Ugandans shall continue to die silly

December 2022 was particularly a very bad month and January has not spared us either with several avoidable deaths, especially on our roads but even in our sick medical facilities. However, the most unfortunate death was that of at least 10 concert goers on New Year’s eve at the Freedom City mall on Entebbe Road. 

As usual we continue to die due to ignorance, excitement or taking illicit drugs and recklessness. Fortunately once we die, the religious among us will be quick to quote their religious books as if God only wants Africans that He has to call them at a young age in such stupid circumstances. Many Africans and Ugandans in particular will be surprised when God denies them entry into paradise on account of having invited themselves to Him before their due date. 

A country where the state apparatus is only trained and constituted to ensure political survival  of a few fortunate members of the society cannot protects her weak and poor. Generally speaking neither the economy nor the state works for all of us but only for politically connected amongst us. 

 Traffic officers will be very careful and cautious on duty lest they are arrested or transferred if during the course of their duties they annoy people connected to the ruling class. I have seen buses on Gayaza road without lights and very poor mechanical condition but cannot be stopped because the owners are politically connected. The politically connected can therefore do anything . 

I have not understood till now why children as young as five years continue to attend night concerts together with drank adults! These kids are exposed to drugs at a very young age and nobody seems to care or take note of this injustice.  

Why have our people become so low that a good life to them means sleeping in bars and drinking as if the judgment day is the following day? Many lives have been lost and wasted in these unregulated entertainment places and those in power seem to be preoccupied with regime survival. 

I am not much travelled, I am therefore not in position to compare what happens in other countries to what takes place in Uganda but one thing I am sure of is that we are a party loving people, which has been worsened by our high levels of unemployment and unemployability. Therefore, our young people find solace in alcohol and other drugs not knowing that this is not a permanent solution to their problems, besides one cannot be young all through life. 

We have parents unable to perform their parental duties as it was in the past. These are people who have grown up in broken families and weren’t trained to be parents in the first place.  We have witnessed or read stories where fathers have impregnated their daughters or children conniving with their mothers to kill their fathers. 

We are in society where helpless children give birth to fellow helpless children, these are mothers who take their children to bars in the night in the name of enjoying life. The fathers are no more; they are either at the beach with younger girls or the bars watching foreign football or other sports leagues. The more fortunate children are those left to be looked after by maids. 

A society where religious leaders tell lies in order to get wealth from their gullible followers.  We would have gone to religious leaders for counsel but some of these fellows cannot do it unless we remunerate them and therefore the poor amongst us shall never have their spiritual needs met. 

A society where cultural leaders cannot defend their subjects but rather take away even the little that they have can only witness chaos and anarchy. The people who would be mobilising us to maintain hygiene and sanitation are only looking out for self preservation and survival and only serve the interests of their god fathers and makers. 

A society where politicians  tell lies to the populace but are also shamelessly greedy and corrupt has no ability to protect the weak and poor. We are always promised one thing and given another. Instead of discussing service delivery, our politicians chose to endlessly talk about party politics. This has been worsened by our low levels civil competence and intimidation from the state machinery.  We have been reduced to mere animals where each of us must find ways of satisfying their appetites. 

Uganda is a country where civil organisations are either in bed with the state and the government or are formed solely to benefit the founders. Most of the NGOs and CBOs are brief case or serve only the interests of the funders or the founders but not those they claim to. 

Therefore given the above circumstances, there is no way we can reduce deaths due to avoidable road accidents, collapsing illegally constructed buildings, illegal alcoholic drinks, stampede at concerts and shooting during political or civil demonstrations that have been out lawed in our country. 

Isaac Ismail L. Ntegana, Lecturer and farmer