Walking down memory lane - Part II

JINJA ROAD - I stand at the new Kitgum House junction for a couple of minutes to catch my breath. I remember the old round-about, with its power substation and shrubs and wonder why it has taken us several years to realise that round-abouts are an inferior form of traffic control only useful for one-street towns.

The junction is new but driving habits die hard. There is a express lane down from Garden City for motorists headed out of the city towards Jinja road but this is clogged by cars trying to sneak back into the lane for cars headed towards Mukwano! I look up and see the cameras installed as part of the CHOGM package and wonder hwo they are supposed to work. They don't seem to be pointed at the cars, so they are not really traffic cameras, and I don't think anyone gets their pockets picked at a busy junction. Well, you never know.

I turn off towards Jinja road and walk past the Centenary Park, set up in the 90s to commemorate 100 years of Kampala's existence. My mind goes back several years when an Egyptian circus, called AKEF or something similar, came to town and set up giant tents with acrobats, fire-eaters and other same such. That circus, opened by no less than President Museveni, was part of our coming out party as a country -- not out of the closet mark you, but out of survival mode to party mode. Those were the days of Lucky Dube's mega-concerts, of travelling Congolese music troupes with catchy Lingala tunes we could sing word-for-word but did not understand, of bleached female dancers with gyrating waists and who seemed to glow in the dark. Those were the heady days of partying, or lotteries, of stunt men kissing or groping cars to see who had more staying power and would be able to tell off the rest: Hands off my Hyundai. Those were the days when Sanyu FM was Sanyu FM; when Dance Force still had the force; when Rasta Rob was on the M.I.C; when motorsport was still popular -- and competitive and was often flagged off here. Ah, those days!

The park has now been privatised and commercialised; children pay to use the playing area and the green spaces have been shared out by restaurants and pubs. The jungle that once was the back end of the park is now being replaced by a concrete jungle.

I walk past the crowd waiting for rush hour taxis, at the stage by the park and wonder why some of them -- especially those spotting pot bellies -- do not just walk home. I get to the Celtel roundabout, which I hear was supposed to make way for a junction but got a stay of execution because it would be too disruptive and, also, I hear, because someone needed the money to complete some urgent personal projects. Mbu!

As I go round the 'bout, I look up to the Celtel House, once one of the swankiest office blocks in town and still a looker, and remember the days when mobile phones in Uganda were called 'Celtels'. They were not for everybody, mark you. One needed about $2,500 just to get connected and hundreds more dollars in monthly bills. One also needed to take out a gym subsription in order to be able to lug around the heavy bricks they handed out as mobile phones -- in reality payphones in disguise.

I could never have afforded a 'Celtel' even if my life depended on it, and when MTN came to town, I remember close family members admonishing me for 'wasting money' on a mobile phone. As I walk past Celtel House, I chuckle, remembering how, one after the other, the sceptics all took to mobile phones and how the ubiquitous they have since become.

I walk up past the Internal Affairs ministry and the passport office, and recall the days when passports took months to come and had entries at the back for you to register foreign exchange purchases. Those were before the days of a certain man called Sudhir Ruparelia and Red Fox Foreign bureau and Crane Forex bureau whose 'Growing to serve and serving to grow' might easily be the longest-running radio ad known to me.

The cars are now zooming past me much faster but the sidewalk, made ready for CHOGM, is a reassuring presence underfoot. Across the road, the British American Tobacco factory roof has been given a fresh coat of paint but the smell of tobacco still lingers in the air, as do memories of the street bashes they brought to down with their Benson and Hedges brand, skirting bans on direct advertising with enticing and rowdy street shows outside Club silk.

The new Ange noir club still towers over the daytime din and bustle of industrial area as well as the night-time commerce -- legal and otherwise -- and cacophony of catcalls, thumping music, drunken arguments, etc. I am reminded of the days of sneaking out school to come party at Club Silk or Ange Noir often armed only with the entrance fee and transport back to school -- sometimes not! I recall the smarter boys who, tired of spending their pocket money on club entrance fees, invested in duplicate stamps and ink. The clubs would have two different stamps and one group member would pay, have their wrists stamped, come out and compare notes. The appropriate stamp would then be retrieved and, for a small fee to recover the initial investment and to cover finance and other charges, would be administered to willing members. Until the clubs introduced glow-in-the-dark ink we couldn't find in the shops.

I am almost lost in thought when a car turning into the Jinja road police station almost runs over me.

To be continued.

Down memory lane -- and Nile Avenue

KAMPALA - I had not walked along the streets in a long time, save for the ocassional forays from the office into the town to pick up my mail, get my hair cut or meet people close to the CBD. With the traffic jams in Kampala, you either walk or crawl along in the car, feeling stupid.

Anyway, I am talking about walking home from town. When I was much younger, one of our favourite holiday pastimes was walking. Just leisurely taking in the five kilometres from home into the city centre to window shop and immerse ourselves (me and my big brother -- not he of the House) into the hustle and bustle of the city.

The walking had to be calculated to take advantage of short cuts, such as that through the golf course, that offered good scenery and the chance to pick up goodies like stray golf balls (which we'd try, unsuccessfully, to crack open). The walk also had to have strategic resting points, preferably relatives, close and otherwise, who were gainfully employed and who, as we hoped, would be willing to offer lunch and some pocket money. Two such relatives worked at the UTC bus terminal near Owino market so this was a popular stop for us. One a good day, you'd be taken inside the giant garages and offered lunch, usually large chunks of meat, which you ate close to the parked buses, the acrid diesel fumes mingling with those from the giant saucepans as the afternoon heat sent streams of sweat down the neck and beyond.

After lunch there'd be pocket money and a free ride home on the bus -- you only had to tell the conductor 'I am a staff member's son' and in most cases you'd have been introduced beforehand.

Other days were not so lucky. You'd arrive at the bus terminal only to learn that John, one of the two, was away in Fort Portal or Mubende and would not be back for at least two days. A frantic search would then ensue for Stephen, the other, only for you to learn that 'he's just left on bus number 5 for Ibanda (or some such place).

It was on one of the good days that we were "shown Kampala" as we say in, well, Kampala. Sweaty but well-fed and armed with a stash of cash, we descended on Owino market to buy swimming costumes (no sniggering in the back; most of the shops sold bitenge anyway, and I have not seen kitenge swimming costumes -- although as I have not been to DR Congo.....). Anyway, on the way in, we encountered a small crowd and, naturally curious, drew closer to see what the fuss was all about. A man, seated on a stool, had a small table infront of him on which he'd lain a large piece of cardboard and had three poker cards; two black, one red.

He would lift one of the cards, show its face the crowd, turn it back onto the board and shuffle them around. "Throw your money onto the red card and I'll double it," he shouted above the market din. By this time we'd squeezed through the crowd and were now right in front of the action. A man to our left threw some money onto a card.

The 'dealer' lifted it, turned it round and it was red. He reached into his pocket, counted the money the man had thrown and gave him back twice the money. Our minds were now racing. We could double our money instantly! Imagine the endless possibilities; not one, but two -- no; make that three -- swimming costumes each, houses in Kololo, etc.

Making sure our eyes did not leave the card last identified as red, we watched the shuffling intently until the dealer called for the ante. We both agreed it was the middle card and threw our stash on the card. In a flash, the dealer reached down, grabbed our stash of cash and put it in his pocket. Then he picked up the card to the right and showed us the face. It was red. Like our faces. We tried to appeal the decision. We demanded to see the colour of the card we'd picked or else...

