We cannot bury our heads in the sand as boda bodas wreak havoc

First off, a confession: I was supposed to write this op-ed piece the weekend before kids returned to school. A bunch of them numbering no more than five were playing dodgeball in the neighbourhood.

My recollection of events is a patchwork that involves a certain degree of guesswork, but the horrible image I cannot get out of my mind is the one of a boda boda clattering into one of the kids. 

The sound of the impact. The piercingly loud shriek of the little girl after what seemed like eternity. She must be aged 12 or thereabouts. 

Her initial silence after the nasty crash made me fear for the worst. The high-pitched piercing sound she let out confirmed an injury the naked eye could barely make out. A fractured leg, perhaps. 

As a Good Samaritan carried her to the nearest medical facility, which was a stone’s throw away, I was seething with anger.

A subtle willingness to be reckless has well and truly become the qualifying threshold for boda boda operators in our pothole-ridden capital. Even worse, we have become desensitised to the scars—physical and mental—that these flying two-wheelers visit upon us. 

As I mulled over the nooks and crannies of a poorly regulated transportation option that has been cynically willed into existence by our politicians, I promised to write something about it. Days passed, and I kept procrastinating. Weeks turned to months, and still my in-tray was packed as tight as a Cuban cigar. 

So, what changed? Well, this past workweek, as I went to pick my kid from school, the unthinkable happened. Yes, you have guessed right, I found myself caught in the crosshairs after a boda boda in dangerous mechanical condition rammed into me. Or to put it more accurately dented the car I was driving. 

The repair works, including a paint job, will set me back what can only be described as a princely sum at a time money is in scant supply. But that is, please feel free to look away, besides the point. What is certainly disturbing is a culture that the boda boda community has, perhaps unintentionally but not unsuccessfully, normalised. 

The boda boda operator, whose brakes spectacularly failed him as he hurtled down a steep descent before lodging his machine into mine, managed to beat a hasty retreat. He pulled this off with a little (to put it mildly) help from the rogue elements who are part and parcel of the boda boda community. I could just about make out the insincere smiles they flashed as they disappeared into the fading of afternoon into evening. 

This is a usual occurrence, and the culprits typically swell with pride even in places with CCTV cameras. While Ugandans are rather impassive and resigned to their fate, it would be instructive for the top brass in the country’s security apparatus to ask themselves a few recurring questions. The questions, much like the answers, are well known. Victims do not seek justice because they know that the proverbial wheels of justice will need to be oiled. It is, therefore, cheaper to start from scratch than have the police take you round in circles.

Lamentably, these are not the only unseemly circumstances and outcomes we have to put up with. It is vexing how our neighbourhoods and road networks are set up to engender accidents the like of which I have described. 

A steep descent with no speed bumps? A neighbourhood with no clear passage for walking? Both these are sure to keep the board tallying accidents ticking. 

It invariably follows that one must ask: where do we go from here? The answer is simple: responsible authorities ought to do their job and do it well. We cannot take great pride in watching our country turn into some kind of Wild West. This commentary might be a couple of months old, but galvanise action it must. Over to you, dear reader.

The writer is a journalist
@robertmadoi