A bleeding general was squeezed onto a boda boda. What are we on?

This column is for Ugandans. Relatives, friends and in-laws please read the super smart Karoli Ssemogerere on the next page, or move on to the magazine. Family members, close the door, pull chairs, and sit down; we need to talk.

 I want us to, even momentarily, forget the things that make us different: tribe, political party, level of education, income status, et cetera; let’s for just a moment, be just Ugandans, regardless of who born us. 

 So, as you all know, some people tried to kill Gen Katumba Wamala on Tuesday. He survived with injuries, but his daughter and driver did not make it. Is it not time to ask if lessons have been learnt?

 First, in the last six years motorcycle-riding assassins have shot and killed a leading state prosecutor, an MP, an assistant Inspector General of Police and a handful of religious leaders. The style is eerily similar but we don’t know if it is the same assassins, or a case of shoot one, get to shoot two free. We don’t know because despite several arrests, none of the cases has been fully solved.

 We still don’t know how many boda bodas we have, who owns them, who rides them, and how to find any that might be of interest in a criminal investigation. We have installed CCTV cameras across the city but it is still common to find motorcycles without licence plates and  vehicles whose licence plates change by the day. There are more loose guns than bu  loose 50ks in this town!

 It is as if we have a snake in the house that has bitten a few children but we return to the same house to sleep every night, until another one bites the dust. Then we huddle around the victim, ruefully shake our heads and noisily suck on saliva as we ruminate the latest conspiracy theory involving big people in government.

 Secondly, we have invested a lot of money in our police force. They have more cars, better offices and very hi-tech ways of listening in to most of our conversations. Kira Road Police Station is less than three kilometres from where Gen Wamala was shot. So why did it take almost half an hour for the police to arrive – precious time in which the assailants rode off and the crime scene was interfered with?

 When there are political disturbances we see strange men in civilian attire turning up with assault rifles. Some of them have been seen stopping in unmarked vehicles, dragging some hapless youth off the street, and disappearing them. Who are they and when do they use some of their camouflage and commando skills to pick up the really bad guys?

 Then there was the sight, my people, of Gen Wamala being squeezed onto a motorcycle, pressed between the rider and his guard, to be rushed to hospital. He is lucky his injuries did not hinder his movement, but what a sad sight! 

 There was no ambulance with a trained crew to administer first-aid to the victims and stabilise them before transferring them to hospital. I want us to remember this the next time you meet those busy bodies with lead cars and incessant sirens driving on the wrong side of the road.

 A general, cabinet minister, and former chief of defence forces bleeding on a boda boda? What are we on? And to have him taken, not to Mulago National Referral Hospital, but to a small private facility farther away? We are on what?

 Finally, as this column has previously noted, Gen Wamala is low-key and shuns the razzmatazz of those newly introduced to power. But shouldn’t he, at least, be entitled to a hard-skin vehicle, even one from the frequently updated First Fleet?

 Gen James Kazini was “killed” by a 55-kilogramme woman in a Namuwongo bedsitter while the man who replaced him as Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Aronda Nyakairima died “oba how?!” on a trip abroad. If Tuesday’s hit had been successful it would have meant that the last three army commanders would all have died in a sudden, dramatic and even inexplicable manner.

 If we are honest enough to “beat a torch in our hearts” we will see that something has gone very seriously wrong.

Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and  poor man’s freedom fighter. 

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Twitter: @Kalinaki