He quickly shuffled the cards and muttered under his breath: "mwagala tulemesa kunywa butunda?" which translates easily to 'f*ck off you tw*ts'.

I remembered that story and other childhood moments as I walked out of the Crested Towers into the fading afternoon sunlight. I remembered, vaguely, coming here when my dad still toiled away as a civil servant. I remembered the brown and ugly facade of the building which reminded me of Buganda Road primary school uniforms and the precarious lifts. I wondered about the renovation that turned the brown into blue, the time bombs of the lifts into swanky and efficient machines, and wondered to myself whether anyone would ever investigate the renovation, whose costs were more than double by the time they reopened the new building.

I walk down Nile Avenue and look across to where Shimoni Demonstration School and Teacher Training College once stood. The students were thrown out several months ago to make way for a hotel that was, some reports claimed, supposed to be built to host CHOGM delegates. I can see white tents in the distance and there is frantic activity. CHOGM has come to town, all right, but this is just an exhibition. The hotel will or will not be built at HRH's pleasure. After all, HRH is the fifth richest man in the world and he just bought himself an Airbus380 Jumbo jet. I wonder why the kids had to be dislocated, so to speak, before the hotel plans were ready to go.

As I walk down towards the Garden City round-about, I notice that at least the 'other hotel' right next to Garden City, is going up in the wetland. Did I say wetland? Yes; there once was a wetland there and I remember, as recently as three years ago, playing football in this park on Sunday afternoons. Most of it is now gone, its legs forcefully spread open to allow concrete pillars and coffee parlours.

Across the park, I notice that the trees that lined the Shimoni fence have been cut down, allowing muddy sludge to spill over into the newly-paved road. Were the trees not ready for CHOGM? Does development always have to come at environmental cost? I am lost in thought and almost get run over by a truck as I approach the Kitgum House junction.

To be continued...

Asking for long-overdue credit

THE TOWER - A month ago, Ben Oluka, a brilliant young journo on my team brought a shocking story. Uganda's Attorney General was asking to write off 1.2 trillion shillings (more than half a billion dollars) that Govt had lent, lost, or just could not recover. The sum was staggering and my cautionary radar went off. But little Ben is brilliant and rarely gets it wrong. Plus, he had a good set of sources and a chunk of the holy grail: the report itself, exclusive.

So we did the story, a brilliant cover piece. Two weeks later, the dailies, one after the other, carried the same story without any credit to the good old East African, or young Ben for breaking one of the biggest stories of the year. It is not the first time the dailies pick up the pieces after we've rammed first into a story, but this was one of the bigger ones and I felt rather shortchanged, on behalf of paper and boy, that not a line of credit was given. When we quote a story carried exclusively by the dailies, we always, to the best of my knowledge, to give them credit for breaking or scooping the field. That should be reciprocated. Sadly, the peculiarly adversarial nature of Uganda's journalism industry means the occasional tipping of the cap for the competition is unlikely to happen soon.

Anyway, the story has since filled column inches in all papers and save for an agonised response from Keith Muhakanizi at Ministry of Finance, it is business as usual in the Govt of Uganda. It is this indifference, this lack of public anger, this absence of civic or bureaucratic responsibility, that irks more than any missing compliments. How many stories have we (and I speak for the industry) done showing graft, incompetence, ineptitude or human rights violations? With the exception of the Mabira stories, how many outpourings of anger/concern/advice have we seen? Next to zilch. But then someone returns from the big brother house (without even winning the money) and people pour out into the streets to catch a glimpse of her, the Ethics Minister addresses the press on the matter and a celebrity is instantly born. I wonder how many people would recognise young Oluka on the streets.

Why Kalyegira needs a dayjob

WASH, D.C - Timothy Kalyegira is intelligent and industrious. His work (book and website) on the Uganda and Africa Almanac was ground-breaking and a useful compilation of historical facts that, sadly, have not been updated. Some of Tim's newspaper articles are very well informed and insightful, drawing on extensive research and scholarship. It is not uncommon, in the midst of a discussion or a radio debate, for Tim to quote Newsweek of 1983 or a BBC broadcast from 1973 or thereabouts. But Tim, like many of us, has his moments of madness. The only difference is that while we spew our madness into cyberspace, Tim does so through a national newspaper. How I wish Tim would use that space to construct, rather than destruct and distract!

I have been meaning to write and respond to one of his regular themes but had not found the time to do so until now. Just before I started writing this I read a piece by Jenkins Kiwanuka questioning Tim's demands for someone -- anyone -- to produce evidence that Idi Amin killed more than 600 people during his reign. Tim is right to note that some of the claims about Amin have been exaggerated -- but to use these broad brushes of inexactitude to try and gloss over the canvas of Amin's terror is mischevious at best and provocative at worst. Amin could have killed 5, 10 or 100,000 people but those would still be people he need not, should not, have killed. Tim has not provided the list of the 600 (or less) that he believes Amin killed; why then does he want or expect others to do the harder job of listing the 300,000 that are often quoted?

I think Tim would serve his readers better if he used his research skills to find out the exact (or approximate) number of people Amin killed -- and the whereabouts of their remains for those who are still listed as missing -- to allow friends and family find closure, not dance on their presumed graves in a mathematical tango of indifference and pedantry.

While Tim calls for scientific proof on Amin's murders on one hand, he, on the other hand, holds out encounters with a 'seer' about events that are likely to happen in the region, as truths that he holds to be self-evident!. Beyond the obvious contradictions between science and speculation, readers are subjected to doses of latter-day Nostradamus-like posturing by an unnamed oracle! Should we, really, not watch the weather forecast or carry out economic research because we have seers to tell us what next year's inflation rate will be (come rain or shine) and which countries will go to war? This from a guy who compiled an almanac and who says, in his latest column, that the most brilliant Ugandan is Fred Guweddeko, a researcher? Tim!

I, of course, have my own thoughts about that matter of brilliance (the original Daily Monitor stories on the matter, which were flaccid and insipid, spoke of the most powerful/influential Ugandans so this rejoinder was a comparison of apples and oranges) but let me say that while brilliance is relative, authorship of a letter speculating about possible motives for the presumed poisoning of a government civil servant do not hold much sway in my stable, but to every man his own.

More troubling for me, however, of all the things that Tim writes, is his regular theme on higher education, particularly that pursued by Ugandans abroad. In a nutshell (at least the way I understand it), Tim says Ugandans go abroad for master's degrees as a fad and that they have nothing to show for it in terms of changing the country when they return. This is a dangerous and false generalisation that needs to be exposed for the fallacy it is. Tim seems to have a problem, not only with higher education per se, but with higher education sought abroad, particularly in western universities. Tim has previously thumbed his nose towards Ugandans who go abroad for 'kyeyo' but these same folks keep people in school and food on tables in Uganda.

Of course many Ugandans who have gone for "further studies" in "outside countries" have ended up staying on, sometimes to do menial jobs that put to waste years of education. Others have returned to lives of crime, indifference or obscurity (or alcoholism, I hear some of you wags saying). But is a higher education to blame for these choices and other shortcomings? Why not encourage people to drop out of school at primary seven, then? Are the people who do their master's degrees at Makerere, Nkumba, etc., necessarily better than those who do them abroad? Does it even matter where you do it? And who says your degree is supposed to change the world? What of the hundreds who've used their opportunity to change/improve themselves and their families? Should they refund part of their scholarships or family contributions to their tuition because we still have no cure for Aids and still have a war in the north? Getting an MA or a PhD might not make you a better person or any smarter -- and it certainly won't change the world -- but neither will discouraging people from nurturing their aspirations and ambitions.

