Mourning my brother and the epidemic on our roads

Author: Moses Khisa. PHOTO/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Mr Moses Khisa says: Ugandans are perishing and we stick with the same status quo as though there is no crisis.

My brother-in-law, Mr Joseph Watuwa, passed away last Sunday. He was knocked down into a coma while on duty at Wairaka on the Jinja-Iganga Highway. Joseph was a traffic police officer and had served his country with diligence and distinction for almost 30 years. 

While his tragic death is deeply painful to us as a family and to the many who knew and encountered him, the bigger tragedy here is the epidemic that is Uganda’s road carnage and a hopelessly broken healthcare system.
Joseph was incredibly kind, generously, self-effacing and a man of remarkable humility and modesty.

He spoke less and listened more, was deeply committed to his family and a gentleman. That he could die in the course of doing his job, ensuring safety and order on the roads by enforcing the law, is the real story of his death.

Uganda’s roads have become runaway death traps. Not safe for motorists, not safe for pedestrians and not safe for law enforcement officers thrown onto the roads with little protective equipment, poor remuneration and meagre operational resources. 

We must pause to reflect on this national epidemic. The problem is two-pronged. It is both political and social, at once a matter of government and an issue of our society. Politically, we have inept and incompetent government departments and agencies, unable to do the very basics of improving conditions on roads and removing the many problems that contribute to disastrous accidents. 

For starters, it is the responsibility of any government worth its name to ensure that only qualified and competent drivers have the legal clearance to drive. In Uganda today, by my rough estimate, perhaps as many as more than 70 per cent of the people driving on the roads, going by what I have seen and encountered, cannot pass a simple driving exam and road test. 

They do not know the most basic rules of the road, have little knowledge of the dos and don’ts while driving, yet duly licensed to drive. Unless one embarks on an aggressive and overreaching operation that will subject every driver to a fresh driving test, without the usual corrupt and bribery practices, and give license to only those who truly know how to drive, there is no other way around the epidemic. 

What is more, we have roads that lack very basic signage about what is right or wrong especially on the highways, including lane markings that can show clearly when and when not to overtake, speed limits, bends, etc. Just to show how unserious we are as a nation, there is literally no Ugandan highway that is a dual-carriage road, in the 21st Century!

The social dimension to this problem is equally critical. We are a country whose social mores and value systems have been tossed up in the winds. The recklessness on the roads is symptomatic of the larger social malaise where the underlying social fabric of society is in tatters. 

The lack of courtesy and a sense of patience on the roads, the lumpen-behaviour of especially the men riding passenger motorcycles with no regard for order and decency, the exaggerated sense of entitlement by those driving so-called big cars and government vehicles. All these add up to a cocktail of behaviour that is atrocious and dangerous for the public space that is roads.

While our roads are in a dire state, poor and underdeveloped, unable to handle ever exponentially growing traffic in a country whose population has been shooting through the roof, and a road network that is quite frankly both a sham and shame, add to that an appalling healthcare system. 

A reckless chap knocked Joseph into a coma on Thursday. He died on Sunday, three days later. There is a chance that swift and adequate medical intervention could have rescued his life. Getting him from Jinja and trying all sorts of hospital options before ending up at the usual death place, Mulago, was a familiar journey that many victims of roads accidents experience.

The state of our roads and the disaster that is our healthcare system should be the topmost concerns if we had a country under responsive and responsible government. 

In just a few years, I have lost two very close family members on the same highway, Jinja road, and in quite similar circumstances. I suspect that I am not alone. Ugandans are perishing on roads and somehow we stick with the same status quo and modus operandi as though there is no crisis.
Fare-thee-well, Joseph. Till we meet again.