This story wouldn’t have been written had I minded my own business and just drank my Castle Lite from a deadbeat kafunda while, watching Boda Chaps fighting over a game of Ludo. The story as told by the three chaps on the table behind me and onto whose conversation I was eavesdropping on, unfolded near Kiira Police Station when Covid curfew was still at 7:00pm.The names that constantly sprung up in the narration included James, Timothy, George, Sarah, Peter, Jude and Fred amongst others and the story goes along these lines.
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| Defiant - We Shall Drink |
Despite the curfew, this group felt the need to
drink. Nothing wrong with that except, they did not respect the 7:00pm curfew
time. Often they would drink at that particular bar till 9:00pm and then head
off to another location until the wee hours of the morning. What is very interesting,
is that the bar they drank from was almost opposite a police post. “We have
immunity so the group would brag. We even have many important people’s
telephone numbers on speed dial so what will Fat Cop at the police post do?
Arrest us? I think not.”
And of course once 7:00pm hit and the LDUs put
the spikes across the road, in the bar, it was business as usual. Now and again
the cops and LDU’s would walk in to use the washrooms, but none of the group
would stir let alone give them a curiosity glance. They simply quaffed their
beer, made noise and made merry. The cops and LDUs would simply looked on at
this level of defiance and dubbed them ‘The Untouchables.’
Life was good for The Untouchables until a cop who had a good number of ‘stones’ on his epaulets turned up at the police post. While going about his duties, he looked across the road and asked why so many cars were still parked and why there were people still drinking when it was curfew and when all bars had been closed down.
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| Busted |
By this time I had pushed my chair right back to
hear what happened next that I had practically joined their table.
The first hint that something was amiss came
from Fred and Sarah who noticed two LDUs skulking in the carpark. One went straight
for the toilets, the other to the parked rides. By the time any of The Untouchables
could react, they had been surrounded.
This is Uganda and as happens in Uganda, money is the solution to all problems. James (I wish I knew who he was) started and his tale was almost comical. Mbu, he kept on standing up and saying: “Affande can I salute you?” And Affande kept on retorting: “No you can’t salute me because you are not in uniform so sit down.” But James didn’t give up. “But affande, I am saluting you for the good work you are doing.” When he realized he was getting nowhere, he sat down all disconsolate.
Arrested for Drinking During Curfew
Then Jude tried his luck by going technical as
did Peter but still, affande was no having any of it. The others – Timothy,
George, Sarah and Fred so the story goes, kept quiet and carried on drinking
while contemplating spending the night at the police post.
After back and forth arguments, The Untouchables were rounded up and whisked off to the police post where statements were recorded and a bible lecture given by affande. At one point so the story goes, affande points at Timothy and goes: “Even you jajja, you are out drinking? But wait, I know you from somewhere”, to which ‘jajja’ replied, “I also know where you live.”
House Party Arrest
In all this mix, somebody called Alan to see if
he could bail the group out. And when Alan turned up, he turned up with a swag
that even the IGP himself would have been envious of. “What’s going on here” he barked with an air self-aloofness. When he realized that even he Alan, with all
his supposed connections, would not get affande to change his tune and that The
Untouchables are all under arrest he slithered out with a bruised ego.
To cut a long story short, The Untouchables
were released shortly after midnight, told to get their cars and go home. That
is what most of them did. Others sat back to finish off their drinks and even
had the audacity to go to another place and do more drinking.
As I wind up, if anybody who lives in Kiira knows this
group, drop me an email to tbukumunhe@gmail.com.
A crate of beer awaits you.
Pictures: chimpreports.com, independent.co.ug, pmldaily.com, mobilehowwebiz.ug
