Ugandan society as seen in 2022 

To understand Ugandan society, one only had to stand by the roadside in Kampala and observe the way people drove -- the impatience, the improvised driving or riding along pavements, the irritability, the needless accidents and near-accidents.

The most significant news story of 2022 was, in all likelihood, the report published by the Ministry of Health in May that 14 million Ugandans suffer from varying degrees of mental illness.

Put another way, about one in every three people struggles with mental health.

Most of our day-to-day concerns and struggles revolve around our economic struggle, but the state of our minds rarely bothers us.

Ugandan society in 2022 looked and behaved much like the unfortunate victims of mental illness we see on the streets.

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They are dressed in rags but no longer feel the sensation of shame or proper grooming.

The untidy habits, such as tossing plastic bottles and paper bags out of car windows and the other littering around towns, echoed the dishevelled appearance of victims of Schizophrenia.

The pressure to earn a living, along with the aforementioned fact of 14 million people struggling with mental illness, was on display all year round.

If 14 million people were reported as suffering some form of mental health crisis, it means their behaviour was affecting at least one other person with whom they came into contact.

This, in turn, means that at least 28 million people were caught up in or directly affected by mental illness.

That is two out of every three people in Uganda.

Radio stations across the country regularly aired incidents of bizarre behaviour that underscored the national crisis of mental illness.

Erratic behaviour, rampant unfaithfulness in marriage and other relationships, peculiar notions of intimacy, dishonesty among partners and much more were daily occurrences in the country in 2022.

Wrangles over land and property not just between neighbours but within families were regular cases in courts of law, and at police stations and LC I offices.

After the two-year COVID-19 lockdown of the national economy was lifted on January 24, 2022, life returned to its regular rhythm, but the population was now struggling much more than during 2019.

The economic ruin caused by COVID-19 was clear to see.

There was a hysterical, erratic, desperate, and shameless mood in the air.

From the Chief Justice to the Prime Minister, from the Speaker of Parliament to the Commander of the army’s Land Forces and various other public officials, speaking out of turn was the way the political class aired out their views, asserted a position, or sought to protect themselves politically.

Public officials increasingly spoke like the drunkard at a village funeral wake, half-crazily and half-pointedly to state an opinion than could not be expressed through more formal and official channels.

The pressure of living in an urban cash economy has turned many Ugandan hearts cold and wary. The traditional Ugandan friendliness of decades ago is visibly on the wane.

Financially shaky, is what the society in general was during 2022 and that shaped much of the thinking, reaction, and calculation.

Women hawkers on the streets of Kampala were now so familiar a sight, it ceased to be news.

In a country where personal contacts rather than institutional systems and rules work, the society is constantly talking, arguing, shedding tears, begging for help or forgiveness.

Few people buy or read books because, apart from the mental discipline required, knowledge is not what gets one ahead; phone calls to “afande” or Honourable so-and-so to get one out of trouble are what matter.

Financial desperation drove a change even in dealings with one’s own relatives.

People became more and more blunt in their requests for financial assistance from siblings, cousins, and other relatives in better circumstances.

One of the best proofs of this was in the rising popularity of the mobile messaging application, WhatsApp for tablet and especially for smartphone.

Nearly two decades into the social media era, it has started dawning on millions of users that while it’s fine to post photos of one’s graduation, wedding, holiday or birthday on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, overall a social media following has not translated into greater career or financial prospects.

WhatsApp, on the other hand, is more a direct one-to-one platform than Facebook or Twitter that are structured in a broadcast one-to-many format.

The smartphone has not brought about the upward mobility and economic productivity it once promised.

For most people in Uganda in 2022, a smartphone was something to own because it is the latest variation on the mobile phone. It was something to own because one couldn’t imagine not having it.

But for most people, the smartphone was in reality a portable photo album and video player.

Given this increasing tendency toward transactional relationships and dealings, it is no surprise that WhatsApp for the second year running was the most popular social app in Uganda.

In some way, WhatsApp is a return to the early 2000s SMS era in which one sent a phone text message to a specific individual and the communication was one-to-one.

The town-dwelling middle class tended to be politically aloof and put on the image of indifference to all going on around them.

Next door neighbours hardly talked or even knew each other, living in little bubbles behind gates, walls, and cars.

However, even this middle class was never far from the structure and ways of society.

It was not uncommon to see boda boda riders arrive at apartment blocks to deliver a can of cooking gas, a bunch of matooke, or pick up a passenger.

Most residents of the prestigious flats in Najeera, Bugolobi, Naalya, Naguru and other areas continued to show that money is not always the same thing as class.

Domestic garbage was disposed of in a manner not much different from the slum dwellers.

As the veteran journalist Michael Wakabi noted on Twitter on December 21, 2022 of the Ugandan middle class, “They consume low-class  wear used clothing and driver aftermarket vehicles. They buy land rather than build businesses. As a result they cannot support a business premised on patronage by the middle-class.”

Among the working class and slum dwellers, on the face of it there was still the familiar joviality and whimsical fun.

But beneath this friendly appearance were conversations willed with intense jealousy and intrigue, topped up with plenty of gossip and back-biting.

From time to time, this lower class erupted into public bickering over domestic matters and fist fights were common.

The struggling lower classes were deeply ashamed of their circumstances, seen in the way many tended to avoid eye contact with anyone from the middle class.

The taste in such areas as music remained basic, both for the middle class and the working class and peasantry.

The country has never moved on past the Christmas albums of Boney M and Phily Lutaaya.

The themes of Ugandan music in 2022, as in previous years, reflected the society’s preoccupation with money, status, and sensuality.

This, then, was Ugandan society in 2022.

As an increasing part of the population migrates from rural villages into towns and into Kampala City, they are confronted by a bewildering new environment where everyone is for himself or herself and money is the centre of almost everything.

The stress and disappointment of urban living, the contrast between the few haves and the many have-nots, the lack of formal systems to arbitrate disputes or offer opportunity, all this will continue to shape the national character in 2023.