When people ask if I’m proud of Uganda, I say no, but that is not criticism on my part. I just can’t comprehend the concept of feeling pride for one’s country. I understand pride in a house, family, business, project, or anything you built. But a country is merely the place you were coincidentally born.
If you ask me if I am ashamed of Uganda, again I would say no. Every weakness you see in Uganda is present in most other countries. As bad as our situation appears, ask a person from Congo or Sudan; to them, this place is paradise. I just said I’m not ashamed of Uganda, but that was only true a month ago. The Soft Ground Wrestling scandal changed that stance slightly.
Soft Ground Wrestling is a Ugandan wrestling promotion based in Mukono. Think WWE, but instead of a glitzy arena with a fancy ring, you have bamboo poles held together with conventional ropes surrounding a square of dirt. The Observer recently highlighted SGW and its 35-year-old proprietor Daniel Bumba (aka Bumbash), a diehard wrestling fanatic who opened the place to arm the homeless and the orphaned with the skills to pursue a professional wrestling career.
Then I came across pictures of an SGW match, featuring WWE’s Mace and Monsoor (now AEW). It blew my mind. Before I could internalize the development, I learned that TNA’s Jordynne Grace had turned the promotion into a global sensation when she posted a video of an SGW match.
Within weeks, wrestling stars like Cody Rhodes and Will Ospreay had joined the conversation, not only promoting SGW’s GoFundMe campaign but also promising the organization a state-of-the-art wrestling ring.
I assumed that Rhodes wanted to ship a physical wrestling ring to Uganda. The only alternative was for the athlete to send SGW money, which they would use to construct the ring. But that seemed ridiculous. No one in their right mind would send cash to a random Ugandan called Bumbash.
It did not occur to me that celebrities like Rhodes might be unaware of Uganda’s reputation as a corruption-ridden hellscape. Ultimately, SGW received over $40,000 in donations, not including the van from Monsoor’s mother.
I don’t need to tell you what happened next. Bumbash claims that various fees ate into the donations and the final amount could not build the ring. He assured his critics that whatever was left would fund an office and food storage area.
However, those claims have yet to bear fruit. And unfortunately, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Initially, SGW was accused of misusing the $40,000 from the GoFundMe campaign. But then, Rhodes’ promise of a wrestling ring led to donors wiring money to a fan.
Guess what Bumbash did? He began threatening the fan in question, probably because he had been cut from the lucrative financial deal. To make matters worse, Bumbash told everyone he was using the van from Monsoor’s mother to deliver donations to the poor, only for Nova Talent Elevation Africa to reveal that the SGW van in question belonged to them. So what happened to the van from Monsoor’s mother? No one knows.
Oh, and Bumbash lied about his wrestlers being orphans and homeless kids. The more I learn about the scandal, the more embarrassment I feel; not because of the corruption but rather, the short-sighted stupidity of the Ugandans involved.
For a few months, SGW had the ear of the world. With the support of the industry’s biggest stars, they could have transformed SGW into an African wrestling juggernaut, possibly even courting and landing collaborative projects with the likes of WWE. They lost out on future earnings to secure short-term gains. So yes, right now, I’m a little ashamed of this country.
katmic200@gmail.com
inarticle} inarticle}
