Time to call out Amin for pothole mess

A lot has been said about Idi Amin but did you know that the former Ugandan leader loved swimming more than Museveni hates lies? Those who lived in the 70s say on a good day, Amin dived in no less than seven times.

Whenever he was angry, his close associates would find a way to lead him toward a swimming pool and once he saw the water, he would just dive in and forget what was making him angry.
Naturally, this translated to more pools in the country. And just like that, along the roads. Then on the roads itself.

Then one day, a potbellied minister attempted to dive into one of the Amin attraction mini-pools on the road and was injured. 

Amin asked what had happened and he was told the minister was “potholed” in reference to his potbelly.
Laughing, Amin suggested: “We should make them bigger. You know my size, if I got stuck in one because it was too small, that will be treason.”

That is how the word “pothole” found its way into English and, in 1977, entered the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary. 

And that is not all; the government of the time carefully chiselled the potholes into craters.
Unfortunately, many years later, all that we Ugandans are good at is blaming the NRM government. We look at every pothole and think that Museveni went into labour in Kawolo Hospital every fortnight and gave birth to them.

Ugandans just need to learn. These things started in Amin’s ‘error’ and we must tell the truth. The things are even so big they are now swallowing up bullion vans and Sino trucks and yet we still cannot see that these were carefully created to allow the swimming-mad Amin dive in whenever he wanted to cool off.

Remember, folks, these potholes are on roads designed during the Amin ‘error’. You won’t find them on the Entebbe Expressway, for instance, which was designed and constructed in the NRM era.

The last time a pothole was seen on the NRM-designed Northern Bypass, ministers were jailed for stealing mabati.

You will think I’m lying because I’ve only read about Amin but how do you explain this: a bunch of MPs from Kampala took a tour of the capital to assess the state of potholes. But they did not see the craters in industrial area.

Does that make sense? The truth is that they saw them but like anyone who knows the history of potholes, they could tell that those were swimming pools from the Amin ‘error’. Because their memo and per diem was strictly for pothole assessment, they overlooked the Amin mini-pools.

However, there is also suspicion of economic sabotage. And that is where the legendary pigs come in. There is no way leaders could have spent days touring the city and not seen the pothole unless some pigs were involved in the sabotage.

Now, some of you think we have blamed Amin enough, that we should let him rest in peace. Well, perhaps so, but how will this fix the potholes?

Instead now our extremely busy Lt Col Edith Naka of the Lema fame will be inundated with more mandates to head a new State House Pothole Authority (Shopa) that is in the offing.

The Shopa will investigate how pigs are behind every other pothole that was not created in the Amin ‘error’. Already, informants are warming up to file their report to the Shopa as soon as the agency is created. Yes, the would-be informants have already seen the hands of Besigye and Bobi Wine in these potholes. 

If you did not know, at the time a bullion van was sinking into a giant Amin pothole, Besigye was meeting a donor boss named Crater van Havoc. Then when that Premio was swallowed, Bobi was speaking at a conference organised by Plan des Mess in Ontario.

Now, with the Shopa, pothole will be history. Just like Amin is. Be afraid, pigs. Very afraid.

Disclaimer: This is a parody column