It's Obama's Kids Who Scare And Not The Donald

For the past three weeks, Americans - and the world at that, have been troubled over having The Donald in the White House. While many are looking at the larger picture, I’d rather we simmer down, hold onto our underpants and knickers and look at something else. The children. It's not The Donald that we should really be scared of, but rather, the children that Barack Obama and his predecessors raised - and who will now be raised by him (The Donald). Let's look at them in comparison to Museveni's children - or those of his predecessors.  

America:

From a tender age, children struggle with gender identity like 8-year-old Ashley - now Ash, who recently made the news because he was born a boy but now lives as a girl. Children like Ash are in turmoil over their gender and a feeling that they don't fit in - with some sinking so low, they consider suicide. Describing how she often never feels ‘right’, Ash explained: “I feel like a regular girl, but I am not. There is something inside me that is saying to come out. Living as a boy felt like telling a lie.” Hmm. 

Uganda:

From the onset, I knew I was a boy and would develop into a man. As a boy, I knew dolls and kwepena were not male games. Plus somehow, I don't think my dad or any of your dads would have stayed up all night making placards and taken to demonstrating outside the High Court or UBC if you or I had woken up on Tuesday and decided we were born Vinta, Dianah or Ronah and not TB, Nodin, Julio Kayos, Paulo or Willo. That most suicidal stunt, would have our dads calling for family and clan meeting and a stint with the Doctor in Butabika and being stripped of all family rights.

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America:

When Parent melts out discipline, it’s not that straight forward. Parent is always on bunkenke and needs to tread very carefully. If Kid gets grounded, told to go tidy their room, gets shouted at, slapped or abused, he knows what to do. And that’s picking up the phone and reporting the ‘assault’ to the police and child social authorities. And he won’t end it there. Kid goes that step further and hires Lawyer, goes to court and divorces Parent.

Uganda:

Mbu Parent being on bunkenke with Kid?! Lol, it’s always Kid being on bunkenke with Parent. Kid has no rights. Their views are meaningless. That Kid can wake up and out of the blue, go to police and report Parent for assault, abuse or whatever? Or better still, hire Kiwanuka and Karugire Advocates with the intention of suing and divorcing them? Let me assure all those kids who want to be like American Kid to forget about it. This is Ug, and in Ug, Ug Parent does not tolerate that American nonsense and will so wallop the stupidity, kajanja and mputu out of you.

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America:

When School Teacher puts Kid in detention, suspends or expels him, that move natrually lights a busungu fuse because weeks later, Kid is going to walk into school armed with a Kalashnikov and walk the corridors spraying bullets at anybody he comes across. And for good measure, he will go home and nonchalantly slit Parents throat with a Rambo knife, then sit down to a tub of popcorn and watch the entire Die Hard movie collection like nothing has happened as Parents bleed away to a slow death on the kitchen floor.

Uganda:  

Detention, suspension or being expelled? Even here in Uganda, the busungu fuse gets lit though, it’s not Kids fuse that’s being lit. It's Parent’s fuse. And Parents fuse lights up badly especially when it comes to education. being suspended or expelled is inviting a tsunami of a beating. It's a given along with being made to sleep outside on the veranda, slashing the grass and having a life worse than that of a slave.  

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America:

When Kid sees a piglet, chickens or a lamb, for some strange reason, they don't see food. Like to two poor souls below, they see pets and sometimes, Hollywood will make a movie out of the 'pets' - like they did with the 1995 movie, Babe. And Kid goes a step futher feeds them botles of milk and will have them slepp in the main house. Dare take American Kid to Ugachick, Kampala Meat Packers or introuduce them Swaibu who in kyalo, always has a sharp knife and machete on hand and ready to do the needful and he will forever hate you and call you a sadist. 

Uganda:

Kid is focused. Piglets, chickens or lamb are NOT pets and going to watch them being slaughtered at Ugachick or Kampala Meat Packers or seeing Swaibu do the needfull is much better than an outing to Disneyland. A pig is a mere invitation for Butcher to whip out his knife or machete and slicing off the heads then, turning the carcasses into Saturday pork to be served with accompaniments, or deep fried into KFC or grilled into lamb chops.  