Tim is a smart fella and he ought to use his skills to do research to inspire people to work towards achieving their dreams. He does not need a PhD for that and while he might not change the world, he will change people's lives.

Here's to faster internet

GEORGETOWN, DC -- And so it came to be that the son of man (this version, not THE son of man) lay in his hotel room, recovering from jet lag and tried to take a nap in the afternoon with the aid of Mr Jack, Mr Daniels, and Ms Pepsi.

Many people have written to me wondering why I only blog sporadically. Looking through the posts, it appears that I seem to blog a lot when I am away from the office, which is understandable, considering the pressure of the job (hint hint, boss: pay rise). There is something about going away, from home, from the office, that allows one to think and, time and resources allowing, write about what they see and what they miss. Part of it is the loneliness, having so many hours to kill at airports and in hotels. Damn, I got so much time on my hands today, I even went out of my way and signed up to Facebook, all my misgivings notwithstanding! However, several times it is just the speed of the internet.

Several times I have tried to blog at home or in the office only for the internet to go off. Other times I have written extensively and hit the 'publish post' button, only for the damn thing to go off. We really need to do something about the speed and reliability of our internet connectivity in good ol' UG!

Anyways, gotta get some shut eye. Before I go, a few snippets about what's going down here: George W is hosting the Dalai Lama down the street at 1600 Penn. Ave, much to China's chagrin while there's worries about immigration, Russia's attitude towards the planned US missile defence shield (and Iran), as well as the price of oil which is flirting higher and higher and is expected to hit the $100-a-barrel mark soon!

The sun was out earlier and I was tempted to do one of my favourite things in Georgetown; rent a bicycle and cycle along the Potomac river. It (the sun) is now behind clouds so will take a nap and hit the pub later.

Later, folks.

P.S When we return after the break: Why Timothy Kalyegira needs to find a day job!

Chewing funny mushrooms in Amsterdam

SCHIPHOL AIRPORT - Killing time. Trying to type as fast as possible so that I do not have to fork out another $10 for half an hour of internet time. Thankfully it is fast. A ferrari compared to the boda boda cyber cafes back in Kla.

Have not been to Schiphol before and it is like you would expect of any western airport. Went through Entebbe last night and noted that they are about done with laying the tiles. We are getting ready for CHOGM. And then? Will things fall apart soon after, having been hastily put together? Only time will tell. At least the guests will all be gone so it will be 'just Ugandans' to worry about.

Have tried to find one of those cafes that famously spice one's tea or coffee with stuff to send them high. Not that I would even contemplate trying it. Who me? Well, possession of small amounts is legal, but not sterner stuff. Just read a piece in the IHT (or was it the Guardian) on the plane about plans to make possession of 'funny mushrooms' illegal. See, while we go around eating mushrooms back home, here people eat some of the half-poisonous ones to get a high. There are reports of several deaths and injuries as people, high on mushrooms (lol!) jumped off buildings in the midst of hallucinations. Another guy drove his car through a campsite, although no one was injured.

If you hear of a guy who jumped out of a plane thinking the stewardess was trying to kill/kiss him, it would have been a good life (a good laugh, for you sadists).

Yours truly is off to DC, covering the IMF/World Bank annual meetings, and more. More about that and Georgetown -- oh, Georgetown -- if I am able to fight the temptation to jump.

D.K.K

P.S I am sure Dennis Matanda won't believe me posting more than twice in less than a month. Mid-life crisis or wanderlust/cyberlust? More about that, and Rwanda, soon.

Mosquitoes on a plane - scary

KIGALI - I thought 'Snakes on a Plane' was a bit scary, ish ish, although I liked the thrill. Had a similar experience Wednesday night on the small-plane ride to Kigali when I had to battle three mosquitoes for the 55-min flight. Of course I have grown up with moquitoes and know how to toss and turn -- but try doing that in a cramped, non-pressurised cabin with the propeller (yes, propeller; it was a tiny plane) roaring in your ears. More about Kigali soonish. Off to dinner then have early morning drive to Lake Kivu....

Orakoze Kyana! Or something like that

Earning an honest wage – yeah right!

KAMPALA - Why is it next-to-impossible to find honest contractors in Uganda? Of course we know that government wastes a lot of our taxes on all sorts of schemes, school children are thrown out of their schools, buildings are razed and the ground is let to fallow, awaiting some hotelier to make up his mind. We know that people displaced by war are given rotten seeds when they finally get to return to their homes, complete with flexi-pangas to help them till the land and start new lives. We know all that, and more.

What irks me the most are the smaller things; the micro-corruption, the cutting corners that we are subjected to daily – and not from Mr Government, which is too busy carving out plots, parcels and projects. Several months ago, one of the panes in my living room window broke. No, I have not been throwing stones and I do not live in a glass house, you desperate pun-hunters. The pane intercepted a rock cast by kids playing in the grass below. It fought a good fight, the pane, but ultimately suffered a fatal blow that left a huge gaping hole.

After unsuccessfully asking the estates manager to fix the pane (part of their contract, by the way) for several weeks, I took matters into my own hands, identified a fella who was fixing a window somewhere in the estate and paid him to fix mine. I paid for the cost of a new pane, his labour, and money to hire a ladder. He turned up the next day with one of his mates and they started fixin’ it up. In the course of holding down the glass in the frame, his mate broke it. Just like that.

I told the fella that it was his responsibility and that he should buy a replacement pane as the breakage was his fault. He mumbled something under his breath, climbed down from the ladder and went away, his mate in tow. They returned, all right, in the dead of the night, and carried away their ladder. My window is still undone. Even the shattered bits that offered some respite from mosquitoes and the elements were knocked down.

A few weeks later, in a moment of madness, and against my better judgement, I reinstalled satellite television. The crew turned up, and installed the dish smack right over my neighbour’s, blocking out his signal. When I called them back the next day, they said it was my fault, living in a flat. Or not seeing my neighbour’s dish. Or subscribing to satellite television. Whatever. It somehow had to be my fault. So they grumbled, moved it to a new spot and asked me to pay an installation fee. I refused but offered Shs10k as their transport refund. Two days later, the signal was off; they had unscrewed a bit off the dish and rainwater had now poured in, literary drowning the signal. I had to get a new crew to replace the missing bits.

Three other episodes come to mind. The first, involving a boda boda. One of those crazy days when the roads are all blocked, getting them ready for CHOGM, I am running terribly late for an appointment so I do the natural thing; park my car by the roadside, jump onto a boda and ask him to whisk me as fast and as safely as is wistfully possible, to my destination. After my appointment, I grab another boda and ask him to take me to my car. We get there. I get off. I ask him what the fare is. “Shs1,500,” he says. So I hand him two thousand-shilling notes and turn to open the car door, holding out my hand for my change (note: change, NOT balance, people!). I turn back to see the fellow speeding off on his boda, confident in the fact that I am not likely to chase him down the road screaming thief. That is what dressing up like a ‘corporate’, complete with flash disc hanging down your neck does to you. It soothes the primal instinct out of you.

