Back to the frying pan?
Aug 18, 2007
FROM afar and near, your humble columnist tries his hardest not to miss a week; to keep “filingâ€. Partly, as is human, he thinks otherwise your weekend would be weakened – oh the flashing God of Pride! But also there is so much to be said and comparatively so little time in which to say it.
By John Nagenda
FROM afar and near, your humble columnist tries his hardest not to miss a week; to keep “filingâ€. Partly, as is human, he thinks otherwise your weekend would be weakened – oh the flashing God of Pride! But also there is so much to be said and comparatively so little time in which to say it.
To borrow from John Marvel’s poem, To His Coy Mistress: “For at my back I always hear/ Time’s wing’ed chariot drawing near/ And yonder all before us lie/ Deserts of vast eternitie.â€
Last week I asked The New Vision to insert the note that I was travelling in the Usambala mountains (thus unable to file). It sounded grandly romantic, but was true in every respect. I will end with that wonderful interlude in Tanzania. But it was while there that I heard the news of a “scuffle†on what Uganda considers its territory along the Uganda-Congo border.
The wonder was that it had never happened before, but now that it had come to pass, it was impossible to say with certainty when, and how, it would finish! As news continued to pour in, it became apparent that here you had the possibility, however remote, of a major conflagration between the two states, if heads heated up. The media, as it does, opened its wide mouth and kept it open. The Daily Monitor yelled loudest, the New Vision was more restrained. But, after all, an expatriate oil worker had been shot dead by Congolese troops, and three Ugandans had been killed in Kanungu by invaders from Congo, perhaps opportunistic Rwandese interahamwe scum. Would return to Uganda resemble frying pan heat?
Fortunately the tension subsided before further nonsense when Congo leader Joseph Kabila rightly regretted the border incidents. Following on that, talks to survey the affected border will now be held between the two countries. If only it had happened before the killings! But is Kabila or anybody else in charge of his gargantuan country?
Returned home my eye fell upon a small story of excruciating pain, with a Congolese angle. A lady from there who had been brought to Uganda by one of our soldiers some years back, had recently taken a knife to his private part. Her name, oddly enough: Mboli. Replace the ‘i†with another vowel and it spells the attacked member! Often truth is stranger than fiction.
***************
The other leading story, which has been simmering away for years, is when the “son†of Makerere University, called, revealingly, Makerere University Business School, MUBS, rebelled yet again, announcing that it was a full and separate university. It would continue to conduct its affairs without reference to its parent, such as advertising on its own for students, and awarding them its own degrees. It even went to High Court where a judge, now in “excommunicationâ€, ruled in its favour.
How can a court go above Government to award university status? By common sense MUBS did not have a leg to stand on, and this has now been so decided, at the eleventh hour, by Cabinet.
Its Principal, a Mr Balunywa, sharp as a tack, had, by the bucketful, what the Jews call chutzpah; even naming himself Vice Chancellor, a title some way above his station. He has, undeniably, got guts and drive. But he also imagined he had the total support of the Leadership, and acted accordingly; pouring contempt on anyone or anything standing in the way of his ambitions. And so, for too long a time, matters continued to drift.
Much mischief has ensued. But, as the Baganda say: “Ekiyita waggulu otega wansi; empungu terya bire!†“What flies high you trap down; the eagle does not eat clouds!†That is how it has now turned out. But the lesson is, yet again, that drifting is very bad for systems, breeding dangerous germs which cause endless damage.
An almost insolvable problem is what will happen to all those students, many from outside Uganda, who presented their funds in good faith upon being accepted for courses, and currently might not receive legitimate degrees or diplomas from MUBS. And the Bible’s King Solomon thought he had problems in deciding to which of the two mothers the contested child should go?!
**************
Back to Tanzania. I could hide the names of our hosts but that would be cheating. They are President (for once a president…) and Mrs Mkapa; and it was not for the first time. As in so many other regards I suspect hosts are best born, not made.
We arrived at Dar airport to find the Great Man himself waiting in VIP! From that moment to when he and Anna saw us off again nine days later all was smooth sailing. The trip included visits to their beautiful little farm five hours away in Lushoto (in the Usambalas); and Moshi, where we saw the house at the school where our own president lived in exile.
In all the travelling our convoy had right of way, with traffic stopped but so adroitly it hardly inconvenienced others.
Tanzanians ex-presidents have this right nationwide. (Oops, is president Binaisa reading this! But Benjamin W. Mkapa was a national servant all his working life, and Leader for 10 years.) Indeed, his nation is also building him a beautiful and grand mansion by the Indian Ocean for his retirement.
