The Rants Of A Willieboy

On Romario, Kafeero and Abdul Muraasi

2007-05-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

A quick one: Brazilian striker Romario has ‘shagged’ in what he claims is his 1,000th goal. Of course FIFA disputes the figures but that has not stopped the stocky controversial 41 year Vasco da Gama forward, famous for dancing defenders and once saying that he ‘shags’ thrice a day from celebrating the feat.

A few months ago he declined to play for his team, against Americano, because he considered the opponents weak and the stadium less glamorous.

Now the man who has tormented defenders for decades has notched in that goal- he hopes it will ‘put’ him in the class of greats like Pele and another stocky tormentor of defenders, and shagger, Diego Maradono.

As Romario was celebrating his controversial 1,000th hit mark, Paul Kafeero was snatched a way by Walumbe’s ever present hands. Like the Brazilian striker, Kafeero seemed determined, if it where not for death to hit his own mark and join the class of the late Nigerian singer, Fella Kuti. For Uganda, not all hope is, however, lost as we still have Farm Manager, Abdul Muraasi.

Ends

Willieboy On Leave

2007-05-10T02:02:00.000-07:00

This blogger has gone on leave. He, however, still remains a blogger.

End

Punching your way into a diva's heart

2007-04-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

In future, I am sure, even if Kassim Ouma retires from boxing, he will still remain a boxer because a man never forgets his old trade. He will like Paul the ex- wrestler, when the day comes apply the left hook on somebody’s jaw. If that person is Juliana, then she will be inspired to sing Nabikowa Two.

You see, Paul the Ex Wrestler remembered his old trade during a demo and applied what wrestlers call a Double Nelson and broke a police man’s back!

I am no sadist but one day, never rule that out with men, when the love voltage runs down( I am assuming its high now), there is a possibility that Ouma might just remember his old trade in the ring and shutter the ex-diva's jaws (by then she will be an ex-diva for beautiful girls are like banana shoots they just keep shooting up from the belly of the earth next to their mom only to land in the watery mouth of we bloody men), and bloody old men like hanging around a lot longer than they should.

Ok, tighten your seat belt. Let’s go. On Sunday evening, seated in my ghetto, relaxed like a lizard perched on a ghetto wall, I sipped coffee as I watched TV. On the screen was pardoned army deserter and Uganda’s shinning star pugilist, Kassim Ouma the dream. He was jumping up and down excitedly for the TV cameras happy to be home after a decade in the US.

But it wasn’t his jumpings and punchings in the air that made me glue myself on the TV, rather it was one of those rare moments in my life when I suddenly go blank and intensely think about nothing. I long christened it moments of ‘sweet philosophical contemplations,’ (there’s nothing philosophical about it)

If Ouma hadn’t sneaked in Uncle Sam the Ass rancher’s land and punched his way to success where would he be? Would he have punched his way, that’s if he punched at all, into Juliana’s lofty heart? Would he have had a crowd yelling their tongues out for him? Would he matter any way to any one? Would he even make a brief in the papers? Can Juliana move out with an army private who earns 140K? Get me right, I am not saying she’s a filthy capitalist; I am just asking hypothetical questions.

Right. Let’s move.

Several possible answers oozed from my little brain with regard to the second question: One, he would be dead, shot in the Congo, fighting for I don’t know who, during Uganda’s misadventure there in the late 1990’s. If he had missed dying in the Congo, he would have probably been shot dead or died of vagaries of war in either northern Uganda or Southern Sudan, fighting Uncle Joe’s nototorius LRA.

The last answer that sprung out of my little brain was that Ouma could have be en perching somewhere in a Maama ingia pole-pole (those dingy army shacks, below the standard of my ghetto).

In that instance therefore the slightest chance he would have had to get a sniff of Juliana would be to listen to her songs on radio, that is, if his assumed army base is within radio reach. The other alternative would be for him to a buy a cassette tape and play it on his or a pals Cassette radio player (private’s in the army can’t afford CD players). That is the nearest the pugilist would have got to the diva.

I have made you abundantly aware that all this is hypothetical. The reality is that the boxer and the diva are a thing. As for the lesson you can learn from that little thought, the ball is in your court.

Ends

Mahoganies save Mahogany as Three Pay For Mehtas Follies

2007-04-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago, Acholi Parliamentary Group Chairman, Livingstone Okello-Okello gave a sexy tip before the floor of parliament when he said that Gen Saleh who we all know is married to Jovia had a ‘social friend.’ Don’t scratch your head. Jovia is the lady who once challenged mighty America to war when they denied her a visa for getting mentioned in a UN report on the plundering of vast, mineral rich and cursed DR Congo. (What else?)

Good Jovia told the Americans; I don’t give a hoot over your visa, if you don’t wonna give me your visa, I am gonna spend ma dollars elsewhere.

Okello- Okello speaking on behalf of the Acholi Parliamentary Group alleged that Saleh and his ‘social friend’, Harriet Aber were among those grabbing Acholi land.

After that I spoke to the chick and she let me speak to her dad, and I swear she had a story. I however got the impression she wanted to use the press mention as a magic wand to carry herself from the backyard to the front and be known as the BIG man’s wife just like Nakku, but the reason why the tabloid press totally ignored that equally huge story, nearly as huge as Bukenya’s, if not even more, is as perplexing as why they stuck on Bukenya’s neck like a leech.

That’s why when Bukenya speaks about Mafias, he might not be totally dreaming.

Luckily, as the VP’s strategists where busy scratching their heads to kick their man off the headlines for the wrong reasons, the mahoganies of Mabira, that have acted more honestly than the tabloid press sprung to action.

‘One of our very own is drowning. We cannot sit back. In the spirit of mahoganism we have to act now even when our own lives is threatened by a panga wielding Mehta,’ I imagined the huge trees plotting a Bukenya rescue mission.

It’s in that spirit of saving a pal that Mabira walked to Kampala, as Literature Prof and Presidential Literary Advisor, Timothy Wangusha had written. Unfortunately the trek of the mahoganies came at a huge unfortunate cost of three people losing their lives.

For Bukenya and his team the new twist marked the end of their nightmare.

Public relations is essentially about establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and its publics on whom its success or failure depends.

Who are Mehta’s publics? His employees, Ugandans, the Ugandan government and whoever does business with him either locally or internationally. The above mentioned are the publics with whom he should create a mutually beneficial relationship to determine whether he survives or not in business.

But what do we get from Mehta when he speaks out on the saga threatening to engulf his company? Arrogance and complete insensitivity towards the very publics that he’s supposed to build a good relationship with. When he issued his conditions for abandoning his obsession with Mabira forest he failed or ignored the fact that people were being driven to anger, and that the whole Mabira issue was becoming very emotive, it had become a powder keg waiting for some one to detonate. He did that by giving his silly conditions of ‘no squatters,’ ‘must be within 20-30 kms’ from Scoul and must be fertile.’

Now if Mehta had the balls to take on a whole Uganda and even respond to them with such contempt how does he treat and respond to his sugar cane cutters? How much does he pay them?

The most immediate thing that Mehta needs right now is good PR. I know they have a PR because the chap was just a year a head of me in High School whether they listen to his advice or not is another question. But it’s possible that they can ignore his advice if they could move against the grain of a huge tide.

If Mehta had responded and read well the mood of Ugandans and used it to design his response there would probably have been no demonstration in the first place, and the three would have not died. Mehta, the police and organizers of the demo in that order should take the blame.

End

Old Scot Leaves Spalleti Dead In Old Trafford Netball Game

2007-04-11T02:36:00.000-07:00

For the battering that Manchester United fans got at the hands of police in Roma last week, their players paid back last night in a scintillating performance by tearing apart the Roma defence who swallowed in seven amazing goals.