Another time, another scene; a roadside roast meat market in Kamwokya, a Kampala suburb. I park by the roadside and a fella dutifully comes to the car and takes my order. He returns 10 min later with the sizzling meat, packed to go. “That will be Shs8,000,” he tells me. I give him a Shs10k note. “Let me bring your change,” he says, and walks away. I wait. One minute. Then five. Then 10. Then it becomes clear; the only change the fella is getting is a change of scene for the rest of the evening, or until, as happens in another minute, I drive off.

I could go on and on – just don’t get me started with the car mechanic who got his house up to foundation level by inflating the cost of spare parts which the car seemed to need every time it had to go in. “Anti this is a German car,” he’d announce, until the day I rejoined “and I am a Ugandan employee” and found a new mechanic.

Why can’t people do an honest day’s work and earn an honest wage? Maybe it’s me putting too much trust in people; not holding the boda guy by the scruff of the neck – just in case – while he found a coin for my change; holding the bottom of the ladder and telling the window man I would pull it away if he did not somehow get an accomplice to bring a new pane.

Maybe everyone is doing it and I just came late to the party. You just have to read the papers and learn of folks bottling tap water in mineral water bottles, supermarkets recycling goods by printing new expiry dates and sticking them over the old, expired ones, etc. I guess everyone is stitching someone else up somewhere, somehow. This thought has just brought shocking images of what chefs, having been cheated out of their change by boda boda riders on their way to work, might be doing in revenge. Let’s just say that I am eating in today.

Enjoy a stitch-free day.

Of wine that matures after 3 days and saving for a rainy day

KAMPALA - Rachaal M, who I hadn't seen in a bit, reminded me to update my blog. She said it was bad for image, the stale news. I didn't know she read my blog. Then Dennis 'Agony Uncle' Matanda posted a comment. As did Ernest 'Buzz' Bazanye, who enjoys the company of such illustrious literary luminaries like John O'Farrell and Jonathan Safran Foer among my favourite writers. Bannange, I didn't know that celebrities 'whom we read about in the newspapers' read my blog!

Anyway, the last time I blogged (or is it blag?) we was down under, drinking fermented grape juice and enjoying uncharacteristically warm weather in Grahamstown/Jo'burg. Everything went swimmingly until the day before we left when one of the guys from Zimbabwe, having had three too many, imagined that I had said something positive about Mugabe and wanted to 'take it outside'. As the bus was actually in motion, that was not a possibility but I offered to beat him up the next morning if he had the time. It did not matter that I threw him this gauntlet from behind the locked door of my room...

On a more serious note, such is the pain and suffering that the guys from Zimbabwe are going through, that while the rest of us went around shopping for some fine South African wine, the guys were stocking up on soap, toothpaste (Colgate, if you are Ugandan), sugar, salt and other groceries to take back home! This breadbasket-to-basketcase story should end soon.

I did get my hands on a bottle of what looked like a good red and entrusted it with Elias, my travelling companion, seeing as he had chosen to leave his bag at the carousel after the flight from Port Elizabeth. (Mbu he thought they would bring it for him.) I planned to keep the wine for a couple of years, put it away on my 30th. You can imagine my horror, three days later when an ecstatic Elias called me to announce that his bag had finally arrived. Oh, and that he'd put away half of the wine in celebration!

Since he couldn't let my wine mature, I can't see how I can let him grow into a ripe old age. He is still in hiding and should stay there if he wants to propagate his family line.

While those ones are still there (translate), there is the news that the university admin at Makerere has dipped its hands into the staff savings scheme to pay lecturer's salaries. The lecturers are up in arms but should they be? First, the uni says that the money shall be put back into the scheme which, if the uni admin is anything like one or two of my friends, means it will switch off its phone, change numbers or refuse to take calls whenever the lecturers call. But the whole essence of saving is to prepare for a rainy day, right? So what is wrong with dipping into one's savings to pay for daily needs? We do it all the time, plus if you ask anyone from Teso or Karamoja, these are indeed rainy days!

Saving Africa's media one workshop at a time

GRAHAMSTOWN - After a long and ardous flight, in which we were not met, as expected, at Jo'burg or at Port Elizabeth, and in which overzealous cops at PE airport took us in to question why my visa for Mali (Yes, Mali!) did not have a picture attached (what am I supposed to do? Call the Malian embassy and inquire? For Chrissake the SA visa has NO photo!), we eventually got to Rhodes University, Grahamstown for this annual pilgrimage of African ICT journalists.

It is the first one I am attending but it seems like half of Kampala's newsrooms are empty, going by the number of Ugandan hacks I have run into in the three hours I have been here! Robert Kabushenga, the New Vision honcho, is here too, and this morning, I am told, held sway in a discussion on professionalism in the media (Yes!). I tried to dig snippets from 'Robbo' in the bus on the way from lunch (a very insipid affair, that) but we had to part ways just as the discussion turned intellectual (basically, at what point do the interests of media owners, who Robbo represents, diverge from those of the journalists?). It shall certainly be continued, that conversation, over some South African grape juice!

There is a huge sense of deja vu when one attends these things; in the past year alone, I have sat in half a dozen such meetings across the world to discuss the problems in journalism. In some, solutions have been suggested, usually on the last day, but it appears that the zeal to implement is drained away by the flights home. Nothing seems to happen!

Nevertheless, there are some interesting discussions to look forward to; in particular one on Convergence and Print Media at which Phumelele Ntombela-Nzimande (SABC), Matthew Buckland (Mail and Guardian), and Arrie Rossouw (Media 24) will speak, tomorrow morning. Quality and professionalism then returns to the table, this time with a gender dimension before we talk about mobile technology and the future of journalism. Considering the growth of mobile phone access and use in Africa, this is one I certainly want to listen in to.

But now, it is off to find a room with a shower and a quick snooze. The night ahead, after all, is ours for the taking.

Sharp! sharp! (as we say down under...)

Frustrating

KAMPALA - After typing out close to a thousand words on the gay debate currently raging in Uganda, the computer f's up and I lose the lot. Moreover on a hot, humid wednesday afternoon. Here is what I meant to say: as long as it is between two consenting adults, I don't really care what goes on in people's bedrooms.

There is a difference between homosexuality and theft, murder, rape, paedophilia, necrophilia, female genital mutilation. If someone's actions do not violate other people's rights, their judgement should be left to God or whoever will be there to dispense justice on D-Day.

Pastor Martin Ssempa, who led the anti-gay demo, gave a brilliant quote, that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. But the idea that we should send cops to check out which courses people play their golf on is ludicrous. They should focus on the really important crimes and we have enough of those already. After all, even if your name is Adam, you are more likely to have your pockets rifled by the government's tax collectors than have your pants pulled down by a guy named Steve.

Needless to say, if you are reading this in jail or on your way there, you are not expected to pay tax -- although it is in your interest to watch your back, if you permit the flaccid pun.

Idle and Random thoughts from today's paper - Part I

KAMPALA - The New Vision reports that the government chemist will soon run DNA paternity tests for just $240. Appropriately, the scheme was launched by Vice President Gilbert 'Mahogany' Bukenya, who, readers of this blog would remember, apparently needs no reminding (or fancy test kits) to know which holes hold his mahogany seeds.

