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Satire: LoP Joel Ssenyonyi to supply pork joints

What you need to know:

  • Disgraced parliamentary service awardees clapped and Joel clapped back by saying: “You can’t say Shs1b today, tomorrow Shs1.4b, then the other day Shs1.7b. Be organised even as you spew out your propaganda.”


Unidentified persons recently dropped piglets at the National Unity Platform (NUP) headquarters in Makerere-Kavule, Kampala. One of the piglets was helpfully marked “Joel 1.7B”.

We know the ‘B’ stands for billions. But what if it stood for binoculars, which are an optical instrument making objects that are far away appear nearer and larger. 

This ‘B’ would essentially be saying, “Joel we see you in 1.7 billion ways”. 

As for the piglet, well, it takes pigs about six months to mature. So Joel can wait. And then in six months, he can supply pork joints with a pig. 

Of course, he might have to tread carefully. If the piglet is also called Joel, he could end up being supplied to pork joints himself in a porcine case of mistaken identity. 

Speaking of identity, the name Joel also belongs to Mzee. So maybe the piglet was for him. 

After being contacted on whether the real Joel could stand up, Mzee was not amused. 

“We are busy producing wealth, and you here want to disturb us. You are playing with fire because we cannot allow you to disturb us,” he said.

It appears Mzee prefers to treat ‘Joel’ as a dirty four-letter word. One that must be bleeped out of the political discourse centred on change. 

This means NUP may have more bribe-related problems than the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) does; about Shs1.3 billion more. 

Following Joel’s ‘persecution’, Joe Biden (who is also a Joel, but without the L) reportedly called Mzee and wondered what the fate of political parties will be in Uganda. Without pluralism, Biden reportedly said, democracy is dead. 

Yet, ironically, there is no provision for the role of political parties in the United States Constitution.

America’s Founding Fathers did not want partisanship to rear its hydra-domed head in American politics. 

In Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, two prominent American Founding Fathers, wrote fluently and floridly about the dangers of domestic political factions.

Nonetheless, always the more of none, the beginnings of the American two-party system then emerged from first US president George Washington’s immediate circle of advisors. 

Ironically, again, Hamilton became the leader of the Federalist Party while Madison co-helmed the Democratic-Republican Party with Thomas Jefferson. Thereby validating the saying: What we condemn, we become. 

Similarly, in the New International Version (NIV) Bible, Luke 6:37 tells us, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.”

A man walks past piglets labeled 'Joel 1.7b', which were dumped outside the NUP headquarters in Kampala on July 22, 2024. PHOTO/MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI

So, the moral here for NUP and Biden is only throw when you live in a stone house, like the ones used to slaughter pigs in Wandegeya. 

Beyond that, there must be some justice for Joel B (this used to be his rap name before we realised he was not a rapper).

Pre-NUP, he was singly the most articulate talking head on television.

Back then, he was the Leader of the Proposition that the country could look past the current dispensation to a Uganda where the colour yellow indicates our Matooke Republic is overripe.  

After a stellar career in journalism, he joined a parade of nihilistic red berets to proclaim yellow a sign of jaundice, not progress. 

Accordingly, he pulled out a rocket launcher to take aim at the overgrown flea of corruption. 

Unfortunately, his attacks on governmental graft led government to look for the synonym of the word ‘graft’ which is ‘insert’. 

And they thus inserted Joel’s name in the run of corruption scandals in the country.  

They said he received a bribe from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) while serving as chairperson of the parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities, and State Enterprises (Cosase). 

It had to be the CAA since the government believes Joel has grown wings, and not the kind served at KFC. 

Disgraced parliamentary service awardees clapped and Joel clapped back by saying: “You can’t say Shs1b today, tomorrow Shs1.4b, then the other day Shs1.7b. Be organised even as you spew out your propaganda.”

To be fair, government is not very consistent with numbers. It started with 27 leaders, now there is only one. 

This could be because the words “one” and “won” sound the same, much like ‘Mzee’ and ‘Overstay’ rhyme.

Note: This is a parody column