Good luck on the next generation of lawbreakers

A few nights ago, we were driving home when we chanced on three vehicles struggling to negotiate U-turns in a narrow patch of whatever road is left for use. The said road had a “road closed” sign and barriers, which these clever-by-half drivers had ignored and driven past – only to be met with a dead end because the road is under construction.

It’s one of the few city roads whose use is limited by construction. The rest of the roads have incredibly broken down, at the same time. It’s boondoggling! Someone must have seen this coming. You wonder if it is a shortage of funds, and yet nearly 70 per cent of Uganda’s productive economic activity is based in and around the city – so having impassable roads is akin to ‘eating your capital’.

Whatever the explanation is, it will get worse for everybody when constructions and repairs eventually start. If you consider that on average, government construction projects take three times the amount of scheduled time – five-plus times if it’s the Northern Bypass – then the closest we shall have a city with functional roads is likely to be around the next [new] presidency. Good luck doing business!

But it’s not the incapacitating state of roads or our inability to get them going that I meant to write about. It is those three drivers – and probably many others before and after them – that is the focus of today’s column. As they hustled their way back onto the main road, the rest of us mused at how and why they had blatantly ignored the warnings against using the road.

It’s not the first time I have seen something like this happening on our roads. We are more familiar with high-ranking government officials and a few overinflated private citizens in a hurry to nowhere, driving on the wrong side of traffic or forcing other motorists off the roads. Sometimes, it might be a parent using office/public resources like pens and reams of paper, to stuff their kid’s back-to-school shopping bag.

What is it about our psyche that makes it so easy to find and cut corners, even when we know we shouldn’t? It’s something that I can’t quite find an answer to, especially because we also fill up churches and prayer overnights in stadia, have traditionalists and moralists trumpeting on about how to behave right, and our education system is designed to impart subservience.

I probably should feel a little silly for asking this question because I know the answer. You cannot have a citizenry that adheres to the law when those charged with leadership and enforcement are most culpable – and have, therefore, in setting an example, also lost the moral authority.

That’s why I had mixed feelings from a story I read, early this week. Apparently, schools have disregarded guidelines on the scheduled reopening as directed by the Ministry of Education, and resumed teaching for all the other classes.

Even more interesting, some kindergartens are up and running, despite government announcing the indefinite closure of that section, a few months ago. The schools just ask their kids to show up without uniforms; and have probably done away with singing the ABCs and playing Hide and Seek – effectively schooling the kids in the art of ghosting.

That story had me caught between happiness and a certain apprehension. On the one part, I was happy that the children, having seen their adults – albeit stealthily – defy government, will grow up to be more questioning of a lot of things we do – or are asked and expected to.

 After all, if we learn more from experience than anything else, then we can assume that the kids will be okay. But it also got me feeling a little sad because of the ease with which things could swing the other way.

That the children will see their parents and teachers circumventing the law, and come to learn that it’s doable; and can be gotten away with. So, who knows the number of criminals we are breeding from this experience? The number of children for whom this will be the building block for more illegalities.

The hope for whoever is reading this, is that when the kids watch, they learn to ask why our roads don’t get fixed, and in time; Or why government officials punished when they break the law – on the road and at work. Let’s hope that they don’t learn that it’s okay to break the law.

Mr Rukwengye is the founder, Boundless Minds. [email protected]