Timothy Bukumunhe, writing in the same paper, tells us about Miss Uganda beauty pageant contestants visiting the cancer unit at Mulago Hospital, complete with the girls, in sponsor's kits, talking to patients. Usually it is Sanyu Babies' Home. I personally fail to see what help these beautiful ladies are to terminally ill patients; give them a reason to try and fight on and enjoy the fine things in life?

Then Daily Monitor has a most surprising caption story on the cover, of more than 400 death row prisoners in Luzira attending a symposium on capital punishment. The prisoners were unanimous in their opposition to the death penalty. Hmn. What a surprise!

Oh, and then there is 'shocking' news that Pastor Kojo Nana, he of the electric shock gadget is wanted back home in Ghana for jumping bail. Could it be that he actually walked free with Ghanaian police too scared to touch him and bring him in lest they were shocked?

The way things are going, nothing is too shocking!

Mayor Ssebaggala throws money down the trash can, ex-President Binaisa talks trash

KAMPALA - I have heard of several cases of waste and public money going down the drain but the latest is quite something. It was reported today that the mayor of Kampala, Nasser Ntege Ssebaggala had spent Shs300 million (about U$185,000), supposedly of public funds, to plaster his face on new garbage cans in the city.

Kampala City Council has a waste-disposal problem on its hands and its efforts to collect and dispose of rubbish in the city are, if you will forgive the pun, rubbish. The usual excuse given is lack of money. So the donation of the trash cans by the advertising firm, Clear Channel, should help the council's efforts, right? Well, until they decide to spend as much on advertising the mayor's face on the cans as the damn things cost!

Why would anyone even want their faces peering out from soon-to-be overflowing trash cans? It is a bit trashy, if you ask me, and the mayor is scrapping the bottom of the barrel on this.

Which brings us to former president Godfrey Binaisa, he he ruled Uganda for about a year at the turn of the 80s, before fleeing abroad to run a very successful legal practice. He was sulking in the news, claiming his allowances, due to him as a former president were delayed and that his five-year-old Mercedes Benz is grounded in the garage over an unpaid bill of slightly more than $10,000.

I think it is ridiculous for us to keep handing out allowances to former leaders, especially those who (a) did little for the country and (b) have worked all their lives and should therefore have pensions or retirement eggs nestled away. The idea, that a guaranteed income after office would keep their hands out of the cookie jar is naive and idealistic.

Presidents are not that highly paid but when and how do they spend their money when all their needs are taken care of while in office? They should be encouraged to save their money for life after state house. I have nothing against Binaisa except when government sticks its hands in my pockets to buy him another walking stick or set of dentures.

ENDS

The logo no-go, Mohammed rising, drunk Bishops and other short stories

LONDON - And so it came to be that, having burnt a hole through his shallow pockets despite taking it slow in Oslo, the son-of-man made a quiet re-entry into good old London to find the sun still out and the pints still reasonably priced at less than a fiver!

The news last week was dominated by a few amusing tales. First was the debacle of the 2012 London Olympic logo that was unveiled with aplomb, only to bomb with the public. Like many folks, I was shocked to learn that this caricature (pictured) had been drawn at a cost of £400,000! Some said it had the markings of the infamous swastika. A more cheeky pundit said it looked like a woman performing fellatio on a bloke (you have to see the Olympic rings for her supposedly curly hair). Then the kicker; it was revealed that the animated version on the website could trigger epileptic fits and had, indeed, caused eight of such.

The Olympic organising committee appears to be sticking to its logo despite 48,000 protests online within two days, and despite several (in my opinion) better logos being sent in to newspapers by disgusted artists. One, which had me in stitches, showed the above logo being flushed down the drain, a funny metaphor of the sums in question.

To the news, then, that there is a new most-popular first name in Britain. Forget Jack, Nick, Tom, Dick or even Harry. Top of the naming tree is the Muslim name Mohammed, with its various spellings. The reason given to explain this is that the Muslim population in Britain is having more children and many obviously want to name their offspring after the prophet.

Considering that the average first-buyer has to fork out an average £180,000 or so for a one-bed house in the lower end of London's housing market, it is easy to see why many people are taking longer to have babies. A report in the papers also warned of slave-wages; young people who must work for a large chunk of their lives in the hope that their wages can pay off the mortgage. We've had our own over-heated housing (or rather land) market in Kampala and its environs which seems to be cooling at last. I just wonder what happened to the much-taunted mortgage scheme that President Museveni promised in his campaign manifesto to help younger people get onto the property ladder.

Was it just another flash in the pan? Or was it flushed down the pan? It is clearly raining puns here.

One show that has been scrapping the bottom of the barrel for a while now is Big Brother. I don't watch much TV, let alone wanna-be celebrities in C-lass reality tv shows but Big Brother UK was on the news after one of the contestants, Emily Parr, I think, was booted for referring to one of her Afro-British BB housemates as 'nigger'.

No word seems to hold as much potential for trouble. It is all around us in rap songs and many young Africans still use it amongst themselves, almost like an antidote against its racially-offensive and demeaning origins. It appears, however, that once spoken by a white person, it takes on intent and purpose, wildly bouncing off the walls like a noun possessed by an adjective.

It might be possessed by evil spirits or by the devil's juice. Tom Butler, the Bishop of Southwark in south London might have had a dose of both after having drinks at a Christmas party last year. It was reported that Butler had one glass of Portuguese wine too many and then set off a series of unfortunate incidents.

As he sssssshtaggered off in search of public transport, he came across a parked Mercedes, got into the back and started throwing toys out of the window. When he was accosted, he reportedly said: "I am the Bishop of Southwark; it is what I do".
He incurred the wrath of the car owner -- and cuts, bruises, and a black eye as he was thrown out. He was later seen sssshhtaggering away in the rather inappopriately named Crucifix Lane. No one remembers seeing him carry a cross. Sorry but nice try.

Somehow he got home without mobile phone, briefcase and other personal items and turned up in church the next day with a black eye and claimed he'd been mugged. After details started seeping through about his inebriation, the church called an investigation which was leaked last week by the Times.

It now appears that, in true Christian spirit, Bishop Butler has been forgiven and there shall be no more whining about the wine. Vintage stuff.

Red Indians and Negroes

OSLO - I just came out of a two-day dialogue we've been having on covering diversity in the media. The view from the venue, the Soria Moria resort up on a mountain overlooking the Norwegian capital, is stunning, but so have the revelations from journalists within the conference centre.

This dialogue, initiated by the governments of Norway and Indonesia, came out of the Prophet Muhammed cartoon controversy when angry Muslims across the world rioted and demonstrated to protest the appearance, in a Danish publication, of cartoons that they said portrayed the leader of their faith in bad light.

There is a new study out on the cartoon controversy and how it was covered in 14 countries across the world. It is a thickish document that I will read over the next coupla days, but the controversy showed how the media is struggling to catch up with globalisation.

Journalists are no longer writing for local audiences. A story written in Malawi can and will be picked up off the internet and read by people across the world. While it might not offend the sensibilities of local audiences, it sometimes can offend those of people for which it might not have been intended in the first place, as the cartoons appear to have done.

So hacks from about 60 countries have been sharing experiences on how to report diversity and not our differences. In otherwords, how to be sensitive to minorities and to other cultures and beliefs that may be different to our own.

