When the Leo dreamt Uganda’s second ‘First Dream’

We have First Son, First Daughter, First Cow and First Toilet, why not First Dream? When an African president dreams, shouldn’t it be rightly called a First Dream and a team of scholars summoned to interpret the dream for the good of the nation?

You see, dreams can tell a lot. If you doubt, ask those who lived in 1972 when Uganda had its first ‘First Dream’. The Asian community has never forgotten what followed that dream.
Then there was this wee hour when the venerable Leo had decided to take a rest from state duties but no sooner had he started snoring than he had woken up with a start.

He grabbed the first thing he is wont to—the First Gun—that beloved AK47 and cocked it. “You pigs, I dare you to dare me. I have defeated Kony, ADF and Besigye, who are you to mess with my hard-earned dollars?” he shouted. The commotion attracted aides who rushed in to find the sweating but composed Leo.
“Summon a meeting,” he ordered.
“Now?” asked the curious aide.
“If I’m awake then don’t you think Wanyama, Tumwebaze and the nanis should all be awake? They should be here in an hour. No excuses.”

Apparently, the Leo had had a disturbing dream in which some pigs were digging into the economy and eating it dry. The pigs just kept eating and eating and when the economy was empty, they turned to his dollars and wanted to eat it too.
He had shouted at the pigs and rebuked them that dollars are not supposed to be eaten but the pigs just kept charging at him as he ran towards where his First Gun was kept.

He had leaped for the First Gun, cocked and pulled the trigger but there was nothing. The pigs charged on and demanded he surrenders the dollars for their stomach. He saw clearly, one of the pigs was branded Twitter, another Facebook. Then the one with wet snoot was called Social Media.

He had borrowed some cabbages from a Mzungu with a food basket nearby and thrown them for the pigs, but only two called MBs and Data that looked the hungriest of the lot had stopped charging and quickly devoured the cabbages.
He also had begged a suited potbelly man who spoke in a deep Rukiga accent for something to give the pigs to make them stop chasing after him and the man had given a bag of Irish potato. He placed those before the pigs but in no time, they were done with it and back on his trail…

There was a rasp on the door and one of the aides poked his head in. He announced that “they will all be here shortly”.
“Who is they?” Leo asked.
“You just asked me to summon…”
“Ah, tell them to go and rest. And goodnight to you, too.”

Now in bed again, he tried to put the pigs into perspectives. What were they and what message did they have for him? He decided that he had never run from any battle and had defeated Kony, ADF, Besigye and currently even has Kawukumi silently capitulating behind the grey walls in Makindye Barracks.

Finally he got it. These pigs were really the potato couch breed of Ugandans who don’t want to do anything to take the country forward but just sit there to eat the economy dry. The Mzungu, he decided, was a foreigner donor and the Mukiga a local lender. The pigs were Facebook, Twitter, MBs, Data and Social Media.

Amin had gone rogue by expelling Asians from Uganda, he thought. What should I do? He asked himself. The equivalent of expelling Asians would in this case be blocking Facebook, Twitter, Data, MBs and Social Media from the country. But the last time he tried doing this, he took a lot of flak from those donors. What now?

A blockade disguised as a tax perhaps? Or…
The next morning, he could still relive the entire dream and he was more than convinced of his next step.