Author: Gawaya Tegulle. PHOTO/NMG
You gotta pity the ears sometimes – they hear all kinds of things: the nice and the naughty, the pleasant and the preposterous, the serious and the scandalous, then the outright baffling and bamboozling too. They have even heard, lately, that Uganda’s ruling party, with its ‘revolutionary’ in full flow, have opened a war against corruption. Check this out: The National Resistance Movement (NRM). Its legendary ‘revolutionary’. Fighting corruption.
Ah, how the ears tickle and tingle at the sound of the incredible! How they twitch in utter incredulity at the soundbites that are coming through!
The rat that lives long enough will see the carcass of a cat, my father always told me. It is all a function of time, I guess; and perhaps, as with all things, a generous helping of luck – a much-needed factor in this capricious, impulsive and whimsical excuse of a world we live in.
The NRM is fighting corruption, you said?
When Vladimir Putin’s “Special Operation” in Ukraine is over, I will fly me to Moscow. I will set up camp at the glamourous and glitzy Hotel Metropol or the really nice Radisson Collection Hotel and I will watch and wait. Maybe, just maybe, after several years of coffee, sandwiches and whatever else the ex-communist folks can afford me, I will see sarafan-clad Russians, marching on the streets, denouncing Vodka: No more Vodka! Coffee please! I will give it time and see; who knows?
The NRM is fighting corruption? Like seriously?
If Putin’s war doesn’t end soon enough, I will fly me to Germany. And not to Berlin, good sir: naaah...I’ll go down south to Bavaria. I will sit me down in Munich, at the Mandarin Oriental or the Hilton Garden Inn, ready for the long haul. I will read me every book in the bookstore, as I wait. Oh, and watch every Bayern Munich game at the Allianz Arena. For if I wait long enough, maybe, just maybe, I will get to see the folks in the “most German of Germany” denounce beer. Maybe I will hear them call it an evil drink to be avoided like the plague. I will give it time and see; who knows?
The NRM is fighting corruption, right?
I will drive west, over to Queen Elizabeth National Park near Kasese - since Kidepo National Park is much too far from my Kampala precincts. Forget the safari lodges: I will pitch camp out in the wild and listen carefully. And maybe, just maybe, I will one day hear the lions praise and extol the virtues of a vegetarian tradition. I will watch antelopes walk casually past a pride of lions who’ll offer no more than a passing glance in complete disinterest. The Simba crew will be preferring to focus on the mango tree above them which is in full blossom - and finding it absolutely and mouth-wateringly irresistible. I will give it time and see; who knows?
The NRM is fighting corruption? You gotta pity the ears sometimes – they hear all kinds of things...
Gawaya Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda | [email protected]