On reflection, it reminds me of some of the stories carried in the Ugandan papers talking about an "Asian businessman" or describing people by their tribe, as if that can explain their actions. Sometimes it does (the unfortunate soul lynched by a mob during the anti-Mabira demonstrations appears to have been, at least in part, a victim of his Asian ethnicity. Most times, however, it is journalists and other commentators sub-consciously playing identity politics; seeking understanding in our differences, rather than accepting the diversity that the world thrusts upon us as it comes closer.

It will not happen overnight, neither will perceptions change so fast. On Monday night we were entertained by Queendom, a group of five young Norwegian women, all of African ethnicity with hilarious skits about immigration to Norway (a full review of the group will run in The EastAfrican later this month or early next). In one of their skits, they read from real stories run in Norwegian newspapers, including one in which a university professor, no less, addressed an African as a Negro.

Such overt and covert racism remains across the world and many of us have been on the receiving end (including a British cop who once racially insulted me and my brother in Tottenham as we tried to find a pub to watch a football game). The shocking thing is how it is perpetuated in and by the mainstream media.

I have always been irked by tke fact that the Arab-Israeli conflict appears in the international press almost everyday while conflicts in Burundi, DR Congo, Darfur, northern Uganda, etc, rarely do, despite the death toll being much higher in those places.

The answer is that the international media, a lot of the time, reports the news for and in the way their audiences (i.e people like them back in the west) want to see it. The emergence of alternative media outlets on the internet, through blogs and through al-Jazeera appears, at least in part, an attempt by other people to tell their stories their way.

Unless mainstream media can learn to cover diverse issues (and reflect the diversity of their audiences through their newsrooms and coverage), many audience members will seek their information elsewhere.

Oh, well, enough rambling. It is off to the SS Johanna for an evening sail from Rådhusbryggen through the fjords. Good food, free wine, a diverse cultural crowd and the sun that won't set until about midnight. Surely a man can enjoy a few such moments, no?

Taking it slow in Oslo

Overlooking OSLO - Summer has finally arrived in Norway. The glaciers are melting, the waterfalls are gushing, the fjords are full and ever-so-beautiful, and the sun is out in full force. Even London last week had some sun, lifting the gloom of the spring rains.

Over the weekend I did the Norway-in-a-nutshell run; train from the scenic Bergen to Voss, then a coach, ship and another train ride up to Flam and then another train back into Oslo. Very beautiful and scenic.

It is also extremely expensive; waiting for my flight to Bergen at the airport, I decided to have a beer -- Heineken. I had read the Lonely Planet guide to Norway and its warning about the cost but I was still shaken when the bill came to about 6 pounds. For a pint! I, quite frankly, can't afford it at that price and it is the last beer I am paying for (not drinking, mark you), until I return to lovely old London.

It is off the sun for a lunch of smoked salmon salad whilst overlooking the fjord down in Oslo. Later, I will try to remember what it is I am doing here and, hopefully, share.

The revolution and its children - Part II

KAMPALA - Former health minister Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi (seen here in this internet pix while still holding that office) returned to Uganda in the same way he'd left -- stealthily -- on Sunday night. One (seemingly credible) account suggests that he flew BA from Heathrow to Nairobi and then flew the last KQ flight into Entebbe on Sunday night, met his lawyers for several hours and presented himself for arrest on Monday morning.

At the time of writing, Muhwezi was still in Luzira prison from whence he says he is not in a hurry to apply for bail, that he is innocent, and that the real culprits in the embezzlement of part of a $4.3 million grant meant to immunise children will be revealed. Oh, he also draws comparisons between his predicament and that of Nelson Mandela who was jailed for 27 years for opposing apartheid ("Mandela is my hero, Muhwezi gushed, less than 27 hours after being remanded for theft, among other charges).

From his swagger on his way to court to his lake-side (jail) comments, Muhwezi has the confidence of a man with an ace up his sleeve. It is not clear whether Muhwezi intends to only clear his name in the matter or willing to bring down the roof at State House which has its fingerprints over the matter.

In my last post I expressed dismay (not as strongly as I could/should, but maybe old age is catching on) with the massive outpouring of support for the first two former ministers arrested, Mike Mukula and Alex Kamugisha, and of the former presidential aide, Alice Kaboyo.

It was shocking to note that people poured out to support the accused officials, not because they genuinely believe in their innocence, but out of indignation that the 'system' could turn against its own.

Muhwezi also condemned the raid at his house and questioned whether Museveni's government was doing the same things previous governments, which they fought, had done. In other words, the government is being measured, not for arresting and prosecuting former public officials, but for the high-handed manner of that arrest.

I suspect that corruption has become so endemic in our country that it has become a legitimate tool for the accumulation of wealth and power. The president is accused of stealing votes to retain power; ministers steal from their ministries as do the civil servants; policemen steal exhibits and demand for bribes from accused and accusers; NGO workers steal from their donors; MPs steal from the taxpayers, and so on. You can almost sense the public feeling that the ministers are the victims in this matter. There was almost no public uproar over the much-bigger Global Fund scandal because half the country appeared to have had its fingers in the cookie jar!

I was born before Museveni came to power -- but not that far off. In a way, I still see myself as part of the Museveni generation; those born and who've grown up under his rule. I remember, as a young primary school pupil, Museveni's speeches in the countryside, chalk and blackboard at the ready for demonstration, about the fundamental change he was bringing.

Twenty one years later, some argue that things are falling apart and that the centre, like Chinua Achebe proclaimed, can no longer hold. Others defend Museveni's record to the hilt. What about you, dear reader? Do you see the fundamental change? Are Museveni's failures blinding us to his achievements? Has his lengthy stay in office and his efforts to prolong that even further cost him whatever achievements he had to his name?

In other words, is the Muhwezi/Mukula/Kamugisha/Kaboyo case a sign of rot in the system, of the system's anti-corruption machinery finally coughing to life, or a smoke-and-mirror bluff that shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same?

Has the revolution began to eat its children? - Part I

KAMPALA - What a dramatic day! Former health ministers Mike Mukula and Dr Alex Kamugisha were this morning arrested, interrogated and, later in the afternoon, charged with corruption.

It all relates to the $4.3 million corruption scandal under which chunks of the said money from the Global Alliance Vaccine Initiative were 'eaten' as folk say in these parts.

The two ministers have been remanded to Luzira prison until June 6, 2007, and the hunt is now on for Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi, the head of the ministry at the time who has vowed to go down fighting.

A source who attended the court proceedings tells me that several 'cadres' and officials of the ruling National Resistance Movement were at Buganda Road Court in Kampala to protest against the arrest of their fellow cadres. Spotted in the crowd was Singh Katongole, the NRM deputy treasurer, Prof. Peter Kasenene, former privatisation minister and several others.

None of them seemed to consider the charges labelled against the ministers -- and another former State House aide who is still at large -- unfair. They seemed more irked by the whole idea of the 'system' turning against those who helped build it (and according to the charge sheet, their pockets) in the process.

Has the revolution started to chew its children?

Here is an extract from a statement Mukula's lawyers prepared for the press in the course of the day:

"Today the 22nd of May, 2007, at around 6.30 a.m. several soldiers of the [Uganda Peoples Defence Forces] dressed in battle fatigues and armed with heavy automatic weapons together with several police officers riding in 13 vehicles including 5 mobile patrol pick ups raided our client's residence...

"They cordoned off an entire street adn besieged our client's residence for more than an hour...Our client was then driven in a high speed convoy complete with baring sirens in total disregard of other road users and subsequently dumped at the CID headquarters...

