What Are M7s Working Visits?

Sarah Kagingo, is a publicist for State House. As a publicist, she has three tasks on her job description that read as follows. 1. To tell the truth. 2. Not to comment. 3. To tell downright lies.


Going by her ramblings on Facebook, she does a good job because she posts something every thirty minutes or so that tell us about the affairs of state.

Recently, this is what she had to post: ‘President Museveni went to South Korea on a three-day working visit.’ A ‘three-day working visit’, what does it mean for usually when he goes abroad, she just says: “M7 has gone abroad”.

Does it mean that in all other visits were the words ‘working visit’ didn’t appear M7 had been going on a ‘full chill’ and merely sightseeing? Or perhaps and just like me visiting a friend on a Sunday, it means that I will end up doing the laundry and general cleaning while I am there?

So I sent Kagingo a message asking her to clarify and this is what happened. There was no comment forthcoming which led me to believe she has no idea of what a working visit means.

Moving on, I really like Uganda because it is one of the few countries that I have visited where laws are broken a dime-a-dozen. We have politicians and morality idlers who jump out of bed and start ranting on about how this or that should be banned. Let me put it this way.

In their wisdom, Uganda Communications Commission decided that our phones should be registered otherwise we would be cut off. They set a date that we had to comply with and when that date came and went, guess what, happened. Our phones still worked.

So they set another date and when that date came, our phones still worked. But they persisted and set another date – that of May 31 and this time they swore blind that we would be cut off. But guess what happened. We all ignored them, we didn’t register our phones and life went on. So until UCC decides to grow ‘balls’, I have no time in listening to what they have to say.

The top brass at police headquarters on Parliamentary Avenue also woke up one day and decided that enough was enough. Anybody caught driving without a seatbelt would be fined or arrested and likewise driving while talking on a cell phone. Any boda rider or passenger caught without a helmet would also be whisked off to the nearest police station to face the law.

Some people quaked like Nuns, Sister’s, Balokole the entire congregation of All Saint’s Church, Rubaga and Namirembe Cathedral’s and probably people like John Akii—Bua, Nodin Muzee, Gerald Baliddawa and Julius Mbabazi whom I know, freak out at the sight of a police car.

But I hardened along with boda boda riders and taxi drivers. What was Police really going to do? Were they going to arrest us because we were not wearing seatbelts or driving while talking on a cell phone? (By the way in my defence, I once told a cop who stopped me for sending a txt while I was driving that, the law did not mention sending txts while driving and it worked).

I have broken so many traffic laws and the fact that I am seemingly bragging about them which, I am SO NOT, I now have to behave for once Cop reads this he will be looking out for me!