Ode to Corruption (Uganda’s Gravy Train)

We’ll prosecute; we’ll act/ We have Penal Code Act/ And Prevention of Corruption Act/ We’ll invoke Leadership Code Act/ Or Inspectorate of Government Act/ There’s a National Audit Act...

Some live on dollar a day/ Shopping malls make my day/Won’t you make hay?/While system lives another day?

Taxes! You pay taxes?/ You’ll forever ride in taxis/ Only fools give access/To tax-lady to assess.

Global Fund, there’s no refund/ Chogm monies, not my worries/ Nusaf’s where he surfs/ Naads fits our big life fads.

Football went to the dogs/ Boxing’s followed the pigs/ Athletics run to the frogs/ Will rugby suit the warthogs?

Applying for a visa?/ Just come to the ‘misa’/ Prayer for a million/ Is my pastor’s bullion.

Donors, oh mighty donors/ Who needs your dollars?/ Now we’ve found oil/ Nicely it’ll come to the boil.

We’re setting up camp/ In the wetland swamp/ Because they’re investors/ Who cares about protestors.

Forest! Cut the forest!/ Animals don’t need more rest/ Plants are set for harvest/ Big capital shall invest.

Junk choppers just won’t fly/ But skyscrapers, they go fly/ Cash we store in their ceiling/ To hell with how you’re feeling.

National foreign reserves/ Uganda does not deserve/ At high table we’ll serve/ Dollars peasants can’t have.

Who actually still conserves?/ Who needs Central Bank reserves?/ Loyalty we have to preserve/ Though not the road reserve.

Justice’s delayed; it’s denied/ You are in full denial/ This is but a sham trial/ It’s not theft, but a mistrial.

Which Nodding Disease?/ You can’t be nodding off!/ It’s no time to sleep/ It’s just our time to eat.

It’s the party primaries/ We’re like kids in primary/ Class prefects do buy votes/ For your vote, what’s your quote?

Oh brother, dear brother/ How’s father and mother?/ This office’s full of brothers/ Doesn’t matter, nobody bothers.

First Class degree you want?/ Just enter professor’s bedroom/ First ‘twas P7 examination/ Just showing corruption’s foundation.

Operation National ID card/ Are you a citizen so bad/ Don’t know ‘self you need a card?/ Billions spent is the word.

A road was to pass here/ But they drank it as beer/ The schools and clinic/ Are local chief’s picnic.

Want an LC letter?/ Give something greater/ If madam is better/ You get sooner than later.

LC doesn’t need a bicycle/ Maybe an Indian tricycle/ For Little Miss Matsiko/ Oh, that’s just nonsensical.

Touch him not!/ For fight you did not/ He sacrificed for revolution/ You agent of confusion.

My share of foreign aid/ Is school fees being paid/ Police will not raid/ With connections I have laid.

Kampala Road this way!/ Taxi tout shouts all the way/ Hundred more you’re fat and grey/ Making a difference his only way.

Come here and pick/ Your patient plus others weak/ This hospital is all but sick/ No doctors to make it tick.

Donations for the orphan/ Boss too is also one/ Father died in Ninety One/ Has no parents at Sixty One.

People are tired, so they say/ Expressing it in tweet, song and play/ Can’t have it another way/ When teargas so holds sway.

Won’t angels fear to tread/ In places of ghostly dead?/ Soldiers’ ranks with ghosts/ Teachers’ rolls of ghosts/ Pensioned oldies are ghosts/ Ghostly existence of the lost.

‘Bonna bagaggawale’, ‘bonna basome’/ ‘bonna bafune’, ‘nfunirawa?’/ Official lexicon’s gone native/ As if for your relative.

‘Bichupuli’, ‘wolokoso’, ‘kulembeka’, ‘bafere’/ Words once completely rare/ Language’s now accommodating/ The times are a’changing/ The country’s really going/ Where, oh Uganda, are you going?/ Where the gravy train’s blowing?

We’ll prosecute; we’ll act/ We have Penal Code Act/ And Prevention of Corruption Act/ We’ll invoke Leadership Code Act/ Or Inspectorate of Government Act/ There’s a National Audit Act/ Even Public Procurement Act/ Whistle Blower will be an Act/ Since there’s Budget Act/ What of Public Service Act/ Or Public Finance Act/ Lights, action, cut, run, act/ The gravy train’s parked/ Help us, Lord, stop this pact.

dsseppuuya@yahoo.com