Beware of the snake charmers of the travelling market

I was once robbed at a travelling market. Well, not exactly robbed – because I was a willing participant – but I was fleeced of my money at a travelling market when I played that gambling game, kano kakyamu, kano katuufu (This one is wrong, this one is correct).

You know that game where they flip cards and you have to guess the right one by placing your money on top of the card with the possible right flowers? (They mostly looked like flowers). Once you got it right, the gambler doubles the amount you deposited on the said card.

On that fateful day, I bet twice and ended emptying my pockets at once. All my bets were wrong. I must have been about thirteen, and had been sent to buy myself a pair of socks for school was beginning next Monday. As the gambler pocketed my money, I tried to grab his hand, wailing and telling the world he was a thief.

No one believed me because no one had invited me to his stand. I would learn later that those whom I had seen beating the gambler – guessing the right card correctly and winning – weren’t really random players; they were part of the set. They were baits that caught unsuspecting folk into trying it out.

But the chief gambler always wins because the game is rigged from the beginning. More recently, I overheard a boda rider rebuke his friends whether they really believed “Omuyindi would come from wherever he came to set up a betting hall to make you rich? Idiots!” he had concluded.

I was once that idiot, and now I perfectly understand that in gambling, the gambler-in- chief always wins. The understanding that this game is rigged from the beginning has never left me. And this is the image I have when I think about elections under autocratic governments – or maybe specifically elections in Museveni’s Uganda.

The game is rigged from the beginning, but th entire country, like a pack of countryfolk, will want to play to compete and beat the gambler-in-chief. Every season – after five years – we are bated into playing this game.

There are folks who actually appear to beat the chief gambler – at different levels: local councils, parliament, and others. While these winners are not necessarily set up by the gambler-in-chief, after their ‘victories’, they are soon given roles in this painful script. But at the end of the day, only for the country to end up in an even deeper sinkhole.

These ‘winners,’ who tend to become the opposition, become the next set of baits that ensure continuity of the game on when they next appear in town. But as the wananchi conclude the game, we shall be crying our way back home.

The cycle is repeated on the following season, in the same square, and same format and new unsuspecting folks are robbed. There is no recourse for complaint because the market appears once a month, and when it next appears, there are often many new players – except the gamblers and snake charmers.

The carnival of Akatale k’omubuulo

If you have never attended akatale k’omubuulo, like folks born in major cities and town, where markers are more permanent, I need to paint a picture for you. It is often a carnival atmosphere. There are circus performers, magicians and snake charmers. There are tricksters and gamblers.

There are gazers – folks shopping with only their eyes. And there are thieves and pickpockets. Music would be blaring in one corner, and if you are lucky, there could be an open or closed dance party, ekikiri, as darkness arrives – going late into the night.

For a villager – which is most folks in Kampala, newcomers to these electoral things – this atmosphere is confusing. It is a mixture of market and entertainment. You have to guess not just the right product, but what exactly took you to that market. There are merchants selling legit products, many selling fake ones or simply stolen from elsewhere.

You cannot miss this image of politicians making all sorts of promises in Uganda’s politics. Some of these promises are simply wild, and others are achievable. And the entire election atmosphere actually feels like akatale k’omubuulo. Everybody is here.

Thieves, snake charmers, tricksters, and all of them are shouting at the top of their voices, claiming to have a legitimate business or legitimate products. In truth, the majority are thieves. Since the snake charmers and tricksters tend to deceptively grab the biggest crowds, these are often the kings of the market squares. They never lose.

It is funny how these two elected to work in the same corner. The snake charmer empowers you with his magic charms, and the trickster robes you of your hard-earned income. Look, I am not against travelling markets.

The problem is that once robbed – or sold a fake product – the victim has nowhere to complain because the market will only return the following month and might have entirely new sellers.

The day I was robbed, as my father was lashing me for being stupid, I considered returning the next month to burn down that entire market. No wonder, the more societies grow, travelling markets simply disappear.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.