Shabby insider trading will collapse house Uganda

Back when I was a student at university, sports betting was just starting to get a foothold in town. It wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today and hadn’t pervaded the informal sector like white on rice. It was mostly still a case of if you know you know.

But soon, betting kiosks would start popping up around Makerere University, in areas like Kikoni, Kavule, and Kikumi Kikumi. They were targeting students, especially those living in hostels. It became common to overhear conversations punctuated with words like “receipt”, and names like Rubin Kazan, Kasimpasa, and Anorthosis Famagusta. These were football teams in random European leagues that no regular football fan would have been paying attention to.

But suddenly, university students in Makerere knew them because they were flooding internet cafes to do in-depth research on what “odds,” “overs” and “under” to place on which team.

They knew everything there was to be known about a team and used it to devastating effect. They won some money to spend on Thursday Rock nights at Steak Out and over the weekends at Effendy’s.

But they lost money too. Plenty of money. I remember one young man in our circles who was an early adopter and paid quite heavily for it. He made lots of money from the wins and spent it on a good time as fast as it came in. In a couple of wins, he got enough to buy himself a car.

A few months later though, he had dropped out of school and got thrown out of the hostel because he had gambled away his tuition and hostel fees. If Makerere had been as serious a university as it wants to be taken, it would have seen it coming.

There should have been studies commissioned to understand the phenomenon and what impact it would have on especially its and Uganda’s student community in the long term. 

Instead, the university administration descended into petty power fights with students, crashing dissent, and in many ways, turned itself into an appendage of the ruling party. Almost 15 years later it is now coming to light that hundreds of students are dropping out of university because of sports betting.

The case of MUK isn’t unique to it. It is the same for nearly all public institutions in the country. The Parliament of Uganda is currently in the news for, biblically speaking, turning itself into a den of thieves. You hear the same complaints and grumbling coming from and about the judiciary.

Beyond self-enrichment, it is not clear what else many people who work in government agencies and ministries spend their time doing with taxpayers’ money. 

When the NRM’s epitaph finally needs to be written, it will be hard to find an institution with the standing to do the job. That is what happens when weak institutions meet with weak leadership. The center fails to hold and crumbles.

Strong institutions, as we have seen elsewhere, can withstand and outlive bad and mediocre leadership. They also compensate for times when there is a vacuum.

There are, obviously, thousands of men and women who are giving this thing their all and hoping for a better day but who is to say that they won’t wear out? It happened especially in the 70s and early 80s when Uganda suffered systemic breakdowns of untold and unprecedented proportions.

The reason why some institutions rode that wave is because individuals there decided to go beyond their call of duty. Ever wondered how, for example, you never really hear about cases of examination malpractice from Amin’s era?

When the NRM’s epitaph finally needs to be written, it will be hard to find an institution with the standing to do the job. That is what happens when weak institutions meet with weak leadership.

The center fails to hold and crumbles. Strong institutions, as we have seen elsewhere, can withstand and outlive bad and mediocre leadership. They also compensate for times when there is a vacuum.

MUK, like many other universities and lower education institutions, which are supposed to be breeding grounds for leaders has been captured by the politics, mediocrity of the day. The evidence is everywhere you look.

Yesterday’s gamblers and hustlers are now gaming the system. Without the technical and strategic nous to keep it running, everyone, like your typical gambler, is hoping it stays on long enough till their payday.

Mr Rukwengye is the founder, Boundless Minds. 
@Rukwengye