Now do you see where am coming from? I feel safe and so should you that here in Uganda, Kid will leave home as TB, or Nodin or John and return as TB, Nodin or John and not as Vinta, Nancy, Emily or Susan. That when he goes to kyalo to see Jajja, he won't come back with a piglet as the family pet, but as a reason to call his tights a Sunday barbecue muchomost fest and that if he gets expelled from school, he will come home and accept his kiboko's and not go on a rampaging shooting spree or slit my throat as I sleep.    

Pictures: Internet

Business Cards For Toilet Cleaner?

In the controversial 1993 Robert Redford, Demi Moore and Woody Harrleson movie – Indecent Proposal, there is a scene where John (Harrleson), an architectural lecturer, is giving a class, holds up a brick and says: “Even a common ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is. It wants to be something better than it is. And that is what we must be... See you on Friday.”

We all want to be something. We want to be better than who we are. We want to have a self-worth and more importantly, we all want to be taken as somebody important.

In Ogun State - Nigeria, there is Prince Ade Adesanya. Aside being a prince, his calling card reads: Friend of The Governor.

Err, what did Harrleson tell his class? - “Even a common ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is - wants to be something better than it is. And that is what we must be.”

Les is a soft spoken Englishman. When he landed on our dusty streets in the late 90s, he opened a small bar in Muyenga called Jacaranda at Tank Hill Parade shopping complex where he built a small loyal clientele – Dr Gladys Kalema – Zikusooka, Dr Paul Kiwanuka, David Mwakitele, Evelyn Kiapi and myself amongst others, where many raucous nights went down.

One thing about Jacaranda that made it appealing - especially to the women, were the toilets. There was Full-time Attendant who, checked on them round-the-clock with a zeal. One night as I sat with Les, Full-time Attendant gingerly hobbled over and perched himself a fair distance way while letting out polite attention coughs. When Les beckoned him over, Full-time Attendant handed him a note – a note that bore the supplies he would need to execute his duties the following week. It was well presented and it included a rough estimate of the prices for each of the requirements.

At the end of the shopping list, not only had he signed and dated it, but bless him, he had also given himself a job title – that of: Head Toilet Cleaner.

Like Harrleson said to his students in the movie: “Even a common ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is. It wants to be something better than it is. And that is what we must be.”

Back to Nigeria and there is a certain Dr (Mrs) Merit Gordon Obua who bagged herself a title courtesy of her husband’s job. Her 'job' title read: Wife of the Chief Security Officer to the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces – Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Again, the Harrleson quote comes into play: “Even a common ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is. It wants to be something better than it is. And that is what we must be.”

In one of M7s early ministerial appointments after the bush war, he appointed a doctor as his State Minster for Health which, made sense. While it was the duty of Official at the ministry to furnish Minister with business cards, his wife was not to be left out and she too joined the party. She had her own business cards printed off - not for whatever business she was running, but and wait for it, wait for wait it – but as: Mrs Deputy Minister of Health. She went a step further that whenever she went to kyalo, at her insistence, she was not to be referred to as Mrs X, but as, Mrs Deputy Minister of Health.

Like Harrleson said: “Even a common ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is. It wants to be something better than it is. And that is what we must be.”

For obvious lawsuit reasons, Simeon is not his real name. I had been in school with him and when I returned to Uganda in the very late 90s, over lunch when he we gave me his business card, I was impressed and happy for him because, his job title read: President and CEO.’ I couldn’t wait to see the million-shilling outfit he was running. The ‘million-shilling’ outfit he was President and CEO of, was on the third floor of a building behind Uganda House – down a narrow dimly lit dusty corridor and past Watch Repair Man and Juice Woman. In a small and cramped office, which he shared with a million-other people, he was President and CEO of his small desk which he rented and from where he plied his trade as a printer.