Ronaldo and Carrick both fired two goals with Roma’s helpless players replying once. It was an extremely bad and embarrassing night for Roma Coach Luciano Spalleti

Traditionally Italians are known to have tight defences, difficult to crack but that was until last night when they were widely opened.

I am an Arsene Wenger man despite his gunners failing to shoot even lame ducks these days.

When little but filthy mouthed, Jose Mourihno left Porto and bedded Russian billionaire Roman Abromavitch, the Portuguese stunned everyone when he declared himself ‘the special one’ and went a head to prove it with a star studded Chelsea assembled by the Oligarch’s pocket change.

He was immediately hailed as belonging to a new breed of coaches in Europe. In his category was Didier Deschamps then with a blistering Monaco spurred by a blazing hot Fenando Morientes.

As Mourinho’s star lighted the premiership pundits said it was time up for old horses Wenger and super strong- willed Scot, Alex Ferguson to retire themselves from the dugout.

Both are still surviving, stingy Wenger has a different story, but Ferguson last night showed that his days in the dugout are far from ending by burying Spalleti’s pack of netball players alive at Old Trafford.

In a soccer mad country where a goal keepers 'blunder was once discussed in parliament, one should not be surprised by what awaits Spalleti and his netballers back home.
End.

Smiling Mafias and Nabusayi's Lion Skinning Job

2007-03-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

I am not a movie guy but once in a while I sit in front of a screen. Last Sunday was one such moment.

The films reminded me of my kid days when I watched ‘stupid’ and ‘hopeless’ Vietnamese being moored down by American machine gun fire as they ran about carelessly in their muddy and watery rice fields. Never mind that in reality the Americans got a bloody nose in Vietnam.

This time its not Vietnamese soldiers taking charged lead pellets from blazing marine guns but Arab terrorists threatening to blow up the West with nukes. Of course, as usual, America wins. Again never mind that the US is presently not winning anything in Iraq and the Middle East.

I had wanted to blog about how Hollywood has either knowingly or unknowingly launched its own war against terror when I was suddenly swept off my feet by this huge wave that threatens to bring down a whole mahogany. The wave comes at a time when Mabira is also greatly threatened.

The mafias in the corridors of power who wanted Prof G Bukenya down must be smiling from ear to ear since the VP found trouble from the most unlikely angle: a babe called Jamirah Nusula Nakku. Last year Tony Blair’s number two John Prescott found himself in a similar situation with an office lady just like VP Bukenya. What is it with office ladies?

The nosy and aggressive UK tabloids had a field day. One even suggested that Prescott had shown that age is nothing but a number. It further said the scandal was a great source of inspiration to ageing and old Britons that you can still be a tiger in bed even at the ripe age of 67! Matters were worsened when the Prescott babe sold her sensational story to the tabloids. At 58, Bukenya is still a young Turk, and Nakku might not therefore have anything sensation to sell to the press, that’s if anything happened, and if the Ugandan media can pay a fortune for such stories.

You might not know it but the other lady in a storm is Bukenya’s Press Secretary, Linda Nabusayi. For Nabusayi it’s not been a soft ride. If there is any PR job that has been challenging in the past couple of years it has been Nabusayi’s. She’s been hoping from one storm into another. Now she’s just landed a monumental hot one whose origin is the bedroom.

‘VP Bukenya is not involved in any intimate relationship with any woman apart from his wife Margaret,’ a no nonsense Nabusayi was quoted as saying in the media. Poor lady, she’s been doing a great job for a boss who is always followed by scandals.

In the business of PR just like in law, it’s always advisable to read about how others who have faced similar situations sorted out theirs. This way you avoid landing and creating new dilemmas. There also numerous philosophical and ethical foundations that can help a PR make take an ethically justifiable stance that can be believed by right thinking members of the society. I am waiting to see the new twists and turns in the Nakku- Bukenya saga and how Nabusayi will stand up to the lion skinning task in her hands.

Uganda is still a conservative country- matters are worsened by the fact that VP Bukenya has close ties with one of the most dogmatic religions in the world (hey I am a catholic and a Benedict fan). If like Prescott he admits the affair, that politically could be the end of his political career as the catholic establishment would most unlikely want to be associated with a man who cheats on his wife (please, again never mind that most Ugandan men cheat on their wives/fiancés/ girl friends). The mafia’s might also be lurking in the dark waiting to pounce at the Prof when he is at his most vulnerable. The only way through for Bukenya, to temporary keep afloat, is to ask he who has not sinned to throw the first stone. After all haven’t we been hearing rumours of No 1 tangling with an officemate.

End

Kidnapped By A Nairoberry Mafioso

2007-03-20T00:49:00.000-07:00

A few months ago when Makerere University dons downed their tools and went on strike, I took a shot of a Kenyan student somersaulting from the roof of a motorist’s car at Bwaise. This was at a ‘check point’ put up by largely Kenyan contingent to collect ‘taxes.’

The said motorists was the ‘stubborn’ type and had refused to pay the ‘taxes’ but to show him that he was dealing with ‘trained commandos’ one of the ‘tax collectors’ jumped on the roof of his car, banged a summersault and stood firmly on his feet with his eyes fixed firmly at the driver . That was enough to scare the man on the wheels out of his whits: he handed over a few coins to the somersaulting chap. But the guy outrightly refused until he was given a 20,000 shillings in 5,000 denomination.

‘You’re a bad man,’ I told him. ‘Yes I am bad boy; I am not from Kampala, I am from Nairobi,’ he yelled with a heavy Kenyan accent and pointed his middle finger at me before he proceeded to share the loot with his other pals.

The ‘tax collecting operation’ that was being obeyed by most motorists only ended when Kaihura’s boys arrived and sent the pack into disarray.

Now that’s to show you that the increased number of Sukuma-Wiki selling kiosks around Makerere is not the only Kenyan impact in Uganda; the new haven for Kenyans seeking quality education( now, that’s very debatable).

I am typing this in the middle of the night. I am still annoyed with today’s scenario. You see today Friday, 16 of Match, FDC leader retired Col Dr Kiiza Besigye was at Makerere. He addressed a huge rally at the filthiest hall at the University: Lumumba

After it was decided that a ‘saviour’ of his stature should be give a befitting send off. So the trek began from Lumumba via the faculty of Forestry and Nature Conservation to the main building. All this time I was taking pictures hoping I might get a good shot like the somersaulting bad boy from Nairobi.

But I got something else. At the round about opposite CCE Hall other motorists were stuck in their cars. One of the vehicles was a small pick-truck carrying crates of sodas. There was a strong temptation among a section of the rowdy students to give a go at the sodas but others were unwilling. That’s the moment I took. Within a short time I had been grabbed with my belt like a thief. My phone jacked uprooted from my waist. Luckily my phone was in my jean pocket.

‘Who are you? Where do you want to take our pictures?’ I was asked. I showed them my student identity card. That was not enough to save me. A Kangaroo court of guys speaking only in Kiswahili 'tried’ and found me 'guilty.' The Chief Judge was a huge guy built like a box carrier. I noticed he was the guy who was stopping those who wanted to pinch me during the scuffle. He ordered that I delete all the pictures I had taken which I did. But for unclear reasons he wanted to me to also delete other older pictures not for that day! I sensed it was a delaying tactic for the others to go so he could embark on his real mission.

After he held both my shoulders and looked straight in my eyes: Now listen you know I have saved your life and you can’t leave me like that. At this stage his colleagues were shouting ‘waca wuyo jama (leave that guy), they wanted to catch up with the Besigye crowd.

‘How much is your camera?’ the Chief Judge asked.

‘200,000 shillings,’ I promptly replied, knowing it was now a battle of wits.

‘Jama waca ku danganya (man, stop lying).Don’t joke with me. I am a bad boy. I love chaos. Do you hear? This camera is between 400,000 to 600,000 thousands. See how much you can give me considering the mentioned price and that I have saved your life.’