"We condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which our client was arrested. As a political leader, he was undeservedly hounded out of his house as if he was a run away criminal whose guilt had been predetermined..."

Of course all the officials are innocent until proven guilty. But when 'inner cadres' of the regime are picked up, sirens blazing in a manner more commonly used with pesky opposition types, the sounds of infant bones being gnashed under the giant molars of the revolution can be heard all over the hills of Kampala.

To be continued.

The pot and kettle are both black!

Robert Kabushenga, in today's Newvision, of which he is CEO, takes a snide swipe at Andrew Mwenda and Timothy Kalyegira, accusing them of dancing on the late Brig. Noble Mayombo's grave.

Robbo, as Kabushenga's friends refer to him, takes exception to the obits that both hacks wrote about Mayombo, and accuses the "Mwenda-Kalyegira axis of commentary" of "deliberate distortion", of "elitist arrogance and narcissim", and of being "diabolic". He did not accuse the duo of causing global warming, selling nuclear fuel to Iran or arming the Janjaweed, but maybe he only ran out of space.

I read Robbo's piece at the end of a week in which I have been thinking a lot about the African culture of never speaking ill of the dead. It is a line of thought that emerged as I wrote my own obit for Mayombo for The EastAfrican (see post below). I personally thought that Mayombo's life was a contradiction and said as much. I was, thus, a bit disappointed that Robbo did not include me in the axis of evil commentary.

I also thought that Kalyegira's column, last Saturday, was one of two things; read as an obit on its own, it lacked balance. As a critique of the effervescent see-no-evil, hear-no-evil eulogies of Mayombo in the dailies, it was brilliant. Andrew's piece in Sunday Monitor was a bit weepish and flaccid.

So what got Robbo foaming at the mouth? He accuses Daily Monitor of being a "mouthpiece of the Forum for Democratic Change", and its owners of a deliberate effort to "create despondence and undermine(s) our national self-confidence". Without saying so, he refers clearly to the Nairobi Stock Exchange-listed Nation Media Group.

Robbo draws parallels with the way Daily Nation covers President Mwai Kibaki, as well as members of the opposition and sees two editorial standards; one for DN, another for DM; "one that promotes social responsibility in Kenya and another one that advocates anarchy".

Robocop is armed and loaded.

I agree with Kabushenga that Daily Nation covers Kibaki's 'policy pronouncements' better than Daily Monitor covers Museveni's. But is it part of a grand conspiracy theory? I don't think so. Daily Nation also covers Kibaki better than New Vision covers Museveni.

(Part of the reason is that Kibaki's policy pronouncements are few and far between and therefore easier to give prominence, but that does not vindicate some of the Monitor's -- and New Vision's lapses).

However, what Robbo is doing is not new, but equally dangerous; insinuate ill-motive in everything Daily Monitor publishes, add a pinch of salt, a spoonful of xenophobia and you have a flambe of hate, marinated in its own juice, topped with rejection and with spite offered as a side dish.

It is easier if it's just the odd critical foreign correspondent; deport him.

Robbo does not point out one fact about Mayombo's life that the Daily Monitor got wrong. He also says nothing about the gushing eulogies the paper also carried on Mayombo. He chooses to only see evil, hear evil.

The Ugandan media has several weaknesses; money, people, processes, public image, and the products themselves. To critique the media through politically-partisan foggy lenses swings the debate away from the critical issues that need to be addressed.

It allows us journalists wiggleroom to ignore valid criticism by labelling it the rantings of the politically wounded. It puts undue pressure on Daily Monitor not to run anything critical of government lest it confirms the conspiracy theorists. It puts New Vision reporters under pressure to write conformist articles, lest they follow their more independent-minded editors out of the door. Media managers spend time scheming against the competition instead of planning for their readers.

Robbo, of course, has a right to critique his rivals' content and reportage. He is better off doing so as a media executive, to improve that of his own enterprise, and not as a party cadre criminalising alternative thought by pouring scorn and ridicule upon political opponents, real and imaginary.

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P.S Am I the only one who imagined, on reading the NV, Kalyegira frantically calling the editor of his Saturday column, asking to be allowed to add a juicy rejoinder before the paper went to the press?

Brig. Mayombo; the death of an enigmatic officer and gentleman

Brig. Noble Mayombo, 42, who died in Nairobi’s Aga Khan Hospital after a short illness last week, was an enigmatic face of President Yoweri Museveni’s government; brilliant and brutal; kind and cunning; ruthless but forgiving.

He was also daring – he dropped out of law school at Makerere University to join Museveni’s rebel National Resistance Army in 1985 – and driven; he would return a few years later to complete his degree and later, a masters in human rights law.

His was a life of contradictions; despite his degree in human rights law, he was accused, during his time as head of military intelligence, of allowing the torture of suspected rebels and political opponents in ‘safe houses’.

In its 2004 report on Uganda, Human Rights Watch accused the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, then under Mayombo, of widespread torture, illegal detentions, and the execution of political opponents like Patrick Mamenero, who had supported opposition candidate Kizza Besigye in the 2001 presidential election.

Yet many people saw Mayombo’s noble side and will remember him for brilliance, not brutality. That brilliance first shone through in 1994 when, aged only 29, he was picked as one of the army delegates to the Constituent Assembly then debating a new Constitution for the country.

It was here, in his opening speech to the Assembly, that Mayombo’s political ideology – of the carrot and, often, a large stick – came to the fore. Quoting the legal philosopher James Bright, Mayombo said: “knots which the law cannot untie may have to be cut by the sword.”

He added: “I and many others in uniform today symbolise the politics of resistance to misrule and injustice in Uganda. We wear uniform not out of choice but compulsions to keep power away from those who think power is an end in itself, to keep power away from those who think the people of Uganda are not important, to keep power away from those who think they cause use power to kill, plunder and settle personal scores with impunity.”

His critics, including opposition leader Besigye whom he forced into exile in 2001, claim that Mayombo abused his power when he rose through the ranks. His defenders, particularly in the army say, in effect, that the sword was required to untie the knots.

His impassioned and persuasive arguments helped entrench the Movement as the ruling party in a no-party state and set off a meteoric rise through the army ranks, from Lieutenant in 1994 to Brigadier by the time of his death. As expected, there were grumbles about the speed of his star, especially among more stagnant officers – but Mayombo was not the only beneficiary of quick promotions, and there is little to suggest that he was undeserving.

Brig. Mayombo was extremely loyal and unrestrained by pride; the enduring image of him as President Museveni’s aide-de-camp – one of the several short stops on his career trajectory in the 90s – was of him kneeling down to lace up his master’s shoes after Museveni had just visited a mosque in Kampala.

Mayombo was also very loyal to his family and friends; his father, an elderly reverend last week spoke of his son’s generosity in paying for the old man’s medical treatment in South Africa, one of many tales of his philanthropy. But loyalty came after service to the cause; Mayombo famously ordered for the arrest of his brother, Okwir Rabwoni, in 2001 just before the latter joined Besigye, whom he supported, on a campaign flight to Arua, northwest Uganda.

Even here the contradictions showed; Mayombo helped his brother obtain visas and money to go into exile in the United Kingdom – but later prevented Okwir from being granted asylum by swearing an affidavit declaring that the applicant would face no danger if he returned. As it were, Okwir has since returned to the country and apparently made up with his brother before his death.