Need I remind you of what Harrleson said to his class?: “Even a common ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is. It wants to be something better than it is. And that is what we must be.”

And finally, there is David Ibukun Maiye (Below). His card simply reads: Chief Barber to The President. 

What did Harrleson say? “Even a common ordinary brick wants to be something more than it is. It wants to be something better than it is. And that is what we must be.”

Seeing everybody wants a business card, I'm off to Nasser Road to pick up my cards and I haven't strung out all my names nor given myself a fancy title above my station. It simply reads: TB - Chief Tumbavu Crier.

In this case, what did Harrleson NOT say? "Even a common ordinary brick wants to be the brick that Boda Man pees against. It wants to be something fwaa. If that is what my brick wants to be, then let it be."  

   

If Hilary Had Won, What Next For The Donald?

If Hilary Rodham Clinton (Below), had been elected the 45^th President of the 'free world' - The United States of America and the first POTUS at that, one of her pending issues would have been - 'Just what on earth do I do with The Donald' – as in Donald Trump, her bitter Republican rival for the presidency.

Of course she could have ignored him, but The Donald (Below), was likely to keep on sniping away at her heels throughout her four-year-tenure. Perhaps she could have taken drastic action and handed him over to the feared Los Zetas, a cartel who control Mexico’s notorious suburb - Juarez Valley, where many of the would-be-immigrants into America and who would have been clambering over his immigration wall reside and let them tear him apart.

But pause a minute. There are many women out there who are still seething and foaming at the mouth over the comments he made about them during the election campaign and who would love to sink their teeth into him. For that, she perhaps need look no further than Mpigi, here in Uganda, where Mpigi Woman has been on the rampage.

I do stand to be corrected, but if I recall from my so not-paying-attention geography classes, Mpigi, is a town in Mawokota County, Mpigi District. It’s also an important transit town on the highway to Masaka and has a staunch Buganda populous where one of Buganda’s most renowned traditional gods – Kibuuka Ommbaale resides as well as it being the ancestral home of the ndiga (sheep) clan.

Nothing tangible thats worth gloating about really comes out of Mpigi - save for ndiga, nsenene and oba what else, but recently, someting did - enough to get the town a mention in the newspapers – not because the ndiga had ran amok, but because of spousal battery. And this is where we jump in. It’s not that Mpigi Man is battering Mpigi Woman, but Mpigi Woman is battering Mpigi Man. Hmm. So ‘concerned’ are the police that Victor Kule, (Below) the regional police commander for Katonga region, has been tasked with making sure that Battered Man gets police help.

Just like men who batter women, women who batter men don’t have signs hanging off their necks that read: ‘I batter my man.’ And they are not necessarily the muscly butch type women with grey strands of hair between their bosom and who hang out in sweaty UNHCR tarpaulin covered makeshift Kawempe gyms behind Roko and doing squat thrusts with Moses Golola.

The first battered man I came across in Uganda was at Ggaba Police station a few years ago. He was built – not 100% pure muscled beef, but had enough beef on him to handle himself in a melee. It was the third time he was reporting to police that he had been battered by Wifey.

However, to Fat Female Cop, Battered Man was merely wasting time police time for she said something along the lines of: “But look at you, you are a man and you really can’t take care of yourself!?” She went further and this time joined by Male Cop, they belittled him in front of everybody who was there to report a case, those under arrest and those merely passing by. OC on the other hand, just didn’t want to know.

And when Wifey walked in, she was the most petite women I’d seen in a while but had the most vicious temper and an abuse vocabulary that was so acidic, it literally made the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Moving on, I have never met the television personality MC Kats (Below) nor have I met his finance or is it now his ex-fiancé, Fille Mutoni (Far Bottom). Apart from her thigh power, Fille looks like the girl next door. I don’t know where she comes from, but if its Mpigi, then her battering Kats recently was a battering waiting to happen.