I kept quite to think for a quick response but before I could come up with one my captor who was taking advantage of a tree shade yelled:

‘My fee for saving your life, camera and for all that you have in your bag is 200,000 shillings.’ the bully from Kibaki’s land told me with a stone face. From his look he had the ability to smash my camera or run a way with it. So I had to be careful not to anger him. But for the first time I wished I were a Kanyama. I would have applied what wrestlers call a Double Nelson and twisted his back.

‘If you can’t get that money now let me give you my number and you call me when you get it then I give you your camera,’ he continued.

‘I don’t have that money now but we can go to the ATM at the bank and I get it for you,’ I said hoping I could find out a way in a well lite place

‘No I want what is with you now, ok get me 100,000 shillings, ok since you’re a brother get 50,000.’

‘Man you know you’re a brother, you know student life I don’t have all that money now.’

‘Ok get me your wallet’.

Now that was a new twist I didn’t expect from the Kibaki mafia. I had 15,000 shillings in the wallet and another 20,000 in my trouser pocket.

Eventually he walked away with my 10,000 shillings for ‘saving my life and camera.’ But I am still pissed because it was forced it out of my throat and also because I was not born in Kololo neither do I live in Bunga. But now I know why Kenyan university students can riot and cause mayhem over a simple thing as introducing plastic plates in the mess! Not that all Kenyans are bad, but there’s alot that seems to have come to study how to puff illegal stuff in Uganda and spend all their time drinking crude at Maama Nampiima's and Maama Kiviri’s. With strikes and protests rocking the country, the drunkos and Mafioso’s from Kenya might end up playing key roles in future ‘revolutions’

Ends

No Longer At Ease

2007-03-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

Comrade, I am sure as I type this; you’re still asleep in the far flung part of the world where you sought some ease a way from the cow dung being spewed out by the philosopher king at the helm in our motherland. To be honest, comrade I don’t know where to start from. But I will attempt to get a beginning for this letter that I am writing to you from deep inside my soul.

I used to love speaking to a man with a mental disorder and who moved about eating what others had dumped. Locals to date have so many theories to explain why he is the way he is. He moves while twisting his fingers, the way bankers do while counting money. Because of that some say he got mad because he had ‘so much money.’ Yet others say he got mad because he was ‘too bright.’

Several months ago I saw this man again after a very long period of time. He still moves while twisting his fingers, muttering a few things about how one can’t be taught why the French revolted against autocratic rulers hundreds of years ago while one can’t locate France on the map of Europe.

In the part of the wretched earth where I come from he seems the only one who’s always there: happy, seemingly at ease, unbothered about any thing. Even if he were to meet the bungler from Texas he would just walk pass by like he’s just met any other ordinary mortal. Even if it were his Excellency Museveni he would just walk pass by like he met me. Even if it were red eyed Joseph Kony with a dagger, he would be unbothered.

Comrade, this has made me start asking some really funny questions: what if all of us were not humans but birds? What if we humans were all rivers, flowing gently to seas, oceans and lakes where we would gently pour our waters? What if we humans were just there-unaware of what’s going on? Lastly but most importantly what if we humans had no bellies that needed to be filled at regular intervals? Would the world be the way it is? Would the bungler from Texas be in Iraq? Would Israel have fought a long summer war last year with Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbollah? Would Kagu’s son and Kifefe’s son be locked up in a war? Would Prof Khidu Makubuhya be as hopeless as he is with his first class degree? Would the PRA suspects be in jail? Why is it that the state is particularly obsessed with these particular prisoners? Who is that strong willed character acting as the driving force behind the suffering of these Ugandans who’ve been made pawns in a war that’s not theirs? Should we Ugandans whether you live at Kololo, Bunga, Katanga or Kalerwe be at peace? These are questions whose answers I don’t have but which I am seeking for which I think the mad man doesn’t ask.

You must be aware of this brother, you must be aware that judges in Uganda are on strike. The last time I spoke with you, you said its better for one to be a wolf that he is than masquerade around as a dog. In political speak if you are a fascist and a pseudo democrat be just that-bare and naked instead of pretending to be a democrat.

Last night I slept wide eyed with unease about the future. I am not an old Greek to believe in unseen powers steering the direction that humans take neither I am Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma bomber who till death had no regrets and believed that he was captain of his ship. No, am just bothered with a certain an ease and asking whether our fate as a nation should be tied to the fate of a jaded fading clinger. Look around Africa. Pick out the trouble causers from old Rob the eater of Brits to the dying Conte in Guinea. You can fill in the rest.

Now I don’t have internet connection in my humble abode. I am taking the risk of running to an internet café to post this, pray for me comrade, that I don’t rub the long arm of the law the wrong way and I get fixed in jail when judges are on strike. Luckily I don’t own a car so I will try as much as possible to use bush tracks on my way.

Lastly comrade don’t you think it’s better in M7’s UG to be a mental case if one can’t stand up for the law and the constitution?

Ends

Gulu's Other Side

2007-02-16T07:02:00.000-08:00

It’s known for wet and raw nosed kids. It’s best known for being home district to butcher man Kony (not Butcher Man of Prez Bobi’s Fire Base Crew).

Not so long ago, the hottest song in Gulu that was virtually hitting all the airwaves on local radios was a song by a guy called Dida Moses. It was called ‘Gulu is Sweet.’ Reason: you can find anything from cow hooves to 'human hooves.'

As the song hit the charts, the singer was netted for defiling an under aged girl. He escaped from prison and was arrested several months later in another district while performing live on stage!. Now he is out of jail and Gulu is as sweet as ever.

Ends

In Restrospect: Searching For Ohene& Junior Jesus In Kufourland

2007-02-05T00:03:00.000-08:00

A year ago in Accra Ghana, in Winneba, a sea town about 40 or so kilometers from the capital, I took shots of huge men and kids squatting on the beach easing themselves on the sand as others looked on and even walked pass by with award winning ease . Some occasionally said ‘hi’ to the squatters. It was one of the most perplexing sights I have ever seen.

‘It’s good for the fish,’ one of the fisher men told me.

‘The sea, the sea, my bradder will wash it away. Later I learnt the women only ease themselves on the beach at night. During day they find their level elsewhere!

A few metres away from the beach, a string of kids and a couple of adults were having a dip in the salty murky waters. Far away, as far as the eye could go tiny men in equally tiny boats seemingly mocking the great Atlantic and its giant waves playfully danced on the surface of the rough waters.

BBC World service I am Elizabeth Ohene with this week’s edition of Talk about Africa. Talk about Africa is the programme that looks at the issues behind the headlines. Today, Sierraleon! A country in chaos following the toppling of President Ahmed Tedjan Kabba in a coup led by army officer, Major Johny Paul Koroma. What does it mean for the West African nation? To discuss this today with me is Tony Silver, Our Correspondent in Freetown. On the line from New York is……………… gentle men your all welcome. At this stage the mighty Ohene would play some sweet jingle that has long been discarded by the BBC.

In 1979, Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings at only 31 toppled the government of F.W. K Akuffor and set up the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). JJ otherwise also known as ‘Junior Jesus’ then made his mission clear: he arrested the corrupt Generals from the previous military governments including former heads of state and summarily executed them.

With the Generals dead, JJ promised to return Ghana to constitutional rule. An election was held and Dr. Hilla Limann was elected President of the third republic of Ghana. However the Flight Lt was not yet done. In December 1981 he yet carried out another successful coup that swung him back to the Castle (their State House). By all Africa standards and world standards to have two successful coups in ones CV is a feat!

Watching the pissing Ghanaians on the beach I felt I only ‘knew’ three Ghanaians: ‘Junior Jesus,’ Elizabeth Ohene and the dead Kwame Nkrumah. Ok, I know there is Essien, I know there is Appiah and I know there is former Bayern rock, Kufour but it’s the others that move me.

