{UAH} Soldiers in Somalia prove they are also Ugandans
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I did not know how jealously Ugandans guarded their status as one of the most corrupt countries on earth. After Transparency International (authors of Global Corruption Barometer 2013) ranked Uganda 17th, I do.
Last week, I listened to a local radio station as caller after caller protested. They insisted we had to be in the top 10, and ahead of Nigeria, even insinuating that someone at Transparency International may have been bribed to rig the exercise and make Uganda appear less corrupt.
Naturally, Uganda's top guns are protesting in the other direction; like Police Chief Gen Kale Kayihura, whose organisation has been ranked the most corrupt in Uganda. He says, how? Eh, how? You know his voice, and his works, without which Uganda would be a very boring place.
As for the rivalry, I see nothing between Uganda and Nigeria; they are so close. Two examples; one from Uganda's great Temple of Justice; the other from Nigeria's wacky football pitches:
Several months back, many of Uganda's MPs wanted the Prime Minister and two other ministers to stand aside while a parliamentary committee investigated bribery allegations in the oil industry.
The Prime Minister resisted. A private citizen who happened to be a lawyer from the Prime Minister's political base intervened through a court action and won. The trio did not have to stand aside. It all took a few weeks. For his trouble, the "private citizen" earned just under Shs13 billion; enough to pay the basic salaries of all Uganda's 40 or 50 judges for six years!
Then, two weeks ago, in response to the weird mathematics determining promotion or relegation in Nigeria's soccer league arrangements, one team whipped another by 67 goals to nil. In another 99-minute match, one team annihilated the enemy by 79 goals to nil!
It is against such tales that some of Uganda's military commanders in Somalia were reported to have sold off supplies meant for soldiers under their command (see Sunday Monitor, July 14), removing another layer from the long-standing myth that the UPDF is generally not corrupt. But since it was not your grand-mom who looted the DR Congo, or bought those junk choppers, or was inventing ghost soldiers, and man eateth where he worketh, the commanders were spot on.
Moreover, they could have been reasoning quite soundly.
Take the stolen apples: Everybody knows that apples are European fruits. Our thing is bananas. Even a mischievous football fan who wants to make fun of an African player throws a banana on the pitch, not an apple. So, a smart commander would figure out that most of his men were unlikely to be habitual apple eaters.
Even for those who had acquired the taste, their little income made the pricey fruit at best an occasional luxury. Four apples given to each soldier every two weeks was, therefore, already to spoil them; a daily apple would verge on command level irresponsibility.
Stolen milk: It is the Bahima of Ankole and the Karimojong who are obsessed with cows and milk. A roll-call of the contingent in Somalia shows such regional balance that one sachet of milk (instead of two) per day should be sufficient for most of the soldiers.
Stolen fuel: What is one lousy trucked tanker when powerful Ugandans are eyeing billions of barrels in Bunyoro's oil wells?
Stolen blankets: Soldiers are trained to be hardy. Are there winter conditions in Somalia that really call for a blanket? One could go on and on.
More seriously, of course, it was always a delusion to imagine that the UPDF could be isolated from the national pandemic of corruption.
Alan Tacca is a novelist and socio-political
commentator. altacca@yahoo.com
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