Both brothers strongly professed Pan-Africanism and Mayombo, who received military training in Libya, routinely spoke out in support of its ideals of a peaceful and united Africa – but he was one of several Ugandan army officers accused by a 2002 UN Security Council report of plundering mineral resources from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

All officials named in the report, including Mayombo, denied the allegations and a subsequent judicial commission of inquiry found no evidence to initiate prosecutions. True to form, Mayombo made both foes and friends while in DR Congo. Prof. Wamba dia Wamba, who once headed a rebel faction supported by Kampala last week recounted to the government-owned New Vision newspaper how Mayombo had put his life on the line and braved bullets to save the rebel leader’s life. There was another touch of ingenuity from Mayombo; to get the light-skinned professor past the Rwandan army to the airport, he dressed him up in UPDF camouflage and painted his face black. Genius.

In person, Mayombo was full of humour and vivacity but the smile he always wore never concealed his sometimes ruthless cunning. And cunning he was. In 2002 when the Daily Monitor, which, like this paper, is also published by Nation Media Group, wrote an article claiming that rebels had shot down an army helicopter in the north of the country, irate government officials scoured the law books to find a way of shutting down the paper. Finding none, Mayombo recommended that the newspaper plant and offices in Kampala be sealed off as a crime scene to allow police investigations. The closure lasted a week.

He got on well with journalists always giving quotes and returning calls when he could – but he could also be ruthless in his clampdown. When he was appointed as chairman of the board of the New Vision last year, Mayombo promised to uphold press freedom and allow the hacks to get on with their work. A few months later, the editor, William Pike, and his deputy, had been forced out for carrying articles critical of the government.

It is widely agreed that Mayombo, who was defence ministry permanent secretary at the time of his death, had, despite such an action-filled career, not fulfilled his true potential. There have even been suggestions that he was a potential successor to President Museveni, or at least continue to be a king maker. We shall never know.

His death, due to a failure of his pancreas, and after such a short illness, has sparked off speculation that he might have been poisoned. Defence minister, Crispus Kiyonga announced last week that government was not “ruling anything out”. But excessive consumption of alcohol can lead to the condition – and Mayombo, in his social times, certainly knew how to negotiate his way around the bend of the bottle.

How will Brig. Mayombo be remembered? His family (including wife Juliet and six children) and friends mourn a loyal and loving man; the president mourns a most-trusted confidante; while the regime mourns an intellectual who was also capable of ruthless implementation.

It is perhaps a sign of which side of Mayombo Ugandans most identified with – or perhaps a reflection of African respect to the dead – that the country was united in mourning this enigmatic officer and gentleman.

Cutting Down Mahogany Trees and Sowing Mustard Seeds

LONDON - When I left last weekend, Kampala was abuzz with two stories that, from the surface, appear to be only about the environment. First was the public protests over government's decision to degazette about 7,100 hectares of the virgin, pristine Mabira tropical rainforest in the heart of the country to allow a sugar plant owned by the Mehta family to double their capacity.

The other story was about Vice President Prof. Gilbert Balibaseka Bukenya, who found himself at the heart of a sex scandal that forced him to cut short his 'development tour' of the country. Mahogany, as Bukenya has described himself in previous battles against a so-called Kitchen Cabinet mafia that he says is out to get him, was accused of planting his mahogany seed in a hitherto little-known woman, Jamilah Nakku, who is currently going through divorce proceedings with her husband.

You must, of course, forgive the quality of that pun, but this was no laughing matter as the VP's dirty linen was spread out to dry and as the custodians of morality in the Catholic Church, to which the VP belongs, called for his head. The reaction from the chaplains was predictable. Closed away in the Catholic cupboard of celibacy, they were always going to cast the first stone.

They also felt justified in their attack on the VP because it is widely assumed that he was appointed to that office largely as a balancing act for the Catholics in the country.

Now, I am certainly disinclined to add to the pile of boulders at the VP's feet and the liberal anarchist in me is inclined to believe that Bukenya's philandering are between him, his wife, and his God.

Of course public officials have to be paragons of morality and to lead by example, etc. On that standard it would be right to cut Bukenya lose because he, unlike his colleagues in cabinet and elsewhere, both above and below, got caught. Sexual shenanigans, including polygamy, defilement, etc are rife in our government and society.

What I would like to know, however, is whether the VP influenced Nakku's appointment to State House where she is employed as an aide of sorts, and whether he influenced her inclusion to his entourage when he got stranded by a coup (and as it turns out, Nakku) in Thailand. If he is found to have abused his office, Mahogany should face the axe. If Mahogany 'only' planted his roots in a different hole, the man should be left to his wife and God.

The trees in Mabira, however, should not just be left to God. The New Vision has soared above the competition (like a Mahogany tree) in its coverage of the scandal (a much bigger scandal than the VP's restless tree, if you ask me). What has not been reported -- but has been widely rumoured -- is that the lease to most of the land on which the Mehta sugar plantation sits has or is on the verge of expiring, and that negotiations to renew the sugarcane lease have turned sour.

The outgrowers who also supplement Mehta's sugarcane raw materials are also reported to be disaffected and considering a switch to a new fly-by-night sugar factory set up only recently in the area. If either scenario is true, Mehta is certainly in trouble and needs some form of help to stay afloat.

Any help from government, however, should be in the form of tax credits or helping him to negoatiate with the landowners and have hi lease renewed. It should not be in the form of giving away virgin forest cover.

In his book, Sowing the Mustard Seed, President Yoweri Museveni waxes lyrical about his life-long drive and ambition to liberate Ugandans politically and economically. The jury is still out on whether the political liberation aka the 'fundamental change' is temporary or a mere papering over the cracks. Economic development, however, will certainly not come by pawning the family silver as giving away Mabira represents. To do so would be to see the forest for the trees, instead of seeing the trees for the forest.

Discrediting the messenger - Part I

NAIROBI - A couple of weeks ago, I was awoken by the shrill ring of my cell next to my bed at the ungodly hour of 7am and a voice at the end saying sorry and asking if there was anything he could do to help during these difficult times.

G, my friend, was talking about a tabloid report which claimed that HH the Aga Khan, who is a principal shareholder in the company that owns the newspaper that I work for....(in other words, the top honcho), had fired me for having a written a 'negative' story about the Kenya-Uganda oil pipeline project.

Over the next few weeks (and particularly after a second version of the story was published with 'details' of my sacking) my phone rung off the hook, if a mobile phone can boast such an appendage, earning the phone company tonnes in roaming charges at my expense.

Having followed the pipeline story for months and having written about it more than anyone else, and having uncovered a lot of dirt in the project, I would have been extremely foolish to expect hugs and kisses from those with their hands in the $100 million pipeline.

I was still shocked by the temerity with which they carried out their mischief of trying to discredit both the author and the story. What was disappointing, but not surprising, was that someone had been paid to concoct that wicked poison from which the tabloid readers drunk.

Not everyone had sympathy for me (in fact, the vast majority did not). There was talk of the hunter finally being hunted, of being served in the same currency that, as a journalist, I dispense to others.

I will return to that later. In the meantime, here http://www.monitor.co.ug/specialincludes/ender/endbus01012.php is the story that they were trying to discredit. The names have been edited out for legal reasons in this and the version than first ran in Daily Monitor of Jan 01, 2007.

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