A lot has of course changed, ‘Junior Jesus’ is no longer President and Ohene left the BBC and went to her homeland where she was appointed by President Kuffour state Minister for Media Relations and later Minister for Tertiary education.

‘Tell me something about Elizabeth Ohene? Where is she?’ I had asked the taxi driver on our way from Kotoka airport to some unknown place that I later came to know as Abelempe, a quite leafy suburb of the city.

‘Dat Volta woman (she comes from the Volta region), dat Kuffour woman, very hopeless woman,’ the driver yelled out sending bits of saliva flying all over the place.

‘She is always quarreling,’ he added with the Ghanaian accent thickening.

Why? I asked. The driver did not hear me.

‘Very hopeless,’ the man on the wheels continued. At this stage the guy was speaking like he was engaged in a quarrel with some one. I don’t know what it is that makes West Africans especially Nigerians and Ghanaians speak that way. They could really be having a decent discussion but will yell at the top of their voices like they are quarreling.

The next two weeks saw me buy a couple of Ghanaian papers, most of them I got the impression were poor in both content and print compared to Uganda’s two main dailies.

Not much about Ohene in the papers but I got to know in one of the books I bought that she is married to Prof Ofosu-Armah, a retired Law don from the University of Ghana who is also a leading member of Kufour’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) and a practicing advocate.

Not so with ‘Junior Jesus.’ It’s said that when ‘Junior Jesus’s’ National Democratic candidate in the Presidential elections lost to John Kufour, the coup master himself called the President elect Kufour and told him that if he( Kufour) was to get any problems it would not be from him( Junior Jesus) but it wasn’t long before the two fell out.

The coup master was stripped of his military escorts to his chagrin and put under surveillance particularly for his association with an alleged soldier of fortune, a.k.a Ahmed Odinga, a British Honduras national who is alleged to have helped him execute other coups before.

Ghanaians seem divided as to the exact role of Rawlings in Ghana, perhaps as divided as Ugandans on the role of the late Milton Obote in Ugandan politics. Critics of JJ say he was a hard ruthless despot. The harder ones add he is ‘a bastard’ in reference to the fact that his father is said to be Scottish.

‘JJ is no nonsense man. JJ is iron man, no jokin,’ said another taxi driver, Emma who turned out to be a good and helpful chap. He had just driven past ‘Junior Jesus’s’ mansion in the city. We were heading towards the Craft centre when we got caught up in a jam. A sea of hawkers attacked with a variety of wares but it’s the art pieces that I loved. I had a look at one and wanted to buy it but Emma told me it was expensive and that I could get cheaper ones at the Craft Centre. This pinched the hawker on the wrong side. He gathered a huge thick blob of saliva in his mouth and shot it direct in Emma’s face.

The driver jumped up like a wounded lion, quickly lifted his seat and got out a shinny little knife:

‘I will tear his stomach.’

‘No don’t do it, no don’t do it.’

Out side the hawker was also squaring up for a fight with his bare hands!

‘Look this is Kufour’s problem. If it was JJ there would be no this happening, no hawkers,’ an annoyed Emma kept quarrelling.

‘JJ is the man for Ghana.’

The next day there was a huge headline in one of the papers;

‘JJ Calls for Boom-Boom.’

‘Junior Jesus’ speaking somewhere had allegedly called for Ghanaians to kick out Kufour by force.

The coup master is out of power but he remains as present as was Obote in Nyarwino’s mind only that if JJ was in Uganda he would perhaps be in jail or facing some charges of sorts or his retirement occupation would be making statements at Gen Kale Kaihura's stinking police house.

Ends

Art Piece Spoilers Not

2007-01-22T03:21:00.000-08:00

Like the morning dew so your lips are,
Oily His hands were as He moulded,
What an amazing art!
Art that the tailed die for,
But to the tailed, hands off,
For an art piece magnitude such is not spoilers,
That’s museums why curators have.

Even If You Sleep With Your Mother-In-Law Under Water......................

2007-01-15T02:04:00.000-08:00

Once a secret it’s no longer a secret, so they say. In my mother tongue there is also another that goes; even if you sleep with your mother -in-law under water the truth will one day come out.

So there is this Andrew Kayiira ghost awoken by docile Democratic Party. The whole buzz seems to have energized DP’s voiceless, politically infertile and uncharismatic leader, John Ssebana Kizito.

That aside, in less than a fortnight, Ugandans have been bombarded with several ‘Scotland Yard reports.’ Lets see, there’s that one of former Atom Splitter cum Economist turned security operative, the only and only Teddy Sseezi Cheeye( I love him) which was re-printed by the daily Monitor, then of course there’s also the government version published in it’s New Vision and that of the DP itself. Which is which? Therein lies one of the modern day challenges of our new world; ability to know and differentiate between truth on one hand and propaganda, lies, spin and fallacy on the other in an environment of so many happenings.

In 1986 Yoweri Museveni and his half dressed half naked men and women, shot their way and swaggered into Kampala. A year later March 6, 1986 Andrew Kayira fresh from Luzira Prison on treason charges was gunned dead at the home of then BBC stringer Henry Gombya. Who was Kayiira a threat to?

From a purely Machiavellian view the ‘revolution’ was not yet ready for the emergence of another Prince so soon, for a true prince should ensure that he is the only Prince around by being both a fox and a lion and think about nothing other than the art of war and how it can be used to keep him at the helm. This art should only belong to him (the Prince).

‘A PRINCE ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules.’

Nicolo Machiavelli in his famous The Prince further advises on what a Prince must do upon taking a new state or principality

‘And of all princes, it is impossible for the new prince to avoid the imputation of cruelty, owing to new states being full of dangers.’

And because it is unthinkable for a Prince not to have control on his army, for that leads to his down fall, a Prince must have firm control of the state either through being loved or feared or both- but since those two qualities cannot not go together, Machiavelli advises that it’s better to be feared!

Now if the Prince had firm control over his boys, which he still has up to today, 20 years later, then he surely had control over the boys who pulled the trigger that knocked off Andrew Kayiira, that is if the story of Corporal Eddie Sande and the numerous rumours flying by are to be believed.

Although some of the closest aides to the Prince have been mentioned in the on going fracas so far the Prince himself has kept his lips shut- but I suppose that won’t be for too long because although unsaid, accusing eyes are being shot at him. Like I said at the beginning, once a secret it’s no longer a secret because afterall somebody already knows it and even if you bed your mother- in -law in the dingiest of all places on earth some how the truth will one day pop out.

Ends

A Goat Head And The Mad Rush For 'A Kabarole-Bundibugyo Bum'

2006-12-29T01:35:00.000-08:00

This is a brief post to say though I am not well I am still alive and kicking. I ‘ate’ my Christmas with a bunch of Willie boys in Gulu where I am.

We had it in some dusty bar. We had a whole goat. Its boiled head was dismantled two days later by the expert hands of some taxi tout called Guwon.

If I had grown up in the 60,70’s and early 80’s I am sure I would have been sucked in the ideological struggles of those days. Then it was a struggle on which ideological philosophy was best for the governance of society. Perhaps that’s why I immensely enjoyed the collectivism and down trodden talk at the bar. There was a UPDF soldier who came and challenged me to prove that Uganda is not richer than China! He claimed to be an Economist.

‘Get China’s 1 Billion people divide it by the amount of money they have then get Uganda’s 27 million people divide by the amount of money we have, then find out the amount. Walai we are richer than China,’ cooed the quark Economist soldier.

I hope by now you have realized the post is not going to be as short as I mentioned earlier.

At the bar there was also a soviet trained Engineer telling us the wonders of St Petersburg and Uganda in the 1960’s.

