Mr Charles Onyango-Obbo
The meeting was supposed to be 30 minutes. In the end, it took nearly two and a half hours. Theo Kasango (not his real name for privacy reasons) is a big-minded young Ugandan man I have known since he was a precocious little thing with a running nose.
His parents are good friends. They left Uganda as Theo was turning 11. He returned to Uganda 20 years later, a bearded handsome lad, to make a fortune for himself from the land of his ancestors. His parents, who didn’t return to Uganda, didn’t waste their money paying his school fees.I wasn’t ready for Theo when we met on our latest encounter.”
Uganda really is hopeless. It doesn’t work. And I love it to death for that”, he said. That is how our scheduled 30-minute meeting turned into a two-and-a-half-hour roller coaster. Also, why the next article on the “New Ugandan tribes” series (Daily Monitor, September 25, 2024) is coming earlier than planned.“That’s a wild line you are taking there Theo”, I said, “I have never known you to be a glutton for misery.”“I am serious.
You know I did well in Europe, and I was paid good moneys, but I would never have started and done any of the things I have accomplished in Uganda there, partly because they are mature markets with little room for foundational level innovation from people like me”, he said.“Healthcare in Uganda is broken, education is broken, the roads are broken and potholed, our national internet backbone is in the Stone Age, governance is corrupt and broken, every public institution here is broken, except perhaps the National Water and Sewarage Corporation and National Social Security Fund (NSSF)”, he said.
“It means there is space in all those broken areas to go in and develop solutions and services”, he added with a cocky countenance.“Ordinarily that would be a hope-ender, but Uganda is an oxymoron. It is broken, but it is not a failed state. In fact, it is one of the most vibrant countries in Africa as far I am concerned. Also, it has a policy-rich environment, some of them very good, and an impressively free market. Licencing is extremely corrupt, but the licence opens doors to great possibilities after you’ve bribed for it”, he said.
He had wrapped me around his little finger by that point and got me recording and scribbling. I decided to test his faith further.“But the broken bits eventually hit you, don’t they? You create innovative products and services, but then you have to get them to market over potholed roads, and the time and cost to your clients getting to you is increased sharply.
The street and building numbering in Kampala is terrible, you can’t get an online delivery to your house easily. You see even Uber drivers struggling to home in on destinations”, I said.“I couldn’t agree more, but my point is that that in itself is a rich opportunity. For example, the Big Men and Women, and politically connected business folks partly respond to the crappy roads with big expensive four-wheel drives bought with taxpayers’ money or the proceeds of corruption, but what fascinates me is how young entrepreneurs have responded.
“They have done what modern motor rallies do; go for small scars which are light over potholes, and the young women are increasingly going for micro vans. That allows them not to have to make one trip over potholed streets, instead of three; the products she is selling, her gym bag, and the clothes for her child’s weekend sleepover are all in there”, he said.“It also means your generation will never know the joys of an easy life, and not having to carry heavy burdens”, I chipped in.
“You and my ‘bazee’ have told me of your unique realities as Amin-era children. What is normal, or easy, is a historical construct. I think we have been shaped by more complex forces than you. We are orphans three times over.“First, we are children of exile. Our parents fled and left this country for various reasons, and many didn’t return. We live with that disconnectedness to the Motherland.“We are orphans of war; the Luwero war, the war in northeastern Uganda, the long war in the north. And we are HIV/Aids orphans.
Our grandparents, at least one of our parents, and someone in the family died of HIV or had their lives upended by it. I don’t have a friend, someone I work with here in Uganda, or a Ugandan I know abroad, who hasn’t been touched the long arm of those three forces”, he said.I looked at Theo with new admiration. I also finally understood what seemed to fuel his unconquerable spirit. Wrestling with broken Uganda is his rite of passage.
Mr Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”.
