Kizito Ronald Jjuuko is dead. The Uganda Radio Network reported that the 38-year-old boda boda rider, husband and father, was shot from behind during a police operation to restrict movement during the second National Cleaning Day on August 29.
It is a sentence that should never have to be written. One death in such needless circumstances is one too much and should call for immediate review of the entire exercise!
Now and then, videos about Uganda by travel influencers trend online. Sometimes, the videos air our dirty laundry – showing piles of rubbish and rivers of filth on the streets of Kampala.
It is mildly amusing to read through the comments and find Ugandans valiantly fighting for the Pearl of Africa, so gifted by nature. But if we are candid, we are just upset that a foreigner has exposed us yet we have long been patriotically candid about our failings only for the foreigner’s voice to gain far more traction.
It is inescapable and indefensible – many parts of the capital city are a festering eyesore. Thus, many welcomed the National Cleaning Day initiative. However, many more were also skeptical – understandably so; despite the 71 per cent electoral victory of the ruling party, there is a huge trust deficit between the ruled and their rulers.
True to form, the government started on the wrong foot, condescending with threats and demands, taking on a militant tone that is sure to kill this much-needed initiative.
Videos from the First Cleaning Day in July exposed police officers ruthlessly and gleefully whipping a young man whose only crime seemed to be that he was walking across a road when he should have been on his fours mopping the road with his white t-shirt.
It is bewildering the delightful malice with which the police dispense violence when they accost unarmed citizens. There seems to be an intrinsic violent lens through which law enforcement views the ordinary citizen.
A violence that would make colonisers proud – a violence designed to whip the uncivilized native into line – because the native cannot be trusted to do the right thing. What looked like an isolated excess during the first cleaning day would prove to be a warning. The second National Cleaning Day has left Jjuuko “shot from behind”.
Clearly, he never imagined that a national cleaning day would render him quite dead, his blood flowing into the ground – we will probably try and clean away his blood stains during the next Cleaning Day.
Perhaps then the city authorities will have figured out how to ‘disappear’ the piles of rubbish collected during the cleaning days. Funny how the regime can make people ‘disappear’ but small small rubbish defeats them.
Dear reader, I digress… Lee Kwan Yew (LKY), the founding father of Singapore, shortly after independence, sought to dramatically differentiate Singapore from other Third World countries.
He settled for a clean and green Singapore, thus launching the ‘Keep Singapore Clean’ campaign in 1968; the campaign adopted changes in public-health laws, relocation and licensing of nomadic hawkers, development of proper sewage systems, and disease control, among others.
LKY saw greening and cleaning Singapore as a way to instill national pride while also attracting foreign investors and tourism. Eleven years after his death, Singapore’s fastidious reputation as one of the world’s cleanest, greenest and wealthiest countries is undisputed.
Singapore’s unwavering commitment to excellence tells us that behavioral change does not happen overnight. Indeed, LKY remarked, “The physical infrastructure was easier to improve than the rough and ready ways of the people…Perseverance and stamina were needed to fight old habits.”
A man ending up dead, shot in the back because we want to make Uganda clean, is not it. Talking heads on current affairs programs on local TV rage-bait our heart rates when they posit that Ugandans provoke armed security. They excuse the violence that is now woven into our reality and ask us to accept it as the norm.
If we can rise above the rage bait, we will see what they shamelessly justify – the undeniable creep of militancy into our governance and daily life. First things first, I might be wrong, but I am certain that the elementary tools required in making Uganda clean again do not include guns.
Why, therafa, is the government approaching cleaning with guns? Is it that Ugandans are absolutely bull-headed and do not appreciate the soft life that follows a clean and hygienic environment?
Imagine the ripple effect of seeing police officers without their handy guns, but with brooms, sweeping to their hearts’ delight, alongside the army? Where is the army chief who has declared the presidency a family heirloom, in supreme disregard of the constitution? What about the overabundance of cabinet ministers?
What about the 500-plus Parliamentarians – pictures of them cleaning in their constituencies would be great for the reelection campaigns? Where are the local leaders, the faith leaders, bishops – ancient and modern, the chiefs and kings, sports personalities, etc?
Where is the Fountain of Honour? (Fun fact from our electoral statistics: Uganda has at least 1.6 million elective positions). Furthermore, why has the enforcement of cleaning been more visible in impoverished areas?
Why do we see government officials fearlessly manhandling poor residents? Is it because these wanainchi do not live in well-planned gated communities with private security, uniformed cleaners and mean dogs that deter the misguided overreach of this militant regime?
When shall we see the zealous police knocking on doors in affluent neighbourhoods, dragging the wellheeled out by their ears to force them to clean Uganda? Uganda has seen this story play out differently before.
Some of the country’s most celebrated public health successes were built on persuasion alongside education, not on force. The Presidential-led fight against HIV/ AIDS relied heavily on community mobilization, trusted local leaders, peer educators, faith leaders and public dialogue, helping to change behaviours that once seemed deeply entrenched.
Likewise, community-led cleaning programs have helped communities improve hygiene and sanitation through collective responsibility, local leadership and civic participation rather than coercion.
And we have not even talked about the longstanding Buganda Kingdom initiative, Bulungi Bwansi, where people willingly come together to improve their communities under trusted leadership. Meanwhile, there is a humble Ugandan village on the rise, showing us what building goodwill from the ground up looks like.
Dear Government of Uganda, make lisach (without your guns, ba dia), go on a fact-finding tour to a village called Bamutakudde, and behold the transformation afoot under the leadership of newly elected Local Council Chairperson, journalist Solomon Serwanjja.
Though the per diems may not be hefty for a government trip, you must pay attention to this village. Since his election, Serwanjja has our collective envy and admiration, as he steps up to lead, bringing his skills and network to the fore, getting his hands dirty alongside his fellow residents to turn Bamutakudde into a model village.
In the videos he has shared so far, I might have missed it but there is not a gun in sight, yet the village is enthused about Serwanjja’s model. Serwanjja has demonstrated that trusted leadership attracts value.
On his social media accounts, Serwanjja has unveiled a beautiful expansive green space, donated by a community member. As we oohed and aahed over Bamutakudde’s leafy community space, Serwanjja showcased a quaint cleaning day in his village that culminated in tree-planting.
While we were gawking open-mouthed at the tranquility oozing out of Bamutakudde’s cleaning day, a coffee promoter has offered to set up a model coffee plantation in Bamutakudde!
Based on this nascent Bamutakudde experience, people actually want the soft life of good things and are willing to put in the work under a leadership that gets down into the trenches with them. Lee Kwan Yew in his memoir, ‘From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000’, wrote, “If there was one formula for our success, it was that we were constantly studying how to make things work, or how to make them work better. I was never a prisoner of any theory…The acid test I applied to every theory or scheme was, would it work?… If it did not work, or the results were poor, I did not waste more time and resources on it. I almost never made the same mistake twice, and I tried to learn from the mistakes others had made.”
Dear Government of Uganda, a young man is dead, a breadwinner, a husband, a father is dead. Cause of death: A bullet in the back due to National Cleaning Day. It is one life too many; it is madness and wholly indefensible, and should call for an immediate rethink of the implementation of the National Cleaning Day initiative.
smugmountain@gmail.com
The writer is a tayad muzukulu.