So, what exactly happened? Err, Fille thumped the living daylights out of Kats in public and no one was sympathetic to him but, we did take delight in mocking and ridiculing him. He was the butt of jokes from Koboko to Kisoro and we men (and women too) smirked and sneered: “What sort of man is Kats to allow a kawala to goof him?” 

If he (Kats) on the other hand had battered Fille, he would have been plucked from the streets and whisked on the back of a police pickup to CPS faster than it takes Uganda’s foot dragging and slowest waitress to pop open a bottle of Tusker Malt. That aside, an army of women  - led by the vocal, unpredictable and erstwhile Dr Stella Nyanzi, would have camped outside the station demanding he, along with The Donald, who Hiliary Clinton banished to Mpigi, get hung from the nearest Marabou Stork infested mango tree outside the High Court till their necks snap for heinous crimes against women.

Pictures: Weekly Observer, AFP, Red Pepper

1,000 Ways To Die

Back in the 80s when Milton Obote still ruled the coup, Mum had a maroon 1977 model Fiat 127 like the one below and it was the car I learnt to drive in. Except, I wasn’t allowed to drive in Kampala, but in kyalo – Ibulanku to be precise. But I didn’t want to drive down Ibulanku’s dusty roads. I mean what was the point? A 16-year-old teen can’t show off driving down kyalo roads. Would School Friends see me? No. At school there was no way I could brag that I could drive because as a teen, everything required proof. They actually had to see you roll up to a party at Friends house driving. If you had a girlfriend, holding hands or sitting next to her was not proof enough. They had to see you with your tongue rammed down her throat, if not, your crotch pressing hard against her.

Everybody my age had driving proof – except me. Richard and Bernard Kajura had proof. So did Ian and Jonathan Musoke. And they were not driving down the streets of their kyalo’s, but in Kampala. I had to be like them. But there was a problem.

Mr. and Mrs. Bukumunhe – my parents that is, didn’t see it that way. That they give me TB – a ka teen their car, fill it with fuel that was scarce in those days so I could go gallivant around Kampala impressing School Friend? The thought of asking them for a car gave me shudders. It was enough to make me slap myself. It was illegal. It was criminal. It was an obscene thought.

On a summer holiday from boarding school and with Parent at work, I explored the house and swinging open the garage doors, what do I find but, a Range Rover like the one below except, that it was white. And more importantly, the keys were in the ignition. That find to a 16-year-old, is akin to Bank of Uganda asking Civil Servant to store $10m of donor money under his bed than in the bank vault.

Of course I was going to steal the Range Rover. No, let me rephrase. Of course I stole the Range Rover! However, there was a ‘but’. It’s one thing driving a Fiat 127 and another thing driving a Range Rover. I didn’t drive the Range Rover – rather, it drove me. It was so powerful that the snarling revs of its engine literally snapped Teen Girl’s bra straps as she walked past the ride in Kansanga. I know because I heard the ‘ping’ as the straps snapped.

I made it from Muyenga to Ian and Jonathan’s house in Makyinde where jaws dropped as I drove through the gate. Visiting Teen Girls suddenly wanted to know me. I was IT. Back school - The Grange School in Kenya, I would take centre stage. I would be the talk – “TB can drive and his parents allow him to drive a Range Rover!”

Satisfied with the plaudits, I had to get the Range home before Parent got back from work and that’s when everything went south. I fired up Range then gave her some revs to snap Visiting Teen Girl’s bra strap but when I engaged gear, Range didn’t sedately drive away. Range had become nasty. It wanted to show off what its engine could do like a Formula One car lurching off the grid at the start of a race. In the space of five seconds, it had lurched, smashed into the boundary wall and reduced it to rubble. Then it careered off a flowerbed and straight through another wall where it came to a standstill along with a cracked windscreen.

One thing about being Teen, is that when disaster strikes especially when you have stolen Parents ride, is tantamount to having no friends. You are on your own – a loner at that. Visiting Teen Girl’s who moments ago were so into me, ran for the gates and scurried themselves home. Jonathan and Ian wanted to bolt but couldn’t, because the accident occurred at their house.