‘We used to dance with real well dressed girls. We used not to jump around like jiggers like you guys do these days with naked girls. Now if all the time you jumping up and down in the name of dancing when do you get the time to get close to your girl?,’ he wondered and looked around slowly to catch the glance of each of us like he had made a great point.

Later, as it is usually does, the discussion changed to politics. The eyes of the St Petersburg Engineer glittered.

‘On that day if I had moved as I usually did, Uganda would not be having its present problems,’ he said.

‘If only I would have moved with it!’ he emphatically repeated.

‘I saw him. It was real him. The story of Uganda would have been different,’ he continued on.

I know your wondering what’s going on here but the story is this Engineer who is known more for Pork Roasting (actually his name is synonymous with pork in Gulu) than the craft he learnt at University claimed he was once a soldier, in Tito’s weak kneed government.

The story is, he claimed to have seen M7, then a rebel, in a Kanzu in a Merc, heading towards Kalerwe or about there, and he the speaker was driving from Bwaise towards the city. That he would have knocked off Kagu’s son had he been armed as he usually was.

He then gulped down his long throat his last bottle of beer and wished us well.

Then, the boys pounced on him.

‘This guy thinks we are kids. I know him. He was not in UNLA,’ said a man with a fag in his dark lips and a glass in his left hand. He’s an official with Uganda’s very incompetent power supply company.

Suddenly a light skinned, big bummed young lady entered. Immediately the boys said when she moved her bums produced a rhythmic sound:

‘Kabarole Bundibugyo. Kabarole Bundibugyo.’

What followed was a scramble, a fight, a struggle! Each of them except this Willie boy writer wanted her (I grew up with such, studied with such, as such I am not electrified by such)

Right now I am listening to Bobby Brown’s, Every Little Step. You know Bobby is a faded bad boy. At his best he peed in a police car! His wife Whitney is a bloody drugged up lady and looks like a thoroughly sucked jade.

I am having a thunderous headache pounding right inside my head. The problem is whoever I tell can’t believe me! They are all laughing. They say I am suffering from the ‘effects of Christmas.’

Still, yesterday I walked alone to a clinic because I am sure I am sick. A bald headed doctor with wispy hairs and a large smoky glass prescribed for me some malaria tabs. I would have taken a test. But I am always in no mood to be pricked.

He introduced himself to me. I already knew him. In the last elections, fresh from Zambia he dumped himself in the muddy waters of Uganda politics by tussling it out with Reagan Okumu in Aswa. Reagan left him for dead. The old doc has now resurrected in a clinic.

A jolly guy he is. We had a brief chat before I headed home.

In my rather stuffy abode with clothes, sandals, shoes, toothpaste all mixed in nearly equal proportions. I dumped myself in my bed with my clean but wrinkled bed sheets.

I was sick, no sleep. I got my phone made a call to some chic I know:
‘You will fine,’ her voice, that I imagined came in waves entered by ear lobs.

I thought about the struggle for the girl at the bar. What special qualities did she have? She was illiterate. The only ‘asset’ she had was a big bum and a light skin!
There is a joke among some Acholi’s that in the 1980’s when the northerners dominated government they mistook Banywaranda and other light skinned women for whites. That they spent all their time ‘eating’ these women in swanky hotels in the city without putting any tangible assets back home. When they got kicked by M7 they ran with cars, fridges and TV’s in their grass thatched huts without electricity!

They were unused to this new life. It’s said that these among other reasons explains why the region is torn up by conflict.

The scramble for the ‘Muzungu’ babe shows that not much has changed. Perhaps to the jokers it suggests that another north dominated gov't could be toppled by light skinned women, that's if it will ever be there. This also explains why some bar and lodge owners in the district import sluts from Kampala for hot business in Gulu.

Ends

Rukungiri Boy Bangs Langi Gal One Nil

2006-12-23T05:59:00.000-08:00

By now, if you’re the type that follows things, then you must be aware that the government spokesman at the talks in the drab Southern Sudan capital of Juba, Capt Paddy Ankunda is a married guy. That’s because the pix of their ‘do’ was a front page affair graced by the Chief of Defence Forces, Lt General Aronda Nyakirima.

But I can bet my balls some cuties won’t believe it!

Any way, like most men, after probably waddling through some waters, the former UPDF loudspeaker in northern Uganda decided to ‘settle down.’ (That’s what I hear most people say when a man finally says ‘I do.’).

Alexis Zorba, he of Nikos Kazantzakis would say: ‘Like all men he has landed himself in the ditch’. Villainous Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello would say he has landed himself ‘a land carrack’. To that curse of we men, some other day.

About two years ago I did a full page society story in the papers on Paddy and his girl then, I say then, because the world spins, consequently positions change, men and women fall, rise, stumble, cry etc. Then, like I have already mentioned the guy was the official UPDF loudspeaker in northern Uganda (where this Willieboy writer was based)

The interview took place at Diana Gardens, a nice pad by Gulu standards. He told me of the schools he went through, his family and the military. How after his last Political Science paper he jumped on the back of a dusty truck and off he went to military school, not a bad decision considering that he’s one of force’s glittering faces.

Much as I am a complete nut case I did not forget to ask him about his love as a young man.

Being the eloquent and jovial man that he is, every thing flowed from his mouth like magic. The little sweet kid, the love, the wedding plans and how he had already met his mother –in-law to be. On the day the story got published his otherwise also nice girl called me:

‘Hey you guys, why didn’t you tell me this. I only got to know about it after I got calls from people,’ she asked, I had a feeling she was smiling broadly wherever she was.

But the world is rude and a shocker!

First it was the tabloid that yelled it out: that afande Paddy was a Ssalongo. Good kick, I said to myself like a competent German trained soccer coach. I read on: Hoooo….oooooooo….hooooooo. A different babe!

What happened to the great words of tightness and love? Silly question, my sub conscious told me: ‘Is your dad living with your mum?’

I view the world as a battle place, where men and women are constantly at war, with seen and unseen forces, with both God and the devil and the bare fangs of capitalism. At the end of it all there must be a winner and a loser. Forget the centrist position of all taking equal shares. That’s dogshit. There must be a winner. From that premise, Paddy, like a true soldier emerged winner when he snipped the girl one Nil and smartly walked away. Hey guys don’t cry, if you’ve ever been snipped 5-0 by some sharp teethed capitalist of a girl. That’s it, it’s the world, don’t cry, don’t hang, just hang on with a changed game and battle plan and square up for a fight, with rolled up sleeves ready for the world.

Ends

The German Who Pulled A Ring From The Bowel Of His Pocket

2006-12-21T01:43:00.000-08:00

It appears the on vogue thing these days, among trendy young Ugandan ladies is to have a white man or at least a boy friend- living abroad. The definition of white skin the Ugandan way could be anything that’s not dark as Ugandans know it! A Somali, a Lebanese and an Afghan can therefore also be white!

If you are a young man with no biological disorder then you might have heard this statement from one of the many finger suckers that mill about: ‘My boy friend is a broad’
A broad to them normally means Europe and the US. Hey do they know that some East Europeans are not far away from us?

You see we who live in battered banana republics have a very rosy picture of the West-to us it’s a place where manner looks for eaters and not the other way round.

Okay, some how we found ourselves discuss this topic with a good pal of mine, a guy who earns a living by panel beating words so they are pleasurable to the ear.

‘The girl just told her sister (who happens to be his girl) that she can never get married to a poor man like me.’

At the time of uttering the outrageous remarks towards ‘poor men’ the disgustingly fake Kentucky chicken girl in question was in the firm armpits of some German who made her believe that all was ok. All indeed seemed ok, they lived together in a palatial house. Off course they had the money too that intoxicated the dreamy Madam Bovary

But wait a moment. The German’s contract ended and home was beckoning. She thought Europe was within her reach. She painted golden pictures of herself in a huge winged KLM Boeing cutting the skies-heading to Angela Merkel’s Germany.

