request.

"Please help us and ask Police guys to come over and help out. We are here fighting and it is a serious one"

I calmly answered him,

"I see very many people at the Police Station and all the police officers seem to be busy; please stop fighting and ask your colleagues to resume the fight later when the police guys are not very busy."

But before I could hang up, I heard him say something like, "okay, let us just come to the police station"

True to his word, in less than 10 minutes I saw two motorcycles arrive at the police station carrying persons, some of who were bleeding. It must have been a bloody fight!

The lesson I picked is that before you start a fight, make sure that you have someone who will readily come in to separate you; or else, you will kill yourselves.

Before sending the rockets, Palestine knew that gracious people will stand up in solidarity and Israel knew that America was on their side. Israel also had iron domes, they did not spend a night in the stadium praying for a miracle.

Have a nice weekend!

Fixing our Nation as A Collective Responsibility

Just as day follows night, one day we shall wake up when Museveni is not president of Uganda anymore. He will be featuring prominently in the books and news as the former president of Uganda. One whose reign was characterised by corruption, human rights abuse, high levels of poverty, unfulfilled promises, blatant
abuse of the constitution and mass financial mismanagement. Then those who served him as if they were serving an eternity shall be tasked by their grandchildren as why they chose wrong over right. You won't deny it since all your acts of today shall have been captured on internet.

About his going, we are sure that he will and we shall remain with this beautiful country, Uganda. The bad news is that we are also likely to remain with our poverty, corruption and most of the present wrongs. These evils we so much becry will probably continue. It is not because we do not have faith in the upcoming leaders but because, he will not be replaced with angels. 

President Museveni will be replaced with the current politicians; either those in opposition or the ones in the current government. Those in government will uphold his policies while those in opposition will try to forge a different way forward under the same deficiencies. By the general look of things, the issues we have with Museveni's government are the same practices in the opposition parties. I shall not talk about the intolerance, and politics of patronage but the content that the parties are parading, the populism with no concrete evidence of the same being applied in their own institutions. 

Photo of President Museveni (Photo may be subject to copyright)

If they were serious about changing this country, now would be the time when the opposition political parties would illustrate to us by doing what the government has failed to do; create jobs, eliminate corruption and mismanagement within their own parties, but this is not the case.

Very many political parties are sitting on a abyss of corruption and mismanagement.

If they are truly committed to changing the lives of Ugandans, then this would be the time: so that we can see that if government is mismanaging Emyooga, then NUP comes up with its own and shows us what should be done, we need to see FDC come up with a better model of Operation Wealth Creation, and DP show us how Bonabagagale should have been done by practically implementing what they are critical of.

Don't talk about resources; political parties must have the resources to improve their members' livelihoods. If a presidential candidate received billions for campaigns and yet says he cannot raise the same amount in the next 5 years to elevate their members, then know that their promises were hot air, a fallacy or a fantasy.

Am I talking or I am communicating?

Uganda, Why the Rush?

There is a common saying among the young people of Buganda; "Topapa, ojakutomera" meaning "don't rush, you may crash". It seems like this saying needs to be told with illustrious examples so that it can sink into the brains of all Ugandans.

This is my brother Collin Mukhatere

When you find us on the road, we are always in a rush: the push and shove on the streets of Kampala, the overtaking on the roads all over the country, it is always rush hour, laced with a lot of impatience.

When you ask where we are rushing, I cannot exactly tell because same Ugandans are not good with time management. Then why the rush?

When we drive at 100/hr, you may think we are trying to make it earlier than scheduled, for an appointment, but no: most Ugandans never keep time.

Four years ago we invited this "big man" to an event which was slated to start at 3pm.

He confirmed attendance a day before and indeed dispelled our fears of him being late for the occasion.

On d-day, we were all conscious of the need to keep time and indeed we invited the other guests an hour earlier so that by 3pm, all was set. "Big man" was no where, 30 minutes down.

I decided to make this humble call and indeed he picked.

"Hello young man, mpozi your event is today?" he asked

"What is the time right now?" he probed

This is annoying; that someone scheduled for an event is not even keeping track of time of the day and you expect him to remember the time scheduled for your function? Go to hell.

But the end result of our poor management is the rush and push; the reaction without thinking which leads to disasters. Majority Ugandans are in a rush because they are late for an appointment, school or office. This creates a rare of urgency which develops into impatience and the end result is the rampant accidents we have on the roads, traffic jam caused by wrong driving and all evils associated with reactionary behaviour.

Back to our "big man" in the story above; as he rushed to our event, he knocked a bodaboda motorcylist and only his name saved him from spending the weekend in a police cell.

Therefore, Ugandans, we do not need to rush, we just need to manage our time; for all the rushing we have been into, our economy seems not to much our pace because; we rush because we are late.