I don’t know how Parent found me, but when they got out of the car along with Mr. Musoke and come over to me, the atmosphere was frightfully chilling - like waiting to watch how I was going to die in season one of the television series - 1,000 Ways To Die. Mum was dressed in mourning black from head-to-toe for she knew I was dead, while Dad, it was for being on bunkenke and trying to guess from which direction the first of many hot slaps and kicks would come from.

Was it worth stealing the Range? Jeez, YES! The slaps, kibooko and abuse aside, when I got back to school, rather than having a tattered reputation, I was a star, I was a hero for word had spread.

And suffice to say, I am in trouble for when Parent buys the paper and reads this, I doubt both of them will be amused for my making money through glorifying my childhood wayward ways.


Pictures: Fiat, Land Rover, Internet

Lusting After The Obese Woman

I am not fat shaming, but beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and out there, men and women connect on different levels. Some men like tall women. Some like short women. Others like them light skinned or dark skinned. Some prefer them smart. Others settle for airheads. Some men go in for big busted women or women with hairy legs. Every man – and woman, has a type. One of my tights – Paulo, he likes them ample and kind of bummy. That’s his preference. But while he likes Bummy Woman, he has a cut-off point as in, she’s bummy but, reasonable bummy.

It’s a myth that only Black Man has a thing for Bummy Woman, while White Man, prefers Anorexic Woman. However, there’s a breed of White Man who wants more than Bummy Woman. He wants a woman who is full masaavu – a mix of Kimbo, Blue Band, fat off a 21-piece KFC bucket, Mukwano cooking oil and the layers of fat from the largest sow at an Ntinda pork joint all rolled into one. Basically, he wants her obese.

I’m flicking though the television channels and it jumps at me. A one-hour documentary, Fat Girls and Feeders which according to the synopsis is: ‘A disturbing look at the bizarre sub-culture in which men who find larger women attractive coerce their ample partners to gain more weight – for sexual or more sinister reasons.’

Like me, Mark is lean and has a 32-inch waist. He likes Fat Woman. I don’t and he was determined to find himself Fat Woman and make her the fattest woman in the world so he could satisfy his sexual lust. And he did.

When he met her, Fat Woman was as big as the television presenter, Straka (Below) but, she was trying to lose weight. She watched what she ate, she swam and went to the gym. When Mark came along, he piled her with food. Breakfast was two large buckets of KFC. Lunch, a dozen pizzas that could feed all the cops camped outside Besigye’s crib in Kasangati. In between meals were numerous McDonalds snacks and jumbo bottles of Coke.

And this is where it got perverted. He took pictures of her progress and drooled over her lard. He’d smile to himself when she struggled to walk or was out of breath. He controlled her. He wanted her obese and totally dependent on him.

                                    

Like Mark, Luke was a ‘feeder’ - someone who manipulates and controls his partners diet by feeding her fat gaining foods. Luke wanted Fat Woman house bound – a prisoner almost and to achieve that, he had to make her bed ridden obese. For two years, Fat Woman never left her bed because she couldn’t lift herself out of it. And with obesity came health issues, that the only way Paramedic could get her from the bedroom to the hospital, was to call the fire brigade who, broke down a wall and had to use a crane to hoist her out of her lair.

In the hospital, under the folds of flesh, she was filthy, rotting with maggots eating away. But get this. When Doctor put her on a diet and she began to lose weight, dude cried, went absolutely livid and ditched her.

In Mark’s case, his Fat Woman isn’t yet the fattest woman in the world but she is getting there – though her having a heart attack look set to ruin his plans. She too is bed ridden and barely has the energy to lift her head off the pillow or her arms or legs. Meanwhile, pervy Luke marvels at seeing his Fat Woman naked but, her nakedness almost made me throw up. Her obese dead skin covered body was obscene - vile. Grotesque in fact. 

But like it’s said, each man to their own.


