To swear, or to forswear!

Barely a couple of days past, I was perambulating though a fairly traffic-free alleyway in one Kampala suburb; when an ascending buzz disturbed the sweet calm, to be shortly followed by a white motorcycle carrying two traffic policemen, clad in those absurd snowy uniforms and lime-green psychedelic vests.

The motorists duly overtook me, riding ahead for a few yards before coming to halt beside a rickety and ostensibly decrepit tow truck. 
The two servicemen quickly skipped off their two-wheeled conveyance, and upon looking about shiftily, ducked into that ruin of a breakdown truck.

At first, I shrugged off their uncanny behavior as a cursory inspection of the vehicle; until I drew closer to the truck on my way past – and, casting a quick glance through its unglazed windows, beheld the two heads earnestly bent over a fat wad of cash that was, by all appearances, being divided between them.

My left eyebrow rose an inch, but before my accursed curiosity could get the better of me and lead me into visual temptation, nor my nose lengthen a milli-cubit, the two heads suddenly snapped up – and two pairs of eyes shot me a gaze sharp enough to slice clean through granite.

I cleared my throat and scampered off, whistling nervously as I left the two enforcers of our highway-code to their shenanigans.

With little doubt, whatever monies were being shared in that tow-truck were not part of the monthly stipend disbursed by the Public Service Ministry to the salary accounts of Uganda’s police force.

This little incident, quite a commonplace occurrence in our cozy little town, had nearly slipped from memory until it was catapulted into sharp focus by a related encounter late last evening – which took the form of a more personal brush with the ‘law’.

Speeding mindlessly toward an urgent rendezvous, I was flagged down by an overenthusiastic traffic sergeant – who promptly jumped into the passenger seat and ordered me to drive straight to Central Police Station, unless I could fork out a cool hundred thousand in the instant.

Being thoroughly straitened, and sitting behind a dashboard whose fuel gauge signaled critical, I did for a moment flirt with the idea of punching the fool’s face in and making a run for it, abandoned car and all; but by a miraculous twist of fate, my sanity and wits returned before I could as much as clench a knuckle.

We haggled for about an hour, me groveling ignominiously and him browbeating me into mortal terror – until we settled on a mutually agreed ‘fee’ – though not before thoroughly ransacking the coin compartment, glove box and my wallet; effectively shaking me down for all I was worth.

It was blatant robbery, I tell you! (Backed up, and committed by the law.)

If we ever meet in hell, that fellow will be the first (and possibly only ever) murder-victim in the eonian history of the place.

But away from all these winding anecdotes; today has been a day for celebration all across the length and breadth of our banana republic.

And while you’ll likely read this a few days after the iconic day, as you may have other things to do, but mostly because the government-declared social-media blockade kept you unwillingly offline, I‘m sure the ferment and euphoria of the moment won’t be lost on you.

You know, that tingly moment when a new President swears-in!

Oh – pardon me, for us Ugandans, the moment rather, when the old President swears in, anew.

And isn’t it true that old is gold? (And new is often rife with rue!)

So while we welcome the same President, the same way, clad in the same hat, under the same sun, to do the same things, and also leave the same things undone – we can take refuge in the unassailable fact that all these same things, are happening in a different year! (That counts for something, surely?)

I don’t know about you – but I couldn’t help linking my tragic encounters with those darned ‘law enforcement officers’ (or is it extorting officers?) to the unheroic tenacity of the blighter at the helm of our state apparatus.

These chaps who saunter about our streets in camouflage garb of some shade, with epaulettes and an instance of the national flag sewn onto alternate sleeves – have for me, come to reflect everything that is dead and gone about this country.

It is vexing enough that we spend more than six-tenths of our annual national income in arming them with implements of war, which are later turned onto us when we question the state’s performance record.

What hurts worse is that these ‘noble men and women of force’ seem to be at the forefront of flagrantly flouting the selfsame laws they are sworn to uphold and protect – even to the extent of extracting the last hard-earned penny (or iota of pecuniary ore) from the penurious pocket-mine of a wretched Ugandan proletarian!

Which is why I keep little faith in vows, piously and solemnly sworn though they may be.

When our old-new President thus took to the podium this 12^th of May, 2016; amid a torrent of (bought-for and purchased) applause, raising a tremulous right-hand whilst placing his left on some leather-bound tome – all I beheld was an exhausted antediluvian, enfeebled from years of exacting statesmanship, and ill-used at the rough hands of the wearisome labors and odious drudgery of ‘nation building’.

If I may be permitted an innocuous digression; a parody of Bill Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 3 and Scene 1):

‘To swear or not to swear? That is the imbroglio!
Whether it be kinder to the ageing soul;
To endure five years more of heckling and strain;
Or to lay down arms against fellow countrymen;
And by conceding, retire with dignity …
Oh - but to cut one's losses! 
To do so and save face!’

Perhaps the day should have been used by the Ugandan hatter, not to swear-in, but rather, for his own and everyone's common good, to sign-out (or better still, should we say – swear-out!)

Maybe then we could begin the tedious process of tuning the faulty knobs of the rest of society to their right frequencies; epaulettes, pips and all!

So much may be said for income re-distribution and its noble ends - but the attempt for a grocer or a cabdriver to effect it, by overpricing their wares or fares, is in no way comparable to that of an active serviceman.

An armed cop or NCO, who because of the pittance earned in their conventional line of duty, decides to take arms into his own hands  and divest members of what he considers a corrupt bourgeois of their ill-gotten wealth; is not a benignly unscrupulous merchant to be argued with.
They could as easily pull their trigger on one - accusing one of resisting arrest, obstructing justice in its holy course, or some sundry such hogwash.

Corrupt cops are the embodiment of a state that has lost all conscience, and as such, visits extra-judicial 'justice' upon its people. 

In short, every pair of traffic wardens riding about on a white 'obese' motorbike, become a mobile kangaroo-court; and two's always a crowd.

Permit me sign-out.

Adios!