Then da bomb: Booooooooooooooooooooooooooom.

“I am married. Here is the ring,’ the German forked the thing from the belly of his pocket and fixed it on his fingers for the first time since he met our Ugandan babe.

The girl saw red! She’s yet to see normal.

These days I hear she seeks solace in the bitter thing. Bars have become her home. God bless Ugandan jades.

Next on this blog will be the sharp Rukungiri boy who banged a Langi girl one nil!

Ends

Polonium 210: Why African Heads Should Have Gone To Moscow

2006-11-29T02:34:00.000-08:00

There’s something about Russia that I love!

About 6 years ago when the Russian nuclear submarine, the Kursk sunk in the Barents sea, killing more than a 100 sailors , I watched as Russians burnt candles and prayed for the dead sailors.

The Kursk was a symbol of a bolder and richer new Russia headed by always cool looking but tough former KGB man, Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately it also carried with it the weakness of the new Russia. The captain of the ship that had the capacity to cause terror in the world earned slightly above just a 100 dollars!

In the last G8 summit in St Petersburg US, President George Bush took a swipe at the Kremlin for its questionable democratic credentials. Putin who was just a few meters a way looked calmly waiting for his turn: Russians don’t want the type of democracy that we are seeing in Iraq, he fired at the Texas rancher. The pact of international journalists burst into a thunderous laugh.

Pundits say Russia is not a real democracy but neither is it an absolute tyranny!

The Kremlin suspects some body is on a massive spin drive to tarnish Moscow but the truth could be that ‘Russian democracy’ allows limited free speech or even that Putin is increasingly drifting to tyranny. If you are an oligarch in Putin’s Russia, keep in business, your mouth shut, be in bed with him like billionaire Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovitch or else you speak your way to jail as Uganda’s Police boss, Kale Kaihura would say. In Russia, they seem to go a notch higher, they put you out of action or send you to far a way Siberia, something African leaders can benefit from.

As the tears on the face of the parents of slain Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya were still drying, fresh ones gushed out from the tear glands of Walter Litvinenko, father of the latest victim of ‘ Moscow’s long hands of death,’ ex- Russian spy and Putin critic, Alexander Litvinenko, killed in one of the most sophisticated poisonings in UK history. All hands with urgent immediacy including the dead man’s, pointed at Moscow.

The Kremlin described the accusations as ‘nonsense.’ But not so long ago, the BBC quoted a top Kremlin spinner defining spin as: the act of telling somebody that he or she is headed for hell and the person actually looks forward to the journey! In a way, it suggests that, dispatching somebody off to hell, sometimes in the most sophisticated of ways, is not entirely ruled out in the Kremlin methods.

It took days for the UK hospital where Litvinenko was being treated to realize that he had been poisoned with a radioactive material called Polonium 210.

In Ethiopia Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi has a problem dealing with a noisy lot of opposition politicians and journalist, he has sent many behind bars- but they have not been as effective in silencing them. Zimbabwe’s, Robert Mugabe has a fairly similar problem with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC); Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni has also been getting sleepless nights from a certain Colonel.

In the first week of November Africa’s top men and women headed to Beijing- the capital of the world’s latest rising super power- China. But instead they should have headed to Moscow. With the poor health system in some of the banana republics in Africa, coupled with aged technologies in them, it would take Jesus or God himself to discover Polonium 210 in the body of a poisoned journalist or vocal opposition politician. A very ruthless, but effective method that, Africa’s baobab trees can immensely benefit from.

Ends

Fat Of The World!

2006-11-03T01:53:00.000-08:00

I don’t exactly remember the genesis of this free sweet joke. What I seem to remember is that it’s linked to top Ugandan academician Prof Mahmood Mamdani who now plies his trade in Uncle Sam’s land.

The joke goes that one day a fat and thin man went to the Uganda and Kenya border. The fat one suddenly told the thin one:

‘You man, tourists entering Uganda might think that the country has been hit hard by a famine.’

The thin one replied: ‘If the tourist is intelligent enough then he will know who the cause of the famine is.

Is there a co- relation between the hollow bellies that dot Sub Saharan Africa and the huge ones that our leaders carry?

The Mega Bucks That Stuck In Buturo's Throat

2006-11-02T01:26:00.000-08:00

Former Information Minister Dr. Nsaba Buturo must be asking god: ‘What happened?”

For starters the now Ethics Minister is saved or claims to be and regularly says ‘Hi’ to god from a ritzy city church.

There is an old believe in politics that a politician must take care of what he spews out or does incase he’s forced to swallow them in the future.

If it’s a Nigerian then he/she will most likely tell you that a man who throws a stone in the air must fix his head there to wait for it on it’s way down.

Buturo did not probably know all the above until now that he is being told to fix his head there to wait for a stone he carelessly threw in the air. It’s a bit like one being told to open his/her mouth and swallow down some murk from the past!

What is the story? And how is the Ethics boss responding? The story is the man from Kasese borrowed some money from the Gulu based Mega FM under the un-clearest of circumstances.
"I admit it was a mistake. I never went through proper regulations. I will not put this on somebody's back. This would not have happened if I had gone through proper regulations. This was enthusiasm that made me forget that there are certain ways of accessing the money."
These were Buturo’s words as quoted by the Daily Monitor on Wednesday Nov 1. ‘Enthusiasm,’ the former spinner tells us is the reason he did not follow normal procedures to get the bucks that have now gotten stuck in his throat!
What he does not tell us is what the ‘enthusiasm’ was for. Get a cheap quick buck? Serve the nation? Document what for what? My ass! Likely the first. A senior citizen with a huge PhD on his head claiming not to know a simple standard procedure!
Buturo’s response was a PR bungle. First it’s unbelievable which consequently tickles the nosy to try and find out more. When that eventually happens his already battered image will nose dive further. It will take years to heal just like his predecessor Kirunda Kivenjinja is to date still reminded of the gallons of oil he suck. In an ironical twist Kirunda is now the official government image polisher!
Then by trying to grab William Pike’s neck as if it’s the Irish man who told him to ‘borrow’ the money yet he had already said he would not ‘put the burden on’ on any body’s back,’ Buturo made a simple, basic and pedestrian contradiction that exposed the hollowness of his personal crisis communication press talk.

He does not dispute the facts of the story substantially but rather wiggles and jubilates about Pike’s dramatic exit from The New Vision. No point raised with regard to the issue at hand.
It’s a classic failed attempt at scapegoating, the only difference being that in normal scapegoating you blame some one else for your troubles but Buturo’s is immensely unique, the man blames himself! Ha, ha, ha my foot. Then he forgets and blames Pike. The contradiction is as clear as the unclear circumstances under which he sneaked with the Mega FM money bags.
If you remember, there is a certain allowance that Buturo once got for a trip to Malaysia trip that was never to be but he still had the enthusiasm to sign for it. Recently somebody reminded him or rather asked whether he had paid it back.
I also ask as a responsible citizen ‘have you paid back the money?’
In the West where people have a sense of shame Buturo would have resigned. His exit would have actually been accelerated by the fact that his office is among others supposed to fight the very evils that he has now muddied himself with!
But he won’t because he is luckily a Uganda. He is just a cog in the immense steel works of eaters who have sunk long straws in the country’s vein and are threatening to suck it dry. Amen.
Ends

Rob: The Rising Blue Eyed Boy From Kanungu

2006-10-29T23:15:00.000-08:00

The men and women at the state owned New vision must be
on their toes these days unless they have both strong guts and balls! With their top boss’s head now rolled and baking on the chop board quickly followed by that of his deputy under the watchful eye of a Brigadier and an announcement that one of the presidents bluest eyed boys these days is to take charge at the corporation, it’s obvious even to a blind man that something is cooking up there. Whoever is not moved at the paper must be in the system, or at least in its good books or out rightly insensitive to the tremors caused by the movement of powerful hands!
About eight months ago I had the opportunity to visit State House. It was a meeting the Old Man had called specifically from areas where he had received a drabbing in the back and a scratch here and there on the face from the hard, naughty and gaunt knuckles of Kifefe’s son.