Pictures: TLC, Bukedde

That Bitchy Sista Stare

When hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, women with conventional names, names like – Flavia, Lillian, Martha, Penlope, Esther, Carol, Vicky, Eva or Lucy are not only a spent force but, yesterday’s woman especially when it comes to unleashing a tirade assurances or giving that evil if eyes could kill look that Michelle Obama (Below) and Rihanna (Bottom) seemingly pull off with relative ease.

Take conventional Martha. One Friday as we clambered the stairs to Wagadougu on Bukoto Street – back in the day when it was really kicking with Peter Otim and Co at the helm - when she got to the landing, Campus Boy did the unthinkable. He didn’t even try to camouflage his move. He went in full commando style and brushed his 1st year groin onto her. Martha wasn’t exactly startled and when she looked back at him expecting an apology, he instead swung her a: “What, you never been brushed before” look. With that, Martha’s evening was so cooked. I dropped her home and didn’t hear from her for close to three weeks.

I was with Carol when Viperoom was still the place to go for Oldies Night with the late DJ Banji at the decks when Dude, felt that the best way of making contact with her, was not to say 'hello' or buy her a drink as I would have done but, to give her butt a slap. Way before the slap sunk and nestled deep into the stretch marks of her butt, Carol had spun around faster than Jackie Chan ever did in the Rush Hour movies and for a while, I thought she was going to unleash a - my eyes can drop you dead stare along with the motha of all assurances. Instead, she burst into tears, ran up the spiral staircase for the nearest special hire and was gone by the time I got to the entrance.

While it’s so not the done thing – groping or belittling women, when the likes of Flavia, Lillian, Martha, Jackie, Penlope, Esther, Carol, Vicky, Eva or Lucy sailed into the world, the sailed in with no bark, venom or bite. If Waiter brought the wrong food order, they wouldn’t make noise but accept. If Salon Man ruined the weave, they would rather a bad weave than throw salon tantrums. If Taxi Conductor didn’t give back their change, they wouldn’t beef in case he ejected them miles from home and if Special Hire Man reneged on the agreed fare, the moment he spits the words “I am taking you to police”, they cry out for daddy.  

In politics, we had Cecilia (Ogwal), Maria (Matembe) (Below), Winnie (Byanyima) who many years ago had the most acidic mouths in the land. Cecilia had a voice that roared angrily like the engine of a Mercedes Benz G-65 AMG. Today, it’s a rather pitiful roar – if indeed it can still be called roar and painful to hear just like it is watching people who drive Toyota hybrid electrical cars. Maria can barely make the hairs on the back of my neck stand, while listening to Winnie, is akin to listening Watoto Children’s Choir singing bedtime hymns for the pope.  

   

However, today’s woman is different. She has rampaged into the world with venom, audacity, attitude, contempt, beef and period cramps that would so spin the heads of Flavia, Lillian Martha, Jackie, Penlope, Esther, Carol, Vicky, Eva and Lucy and any woman with a bland name. 

And get this, she also has a badd ass motha fucker name like Shaniqua, Monique, Gaynelle, Jendayi, Kasinda, Lakeesha, Laqueta, Michelle, Rihanna, Laquinta, Latanya, Monisha, Nichelle, Takiyah, and Zalika. 

This woman is not to be messed with. She has an ice cold mortuary stare like the one above. She’s the human equivalent of a black widow spider and who describes herself as: a biach with an attitude, a whore with beef or nigga fuck bitch and who uses bitch words like talk to the hand, my bad and whatever. 

Gaynelle is the type to swing Cop a multitude of tumbavu’s if he dared stop her at Jinja Road traffic lights. Shaniqua and Laqueta are women that Salon Man dreads to see walking into his salon because throughout the two hours of weaving on the weave, he will be on bunkenke and awaiting a hot slap if he dared put a stitch wrong while Special Hire Driver, he won’t even take Jendayi, Monique and Nichelle because they would sneer, mock and assure him all the way to their destination. 

