He was not a poor man. That is what hurts most.
When his back started aching, this son of Tooro did not sit to boil herbs. He did what any Ugandan with money does.
He went to those big hospitals in Kampala. Cold air-conditioning at the door, glass door that opens by itself, polite English at reception, and a bill that can kill faster than disease.
He paid. They laid him on the table. Switched on X-ray and MRI. Then a good Ugandan doctor looked at the films and said words that should shame us: “We see nothing.”
Think about that night. 2 am. Pain sitting on your spine like a stone. You have paid, and a seemingly qualified man tells you your pain is not there. He was dying. And Uganda could not see it.
Because he had money, he got what 45 million Ugandans never get – a chance to know what is killing you. He bought a ticket to Nairobi. In Nairobi there is a machine. It does not care if you are minister or boda rider. It does not speak Luganda or Runyoro. It just sees.
PET scan. That machine did not say “we see nothing.” It said “I see cancer eating your bones.”
One year later, he was dead. But at least he died with a name for his pain. How many die daily without knowing the name? How many mothers in Bududa are told “it’s just back pain” until they cannot stand? The Observer wrote on X post we should nail on every government gate: “A PET scan costs about $3m (Shs 11.7bn) or approximately 17 Land Cruisers.” Seventeen. Not 100. 17!
Picture 17 white Land Cruisers in a line. Brand new, smelling of plastic. Each costing over Shs 650 million. Each to carry one man from mansion to office. Now picture one cold room in Mulago with one machine. Same price as 17 cars. No fuel allowance. No per diem.
No driver. It will work 15 years, day and night, telling 45 million Ugandans “I see something, we can save you.” Between 17 cars and 45 million lives, we chose cars. Go to any district on a Tuesday morning. Check the parking.
RDC, Deputy RDC, DISO, CAO, LCV Chairman. New Land Cruisers. Dusty tyres, shining roofs, washed with taxpayer money. We buy them every year. No MP says no because every MP wants one. But a PET scan for the whole Republic, from Kisoro to Karamoja? Zero.
How do we tell the mother sleeping on the floor in Mulago that we can buy a car for a man who attends funerals for the President, but cannot buy a machine that would have seen her cancer when it was small as a groundnut?
Uganda is not poor. Uganda spends wrongly. Okot p’Bitek warned us in Song of Lawino: “Ocol says he is a modern man… But he has forgotten how to carry his own mother who is sick.”
That is us. Vision 2040, glass buildings, but we forgot our sick mother. Mary Karooro Okurut writes in The Price of Our Silence: “A country does not collapse when thieves steal. It collapses when honest people watch thieves and learn to clap.”
When did we learn to clap for convoys? A Land Cruiser serves one person. On our roads, four to five years, then scrap. Fuel Shs 400,000 weekly, driver Shs 1m monthly, tyres, service.
In five years, over Shs 1 billion. It cures nothing. A PET scan serves 45 million people. It lasts 10-15 years. One specialist. In 15 years, hundreds of thousands scanned. Catch cancer early, treatment is 10 times cheaper.
No land sold. No flights to India. It pays itself in under two years. One is vanity. One is life. Why vanity? Because in Uganda power must be seen. Karooro calls it “The theatre of power” in When the Drums Stop Beating.
A minister without a convoy feels naked. A PET scan is quiet, in a basement. So, to leaders, it is useless. And the ugliest part: The man who signs for 17 more Land Cruisers will never suffer his decision. When his back aches, he won’t queue at Kiruddu at 4 am.
His secretary will call Entebbe and be flown business class to Nairobi, London, India. He will lie in the machine his government refused to buy. They privatized survival. Patriotism is for the poor to die for. Treatment is for the rich to fly for.
When your father dies, they will come in V8s, give you Shs 500,000, and drive away in the car that would have been his machine. And we will say “Thank you Mheshimiwa.” Okot p’Bitek says in Song of Ocol: “The pumpkin in the old homestead must not be uprooted!” Our pumpkin is compassion. We uprooted it and planted Land Cruisers where we should have planted life. Until we see a convoy and feel anger, not awe.
Until we see a hospital with no drugs and feel shame. Until we choose one machine that sees cancer over 17 cars that see nothing… We will keep driving in first-class luxury to bury our people in third-class graves.
mukphix@gmail.com
Ehhh. And by reading this, you feel that heaven should open and engulf every existing creature that still crawl in the earth. We have really suffered in the the hands of these blood thirsty men. Please help us lord
I am reading this with a heavy heart and teary eyes not because I have conjunctivitis, no! But because it touches and tackles our problems as a population that has been reduced to begging in our own country.
We pay high taxes so we could be governed well and receive good service delivery, but those we put in charge seem not to care about our plight.
For heavens sake, what is 11.7 billions compared to the 10+ trillions that our certified thieves take yearly??
As I was reading, I kept asking myself a question: why is it had for those in the leadership of our country to see these issues as addressed in this article?? Or is it a deliberate move?
This has touched me. Indeed from life experience. Sharp pain the chest. Body shivering. Huge amount of sweats and finally collapsing only to wake up in a hospital. Several checks including eco, endoscopy, contracted scans etc plus lots of blood samples but all results saying you are normal. It hurts and also pains when you expect a Dr to tell you that such is killing you only to be told that you are normal. I really wonder who cursed our nation. Indeed Uganda is Ekula!
Thanks Philips Mukama. It the typical culture of poverty when the poor, brought up in surplus poverty and uncultured in Aristocracy, suddenly “fall into things” like Chris Obore fell into.
E.g., in Japan where these luxury vehicles are made, NO MP, Cabinet Minister and/or Civil servant drive and/or driven in such monstrous vehicles. Whoever does, is frowned at because only Mafias (Yakuza) use such vehicles, and owing to the illicit source of the money.
Even Business or company CEO never use such luxury vehicles!
In Germany where the Benz in manufactured, NO MP, Cabinet Minister and/or Civil Servant drive, or driven is Luxury Mercedes Benz. Even the Chancellor is chauffeured in Pullman which our PROBLEM OF AFRICA and the Speaker and his/her deputy elbow out in.
In the UK, NO Prime Minister, Mayor of London, Speaker of Parliament, etc. even think of riding in a Roll Royce, and the Luxury Land/Range Rovers that our social climber politician show off with their primitive accumulation of dirty wealth/luxury.
E.g., before he became the UK Prime Minister, and even as Mayor of London, in frigid Winter; Boris Johnson rode to office on an ordinary shopping bicycle, fitted with a front basket!
All these austere (simplicity) are because, it is the culture of politicians being and/or civil servant cultured in becoming SERVANTS and NOT MASTERS.
No wonder our 87-years-old PROBLEM OF AFRICA, Gen Tibhaburwa told us off that he is neither our SERVANT nor EMPLOYEE.
In other words, we are his slaves. Otherwise, in a democracy, if anybody wants to ride in luxury car/s, go into business and pay for it, fuel and service it yourself. BUT NOT from taxpayers, sweat, blood and/or tears money.
Even as our former colonial Masters the Brits Administrators used the Official and Basic Land Rovers that are parked before 5:00pm at Office Premises and/or Police Station when in the field NOT at personal HOME or anywhere else. E.g. Although Kabaka Mutesa II had a Rolls-Royce the Governor Did have one!
I meant Even the German Chancellor is NOT chauffeured in Pullman!