‘You are no longer in the corridors of power but right in the seat of power’ chipped in lanky Onapito Ekomoloit or Ona as he’s popularly known, the Presidents Press man once we had made ourselves comfortable in the lofty state house sofas.

There is a way power dazzles. When state House delicacies started pouring in and Mzee took his seat and began sipping what looked like juice men who know occasions when to rise sniffed opportunities.

‘Your Excellency Mr. President I am from Lira, I think we have ever met. I am the NRM Chairman in my area. My brother stood for the mayoral seat and lost because he is NRM,’ cooed one of the scribes’s who I thought was the most hopeless character of the day.

He then rumbled on about the need for radios to get adverts if the government is to get them on board (he owns one) and blah, blah, blah.

Used to such music from many such poets, some crude and unpolished as was the case with this particular one, the President opened his eyes widely and mumbled something to the effect that Reagan Okumu, FDC and Mao had mislead people in northern Uganda.

By this time casualties from the grueling parliamentary elections had already limped in. The first to come was stocky Zoe Bakoko Bakoru, followed by Betty Akech decked in a trendy trouser. Shortly after Grace Akello wobbled in like a duck that had been hit hard by a fierce tropical storm. They came in to ‘represent’ the regions from where the scribes had come from.

Each came greeted the about 30 or so journalists from north, West Nile and Teso and sat on the same seat, and went I don’t know where. Soon a free juicy joke began making the rounds.
‘Hey guys don’t use that seat where Bakoko, Akech and Akello have sat. It’s strictly a loser’s seat,’ bellowed an editor from a Luo weekly after the losers had left.

Later Minister Akello asked me: ‘Now you people from Acholi why didn’t you vote Mzee.’

‘Minister, you should have asked the people of Teso where you come from first because they too did not vote for Mzee,’ I retorted. That was enough to send her into her car.

Then came in Robert Kabushenga who for purposes of romance as different from the romance you know I will call Rob. The other reason is Rob rolls out nicely from the tip of the tongue.

Talk around town then was on the eminent expulsion of Canadian Journalist Blake Lambert a move that reportedly had Rob as top engineer. Blake used to call me quite often to have a feel of what was going on in the north as I then edited the news at the most influential radio in the region.

Being the man in the news and off course intelligent too, I naturally jumped at the opportunity to have a chat with Rob.

‘Robert critics of the Media Centre say it’s an illegal organization. What’s your response to such claims?’

‘Go ask the appointing authority,’ replied the boy from Kanungu as he pointed towards where Mzee was seated being irritated by more amateur poets among the pack of scribes.

‘Isn’t this guy a lawyer? Why such a very un-legal response?’ I thought to myself.

‘Timothy Kalyegira wrote a lengthy piece in the papers basically saying your media centre is going to fail.’

‘Who is Timothy Kalyegira?’ retorted dear Rob.

‘Why specifically do you want to expel Blake?’

‘Have you been reading what that guy has been writing? Wait see, Blake must go,’ the new rising power boy from Kanungu barked with finality. He every inch sounded power!

Shortly after poor Blake was hounded out of the country. He has now found his way to Kuffours Ghana where he’s battling with heavily peppered soups.

There is no doubt that Rob is a man with both steel balls and sophistry. Whether you like it or not he’s a man with some terrific admirable qualities. If the newspaper stories are anything to go by his journey to ‘something’ began from ‘nothing.’ He has risen at a blistering speed from among the harrowing string of presidential hangers on, whizzed past them all including old John the English man and cricketer, leaving him sucking bucketful’s of dust. As for Ona, it’s difficult to tell whether he’s around town or he’s gone back home for a rest in Teso. The boy now is Rob! After a year at the Media Centre where he says his achievements were ‘modest’ he’s now spinning in the CEO’s seat at Vision whose sense of Vision the only Vision man in Uganda thinks needs a new a new Vision!

Ends

My Landlord And His Rule No 10

2006-10-26T02:22:00.000-07:00

I feel real tired now but the blogger in me has prevailed. So I find myself fondling the key boards of the only person I am sharing the room with this Wednesday night. They are as lofty and as soft a babes boobs!

But it’s not babes and boobs that are keeping me typing and awake.

Recently I moved house. I am now a way from neighbouring the mega big church and its night fellowships.

‘Come see our daddy,’ the wife of my new landlord, a very authoritarian woman on the children politely told me. She’s always up by 5 am as I am still lazily turning in my bed debating with my divided self whether to grab a book or continue sleeping. Normally the last wins.

At this time like a Field Commander she’s already barking out tough orders to the kids cleaning the house, the bathrooms, compound etc.

The man himself, a husky voiced little chap is never involved, at least on the surface in the day to day running of the home. May be that’s why when I became his tenant he handed me a set of 10 rules to follow.

One had to do with the ‘importation of girls’ which was ok with me since I am not a ‘businessman’. But the most interesting of them all is rule number 10 which goes:

‘You must respect my wife.’

It was my long time good lawyer pal AB (acronym for Abdullah the Butcher), never mind how he got the name. His sharp freshly trained legal eyes were the first to spot and single out the interesting rule No 10.

‘Ha, ha, ha you man check out the 10th rule.’ After reading it I thought it was another of those things to harden my life in the new abode. But not to AB, the lawyer.

‘What if this guy’s wife asks you to ‘eat’ her do you respect her wish or rule No 10 and remember it was written by her husband?’ he queried with his eyes excitedly rolling like a wild cat’s.

It’s now coming to a month that I have been putting my bones in the new hole, so far so good.

Ends

The Fat Old Stinky Frogiven Capitalist At Mak

2006-10-02T03:16:00.001-07:00

I felt like leaping up in the air and shooting her with a straight and bold ‘fuck you old ugly stinking capitalist corpse.’ I felt like wishing the devil on her head!

But then I realized that part of the reason why the world is now torn apart by conflicts is because of powerful emotions ripping through our senses.

‘This is woman is old enough to be your mum, probably she’s somebody’s mum, somebody’s wife too,’ the logical sense in me argued.

‘Blast her, teach her a lesson, old people should behave in a way that reflects their age. Where is her decency, eh, where? If you keep quite the trollop will think she’s right…attack, go boy!’ another part of me commanded.

‘No settle down first, don’t do that,’ another me said.

‘I hope I will be the last for you to cheat,’ I told her, dropped the rusty pair of Panasonic batteries and left.

It all started when my camera batteries ran down and with the present load shedding that has torn the country apart there was no where I could re-charge in the part of the world where I linger.

So I branched into this shop at the Mak staff canteen and asked for a pair of batteries. The shop attendant, a dark skinned lady who looked older than her age stood on her toes and forked out a pair of Panasonic batteries from the top of the dusty shelf.

But like with many things in the country the batteries failed to work and I rightly demanded for another pair or a refund of my dear 800 shillings. Yes, as a Willie boy, 800 M7 shillings is dear to me

Puzzled, the shop attendant looked at me and said loudly:

‘I can’t handle this, let me tell mummy.’

‘Mummy’ turned out to have been having a quite nap on the floor. A bulky well fed light skinned woman. She work up from her slumber and barked:

‘There is nothing I can do for you. Go away,’

‘But madam I have just bought this batteries from you now, you’ve seen they are not working………..”

‘Mummy he has just bought them now, now,’ the attendant supported me.

‘I bought those batteries from Kikuubo, how do you expect me to know that they were spoilt. At least if it was bread. I can see that it has gone bad but a battery!’

