Gen KK receives Bobi Wine in Makindye jail

He was dragged between two uniforms each holding him by the armpit. “He calls himself ‘ghetto president’ so he could do with our VIP room,” the officer with red pip on his collar had said to the two uniforms when they inquired about where to detain him. True to what he had barely heard with his badly swollen ears, his hazy vision could see the bold typeface ‘VIP’ on the door.
A guard shuffled his keys and opened the door. The helpless detainee was half dragged and dumped head fast on the floor.
Bobi Wine decided he had been denied sleep for a year in the last few days alone and that this VIP room was a place he could catch some sleep in. He had hardly closed his swollen eyelids when some bony fingers tapped his cheeks. “Wake up,” he thought he heard. He groaned as he sat up.
“You’re now a very immobilised person,” KK said.
“What is that?”
“Didn’t you read the VIP on the door?”
“How come you look fine? These guys did things to my body like I had stepped on the last eggs they had for dinner.”
“Maybe because I didn’t call myself ‘Uganja president’ and ‘His Excellency’ or such dreamful titles. What are you here for?”
“Man, these guys claim I had guns.”
“So you used stones?”
Bobi Wine ignored the sarcasm. He peered into KK’s eyes until he thought he saw sinewy veins so tight he felt his own stomach ache. Nsadda, he thought. If only he had just a stick to puff away to clear the clogged mind and numb the throbbing pain in his body. Nsadda is magical, it solved many things but not…
“Do you have something to smoke here?” he suddenly asked.
“You guys used to say I made you smoke teargas and now you are here asking me for something to smoke. I can get you something but not the one that made you think you can defeat a general with stones.”
Again Bobi Wine ignored the sarcasm. He looked around him, stretched and winced. Then he broke into laughter as he held his stomach that heaved with pain. “You must be disappointed that you weren’t there to be the one parading those planted weapons. I reckon you would have paraded whoever shot my driver too.”
Gen KK smiled back and nodding in acknowledgment, he said: “I would have been the one bringing you here but now you have found me here.”
“Man, nsadda…”
“That sound again. It irritates me, just that life here has taught me to be tolerant now.”
“Man, nsadda…”
“Look here, you won’t live long here if you go on like this.”
“Man, nsadda. Nsadda.. E.S.A.D.D.A. Nsadda!”
Gen KK was frustrated. He spoke at length now, lecturing the young roommate on how to survive in the VIP. Looking at the ‘body mess’ before him, he realised what ‘full circle’ of life means since a few months ago he was the one issuing orders for his boys to deal with Bobi Wine, but now he was here trying to help him get out of a spider web.
“So it’s like a spider web in here,” Bobi Wine spoke in a surprisingly clear voice.
“Now listen. For more than 30 years I dedicated my life to serving people I believed in, do you know how far that has taken me?”
“To the rank of a full General and IGP for more than 12 years,” Bobi Wine replied.
“Wrong, said KK. It has brought me to this VIP. That is the cobweb. You have been jumping around in Rukungiri, Bugiri, Arua… you even humiliated that man who never gives up. Besigye. I have done all that and worse. I had the power, just like you have the following today. I used it to advance the interests of individuals and the State. You are using yours to advance the interests of individuals and whatnot. But to come to this VIP, you were sold out of that ceiling you were hiding in by one of your own, right?”
“Which rat sold me out?”
“In this cobweb, you need to realise that unless you are dead, no one will stand by you. They praise you but the most they can do is carry your coffin, they never carry your cross. Are you listening?”
“Man, nsadda.”