Meanwhile, Lakeesha, and Zalika would in a flash, take delight in telling their WhatsApp chat group how you were no Johnny Bravo in bed but a one-minute man. And Takiyah? She’s the sort to calmly walk into the men’s toilets in Silk Liquid simply because she couldn't be bothered to walk further down to the ladies and then scatter profanity along the lines of: "What you lookin' at nigga, you not seen a pussy in the gents before" if any of the men complained.  

So Flavia, (Below) Penlope, Esther, Carol, Vicky, Eva and Lucy, and any woman with a bland name, please forgive. Campus Boy, Dude, Waiter and all are sorry for pinching your bottoms, trying to fondle you and bringing you the wrong food order for truth be told, you are much easier to deal with than Shaniqua, Monique, Thalia, Gaynelle, Jendayi, Kasinda, Lakeesha, Laqueta, Laquinta, Latanya, Monisha, Nichelle, Takiyah and Zalika.

Photos: Weekly Observer, Internet

When The Cats Away, The MPs Will Play

I know little about parliament and its workings. I do know there is a speaker - Rebecca (Below) and her deputy – Jacob. I also know there’s a chamber where MP debates stuff and the steps at the front where they give soundbites to us in the media which, we convey to you - the public through (and time here for a spot of shameless Vision Group advertising) - Sunday Vision, New Vision, Bukedde, Urban TV, Radio West, X-FM and the rest.

At New Vision, when foreign travel looms, there are procedures we follow – right from CEO, Robert Kabushenga to Editor-in-Chief, Barbra Kaijja. I suspect when Robert goes abroad, he informs Chairman of the Board, Company Secretary and Editor-in-Chief. Barbra too, when she travels, she would have told Robert and various heads of departments. 

At my level, Kalungi Kabuye and I were in the same department. If Kalungi went to SA to cover Face of Africa, I would know about it. Even if it was abrupt, I still would have heard about in the corridors or Head Of Department would have told me to cover for him or Accountant would have in passing said: “Eh TB, this year its KK going to SA?”

At State House, when M7 travels, its plainly obvious that he tells his deputy – Edward, that he’s off. And he goes a step further - telling Kale Kayihura, Katumba Wamala and that man who wears the most awful coloured uniform as you can see below and who is in charge of all rogue elements in the land – Johnson Byabashaija, because the trio are always at the airport to see him off

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But in parliament its different because MP does not follow rules. Last month, Rebecca went off to Boston, USA to attend the UNAA convention. Nothing wrong with that. I presume before she went, her office put out a memo on the notice boards informing all MPs she would be out of office. If not, IT Chap configured her e-mail to send one of those auto ‘out of office’ replies that read something along the lines of: “Peeps its Becky. I will be out of office for two weeks attending a convention in Boston. In my absence, Jacob has the chair.”

So to Boston she flies and in the hotel corridors, of all people from her office, guess who she bumps into aside from shorts clad Kato Lubwama and Meddi Nsereko (Below) looking a tad shy of being slapped with a fashion police deportation order? Like Will Smith said at the start of Summertime – “drum rolls please” - it was her deputy, Jacob Oulanyah who was supposed to be back in Kampala manning the ‘chair’!

Strike a pause. Is that not akin to M7 breezing into the UN General Assembly with Oryem Okello and finding they got nowhere to sit because Ssekandi and Frank Tumwebaze didn’t tell him that they too were representing? Or like Man of The House sneaking to see Maid in the dead of the night and finding Shamba Boy already nestled on her boobie? 

Said Rebecca: “I was surprised to meet Jacob (Below) in Boston with a parallel delegation.” But didn’t Jacob read the memo? Didn’t Rebecca call him and tell him to hold fort while she’s away? Did he not hear her absence being talked about in the canteen or while standing at the urinal?

Jacob not reading Rebecca’s memo or Rebecca not reading Jacob’s memo means Taxpayer paid $8,640 instead of $4,320 to send two speakers to Boston to sit in the same room, listen to the same speeches and watch the same power point presentations. And upon their return, they found that while the cats were away, the MPs had played - with MP demanding sh50m in selfie burial allowances.

Incidentally, happy Independence Day.