Dislocated from plots of land that were in areas earmarked for oil exploration activities, these men had received compensation packages, which had been so sumptuous beyond their peasant imagination. Through these sumptuous packages, I have argued in our book, Before the First Drop, the government ruined their lives. But that is a story for another day.
There were many mindboggling stories. One story recounts an escapade involving one man who, upon receiving his package and overwhelmed by the size, had his ghosts of manhood awakened from where he had locked them for good. On the evening of receiving the first instalment of cash in his hands, he would proudly announce to his drinking buddies that that night he was travelling to Hoima town, and that night, without fail, “makende yangu nalala na wabibi wawili.”
More decently translated, the brother was announcing to colleagues that come rain or shine, this night, tonight, he had to sleep with two women. The story does not say whether he pulled through with his vow, but certainly he travelled to Hoima that night. But when we caught up with him a few years later, he was so traumatised to even tell his story.
I returned to this story when a friend recently shared with me that video of the speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Anita Among, cruising to parliament with two brand new Mercedes Benzes. Her personal machine without plates and the official machine, which had cost us Shs 1.8 billion.
It is an old video, but with an online exhibition about the crimes of the Ugandan parliament ongoing, the video has regained its currency. Didn’t Among in this video look like my friend from western Uganda? Isn’t such behaviour a recipe for disaster – a possibility of falling out of favour for being too much?
These questions roared through my head.Yes, like that brother in the oil rich region, Anita Among had only recently fallen in things. This was the time when she had been enthroned as Speaker of Parliament. She seemed to have wanted to show the world that she had arrived – and can afford a two-some with vehicles!
That image of her dusting her hands after getting off the wheels of a brand-new Mercedes were telling enough. In our dingy eateries and bars that evening, we were furious, not much at her wastefulness of government resources, but that she was going about it the wrong way – with too much noise and fanfare.
While it is undeniable that everyone with any political office is greedily eating the country away, Speaker Among’s exhibitionism makes her eating manners insensitive to the rest of us hungry folks.
ATUVUGA SIPIIDI!
Before the country would get over her two Mercedes Benz affair, Speaker Among would shock the country by displaying a palatial country home in Bukedea. Where does Anita Among get her money from? In what businesses is Anita Among involved in outside politics to afford all this lavishness?
All we know is that she is a politician – perhaps Museveni’s most favourite speaker and deal-maker. Thus, she almost has unlimited access to the national purse. Then, before we could get over the palace in Bukedea, again from “personal resources,” Among unveiled her teaching hospital located in her town.
The facility, we are told, is equipped with an emergency unit, laboratory, X-ray, theatre, maternity ward, and general ward. Again, from where did she get all these monies?
Before we would fully recover from this, we learned that she is entitled to $4,000 per day of annual leave, and her annual leave is two months. But that wasn’t all, that together with her husband, Moses Magogo, these love-birds spent a whooping Shs 600 million on annual leave in Nairobi. We know it is the system that enables all this extravagant lifestyle, but Anita is driving us too fast.
IT IS THE EXHIBITIONISM
Again, under Yoweri Museveni’s regime of politics, everyone is enjoying themselves. Everyone with political office has that one job of finding an easy way of fleecing the national purse without getting caught. But Anita Among has that annoying, irritating aura of exhibitionism, and arrivalism that has sadly put her under the eye of the storm.
Consider, for example, that while both speaker and deputy speaker fleeced the country of a combined Shs 2.4 billion for vehicle procurement, there was no drama about bwana Thomas Tayebwa.
He ate his in silence – as many others have always done. It is true that some things cannot be left hidden for long (like a building or a vehicle). But exhibiting them, throwing them in front of a deprived population makes for dangerous business.
If there is anything I have learned from observing Kampala’s Stealing Community, it is that they eat in silence. If they own property, their ownership can only be speculated about, but can never publicly claim it.
Our sister from Bukedea needs to bring herself to speed.
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University
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