She ended what I suppose she thought was a powerful argument by holding a loaf of bread and looking at it from all sides as if to see which one had rot.

‘Where you get your supplies from is none of my business. As a consumer I come into your shop to buy a good that can satisfy the need and urge that led me into your shop.’

‘There is nothing I can do for you,’ she roared with finality. I left ‘defeated.’

In the capitalist system you either piss on somebody or you get pissed on you. You either eat someone or someone eats you. It’s a man eat man society.

As I walked a way dejected I thought about the above words of top notch world literature guru Ngugi Wa Thiongo.

‘She has eaten you boy! She’s pissed on you boy. I told you. You should have taught the wench a lesson,’ the ego pestered on but I remained cool and walked away. It was after all only 800 shillings. But the moral lesson in it is bigger than the few hundred shillings. I wish the very best for that Maama, I have forgiven her but she should scale down her arrogance for the world is a place of dramatic reversals.

Ends

The Beauty From Murk

2006-09-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

In the same yet starkly different worlds we find our selves in. From the congested hill of Makerere, on a Monday night I found myself at a spot that I have loved for so long. It’s where the trees have failed to grow, just next to the former great Northcote State, next to the barren pitch where sweaty souls struggle each day in the barking hot sun to kick soccer. From here, on nights when we are blessed to have electricity in our blessed country that is always dark; a certain beauty appears from the rot and murk.

It’s a peaceful spot from where I can have a gaze of the environs like at eagle floating in the air the world undressed for it to view. From here Katanga looks like a stunning undressed beauty, Mulago hospital an architectural feat.

But then you realize that as you enjoy the late evening breeze, somebody at the hospital with glowing beautiful lights is breathing his last or at great pains, already aware that his/ her days in the world are numbered.

As I sat by an itchy cuddling couple whizzed past by, their next move obvious.

Romanticism, some top world literary figures say is deodorized shit. These say that art should not be for arts sake, instead they argue it should be for mans sake. I am a romantic? What do I love with this grass that everybody steps on and walks away? What’s it that amazes me with the lights that come from the stinky hospital? The night breeze that enters my soul and gives me unparalleled joy.

There are simple ways to give your self joy at virtually no cost.

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Saying Hi To the Lord From The Gheto

2006-09-25T00:37:00.000-07:00

‘These days thing are not easy,’ is a common phrase that rolls sadly from the dry lips of the thousands of young university spit outs who liter the dusty streets eager to get something from which to eke a living.

Unfortunately, the odds may be too much, the ‘economy’ can sometimes mean to be very selective through powerful invisible hands, pulling strings here and there and deciding on who gets what and who doesn’t.

For those who are ‘lucky’ to be called for job interviews there is a huge possibility that the job you are ‘doing’ interviews for has already been taken. The interview process being just a formality, incase some nosy doubting Thomas poked his ugly nose about.

Big Uncle Sam’s country is the world over known as the country of opportunities, a country where as long as a ghetto boy works hard he can climb up… high...up and mix with the society’s wine glass tossers

The living examples are there in the names of the hundreds of music, film and boxing stars that we in Uganda adore like they were our very own-never mind that some of us don’t know that you got to cross seas and oceans in some of the white man’s largest birds to reach uncle Sam’s Sugar Candy mountains where free apples grow on the streets! Silly me!

It’s this rosy idealistic picture that we Africans have of the West that explains why each year thousands from the cursed continent attempt to cross through very rickety boats into Europe. Many of course die the few gauntly and weak ones that reach out in the land of opportunities are given treatment and deported back. If you’re unlucky to be got by the Moroccan authorities then you could end up in the hostile Sahara desert.

But the message as my fingers kiss the sweet and lofty key boards of my dear wife this Sunday is not that of doom, as I am no relative of Kibwetere, I can’t even point the direction of Kanungu from where I am.

The message is that I live near a massive beautiful church. I have never stopped wondering where the hell the few Christians who use it or specifically the pastor got all the millions to build the church since it’s always almost nearly empty even on a Sunday!

I still consider myself lucky that I live near this church as I don’t need to enter into it to pray. I just sit in the ghetto and say hi to God across. This Sunday the pastor was praying for the jobless to get jobs and for peace in the country. Of course there was moving intoxicating poetry too in the summons, the type Plato would have barnished from his indeal republic.

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' Dancing' The Dancer, 'Photographing' The Photographer And The Man With A Wolfy Mouth

2006-09-25T00:24:00.000-07:00

There are guys who live to defy, guys who are anti-authority, guys whose whole life is to move against the grain of life. It’s this type that ‘dances’ a dancer and ‘photographs’ a photographer!

When this lot throws a stone up in the air they fix their heads there to wait for it on its way down.

But they are not as dangerous as another lot that keeps its mouth shut as long as the said mouth is occupied.

I met one such wolf the other day.

‘I never want my pictures in the newspapers, that’s not to say that I don’t allow my pictures to be taken!’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t want to compete with those in power. When you get known, you make more enemies; this increases your chances of getting attacked by both known and unknown enemies’

‘The best thing in our Uganda today is to sit in a quite corner and quietly make more money. Loud mouthed guys never make money. These guys who parade themselves in the papers have no money the real money guys are quite, turning things round silently.’

The speaker, a stocky bow-legged ageing man with a twisted wolfy round mouth is between a veteran of several city survivals, an academic, a politician and a man with connections in the ‘right’ places.

As he spoke his two canines poking out their sharp ends like a rhino’s horns dug deep in the lofty cake that shortly found its way in his thick belly.

‘That’s the advice I give you young man, work quietly, don’t step on powerful toes, make more money, eat and rest.’

After his lecture on survival mechanisms in our Uganda as he put it, he got up stretched himself and dashed off.

Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, God bless his soul was a man who knew a thing about life. Zorba, a character in his Zorba the Greek tells the dickless Boss, a guy who believed that women are an obstacle to ones going to heaven that there are those who eat food to turn it into dung while others eat to turn into joy, music, life etc.

Now the sharp canined eater is the type that probably eats to immediately turn his food into dung!

It’s also the reason why as Ugandans grass with loads and loads of shit and stagger from one crisis to another, the middle class pull out at goat races to cheer the senseless animals! And the peasants, the most vulnerable to malaria vote back to office the very men and women who stole their malaria drugs. It’s a tragi-comedy we are entangled in. Who will bail the wretched of the earth out as all are in ward looking?

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2006-09-21T02:09:00.001-07:00

Letter To The Willieboys

2006-09-21T02:09:00.000-07:00

I still remember it, I still remember the phrase, when Captain Ralt pulled out his pistol and shot the kinky haired boy, he spurned on his legs like a ballet dancer, blood gushing from his body and fell with a thud on the hard ground.

Then there where his pals in District Six: ' hey buddy give me a dop.' The dime would serve the purpose of acquiring a fish's rotten head- with some dirty water it would snake it's way down the throats of the boys- enough for the day. Open legged, they would throw themselves on the hard floor and attempt to grab some sleep.

Okay, it was District Six in SA, okay it was during the apartheid era but Willieboys still linger on.

If you'r the type who is unsure of your tomorrow, unsure of nearly everything, the type that sits and gazes at pastors, double chinned and thick-necked politicians and those with say the 'right' connections cruise in those big-volumed cars and wonder when you will get your own then your are probably a willieboy.

When willieboys talk about the dramatic leaps they are about to make, the wealth, power and the beautiful lofty babesss they are about to have. You might think it's all real but quite often it ends at that!

The capitalist system is a harsh one but also one that offers opportunities to the walking dead that we see on the streets each day.

This blog is for the Willieboys, the fat farting lot at the helm, the pastors who live like the devil himself, the African Baobabs that never want to leave the dancing stage, and yes, it's for you too.