COMMON SENSE: What Golola’s debacle shows about Ugandans
The poor soul! He was already tumbling down like a sack of potatoes by the first round. This was a man who had promised to turn his opponent blue in the first round. Ironically, Golola Moses came out of the fight with his reputation as a comic finally cemented.
Golola Moses is no kick boxer but rather a Ugandan trying to eke a living whatever way he can. He managed to hoodwink many into believing he was the real deal. He managed to sell a brand that even some telecom companies bought into. He managed to deceive and nearly got away with it. But what does Golola’s debacle show about Ugandans? Well apart from the fact that we love entertainment…any kind, be it goats chasing each other aimlessly as we humans cheer them along (read, goat race), we have no ability to decipher truth from fiction.
Anyone with half a brain could tell that Golola was more of a comedian than a fighter. This is a man who never actually had a resemblance of a fight team behind him.
For crying out loud he had a pastor for a manger which pastor had already made news before as a wife stealer. From the onset, Golola was a wreck! However, he managed to get over 30,000 Ugandans paying to watch his two fights.
If Golola can hoodwink all those Ugandans, how about our seasoned politicians!? If Golola can sell such a lie to such a number, how many lies have been sold to us?
Doesn’t it make you think about how rubbish we Ugandans are at catching the liars in society? Then there is the issue of poor financial habits. Do you know that Golola’s recent fight again attracted thousands! Where do all these people get the money to spend like that?
Ironically, most of those that paid to watch him are in that category that mourns the most about how “nowadays there is no money! The Government has taken all our money”. Why can’t these chaps save their money? Why waste it on a lie?
You have to give it up for Golola though! Even the corporates bought into the fallacy. Branded t-shirts with his laughable quotes were worn by many with some corporates going as far as having Golola endorse their product. Wow! So what does that show about our so called “corporate class?”
Well on a personal level, I have always argued that we don’t have a corporate class per se but a number of people who get somewhat good salaries and drive cars on loans…period. But when it comes to behaviour and thinking, the difference between the so-called corporate the boda boda chap is almost non-existant! Who are the greatest thieves in our society? The so-called corporates, right? Who are one of the most promiscuous groups in Uganda? The corporates. So does it come as a surprise that they too fall for the Golola express train?
But if the so-called learned fellows of Uganda can’t detect a lie, who then can detect it for us Ugandans? If the corporates are thinking this way, what does it mean for the companies they are working for? It means they have time wasters, people who are not thinking out of the box, not doing amazing things in branding, PR, research etc. No wonder we still lag as companies compared to other countries around us.
