Beware Uganda’s young urban poor might soon rule the roost

Anyone who has gone shopping at the major markets such as Nakasero and Nakawa in Kampala must be conversant with this scenario. (Increasingly, it also happens around bars and entertainment centres in the night.)

As you slow down to get off the road and park your car, a horde of about five young men in their early 20s will swamp your vehicle. Most of them are quite presentable in dress and are not the typical unwashed lumpen with bad breath, body odour and unkempt hair. They all masquerade as security-cum parking attendants, who will offer you a good safe place to park your car and take good care of it while you are away. Characteristically, they consume cheap alcohol packed in sachets, some of which they openly hold in their hands.

The government has on several occasions banned sachet alcohol sold in tot packs, but it stubbornly stays on the market to cater for or exploit even the lowest income earner. In fact, when one pays these young men or gives them a small tip, they are more likely to rush for their next sachet of the same, which, depending on the takings of the day, may wash down a rolex or kikomando –beans, eggs and vegetables wrapped in a Chapati.

Some, especially if you go later in the evening, are high on some smoked substance - allegedly to keep them warm as they work throughout the night. Their job description includes following the client and carrying their shopping basket from the market to the vehicle. It is difficult to fathom how these very energetic young men survive on small tips and by sitting in the shade all day discussing politics, uttering obscenities, making cat calls at any female passing by or worse still, fondling them.

Granted, some will invest their small earnings in sports betting kiosks, which are spread all over the market. For those too lazy to move, there are vendors who bring the betting service closer to the people. They have little machines that produce receipts acknowledging the placing of a bet right in the comfort of one’s abode, which may be under a tree by the roadside.

Looking at these young people, one does not fail to notice that Uganda has somewhat adopted - without any deliberate policy or intention - a way of ‘dealing’ with the hordes of young people for whom it cannot provide gainful employment. We have presided over a destructive comfort zone that keeps many restless young people docile in the interim.

For background’s sake, the many years of war, diseases like HIV/Aids and climate change, devastated the rural areas giving way to poverty. Many people were forced to sell their land or fall victim to those with huge amounts of money and power; rewards they got when they graduated into Uganda’s nascent middle class. So, most people moved and continue to move to towns and cities like Kampala to try their luck without marketable skills. Here they find that with as little as Shs10,000, one may buy a good second-hand shirt and a pair of trousers. Slowly, they adapt a survival instinct that allows them to live on a bare minimum.

So some little change for ‘guarding’ a vehicle may be multiplied if luck is on one’s side into a few thousands on a successful betting ticket. That brings in an affordable rolex to keep the stomach full and, of course, drugs and alcohol to drown the sorrows and nagging thought of failure.

This way of life goes on and along the way, some lucky ones may get to own market stalls, become hawkers, taxi touts, drivers and shamba boys for the people for whom they carry shopping bags. One even married a White girl who found him ‘very cute’ and he ended up in Europe!

But, of course, there are others who take the wider way that leads to hell. Drugs and alcohol grant them the valour to turn to crime under the cover of darkness. Before they know it, they are pick-pocketing, mugging and eventually engaging in aggravated robbery to keep themselves alive in the city. This, more than democracy and all those things politicians love to talk about, is the time bomb on which Uganda is sitting.

This very young population more than 50 percent of which is below 25 years of age, that is poor, energetic, and has tasted the liquorice of urban life. Yet it has no skills or opportunities to earn a decent living to enable them enjoy life. Unfortunately, they also have no umbilical connection in the rural area so the suggestion that they go back to the land is redundant. Their only solution is to desperately fight to the death to stay alive in the urban area.

Sadly, many of what constitutes this battle for survival of the young urban poor is outright crime. It is a direct threat to the lives of many city dwellers whose lives and possessions stand in their way. Nonetheless, they are emboldened by the weak, and often times, collaborative law enforcement agencies. If this trend is not put in check, we shall soon slide into the territory of organised hard core crime where the young urban poor will rule the roost.

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues. [email protected].
Twitter:@nsengoba