Need I add that good drink was on tap throughout and that my friend, like me, is absent from the abstemious list! More next week, if you can bear it.
FROM afar and near, your humble columnist tries his hardest not to miss a week; to keep “filingâ€. Partly, as is human, he thinks otherwise your weekend would be weakened – oh the flashing God of Pride! But also there is so much to be said and comparatively so little time in which to say it.
To borrow from John Marvel’s poem, To His Coy Mistress: “For at my back I always hear/ Time’s wing’ed chariot drawing near/ And yonder all before us lie/ Deserts of vast eternitie.â€
Last week I asked The New Vision to insert the note that I was travelling in the Usambala mountains (thus unable to file). It sounded grandly romantic, but was true in every respect. I will end with that wonderful interlude in Tanzania. But it was while there that I heard the news of a “scuffle†on what Uganda considers its territory along the Uganda-Congo border.
The wonder was that it had never happened before, but now that it had come to pass, it was impossible to say with certainty when, and how, it would finish! As news continued to pour in, it became apparent that here you had the possibility, however remote, of a major conflagration between the two states, if heads heated up. The media, as it does, opened its wide mouth and kept it open. The Daily Monitor yelled loudest, the New Vision was more restrained. But, after all, an expatriate oil worker had been shot dead by Congolese troops, and three Ugandans had been killed in Kanungu by invaders from Congo, perhaps opportunistic Rwandese interahamwe scum. Would return to Uganda resemble frying pan heat?
Fortunately the tension subsided before further nonsense when Congo leader Joseph Kabila rightly regretted the border incidents. Following on that, talks to survey the affected border will now be held between the two countries. If only it had happened before the killings! But is Kabila or anybody else in charge of his gargantuan country?
Returned home my eye fell upon a small story of excruciating pain, with a Congolese angle. A lady from there who had been brought to Uganda by one of our soldiers some years back, had recently taken a knife to his private part. Her name, oddly enough: Mboli. Replace the ‘i†with another vowel and it spells the attacked member! Often truth is stranger than fiction.
***************
The other leading story, which has been simmering away for years, is when the “son†of Makerere University, called, revealingly, Makerere University Business School, MUBS, rebelled yet again, announcing that it was a full and separate university. It would continue to conduct its affairs without reference to its parent, such as advertising on its own for students, and awarding them its own degrees. It even went to High Court where a judge, now in “excommunicationâ€, ruled in its favour.
How can a court go above Government to award university status? By common sense MUBS did not have a leg to stand on, and this has now been so decided, at the eleventh hour, by Cabinet.
Its Principal, a Mr Balunywa, sharp as a tack, had, by the bucketful, what the Jews call chutzpah; even naming himself Vice Chancellor, a title some way above his station. He has, undeniably, got guts and drive. But he also imagined he had the total support of the Leadership, and acted accordingly; pouring contempt on anyone or anything standing in the way of his ambitions. And so, for too long a time, matters continued to drift.
Much mischief has ensued. But, as the Baganda say: “Ekiyita waggulu otega wansi; empungu terya bire!†“What flies high you trap down; the eagle does not eat clouds!†That is how it has now turned out. But the lesson is, yet again, that drifting is very bad for systems, breeding dangerous germs which cause endless damage.
An almost insolvable problem is what will happen to all those students, many from outside Uganda, who presented their funds in good faith upon being accepted for courses, and currently might not receive legitimate degrees or diplomas from MUBS. And the Bible’s King Solomon thought he had problems in deciding to which of the two mothers the contested child should go?!
**************
Back to Tanzania. I could hide the names of our hosts but that would be cheating. They are President (for once a president…) and Mrs Mkapa; and it was not for the first time. As in so many other regards I suspect hosts are best born, not made.
We arrived at Dar airport to find the Great Man himself waiting in VIP! From that moment to when he and Anna saw us off again nine days later all was smooth sailing. The trip included visits to their beautiful little farm five hours away in Lushoto (in the Usambalas); and Moshi, where we saw the house at the school where our own president lived in exile.
In all the travelling our convoy had right of way, with traffic stopped but so adroitly it hardly inconvenienced others.
Tanzanians ex-presidents have this right nationwide. (Oops, is president Binaisa reading this! But Benjamin W. Mkapa was a national servant all his working life, and Leader for 10 years.) Indeed, his nation is also building him a beautiful and grand mansion by the Indian Ocean for his retirement.
Need I add that good drink was on tap throughout and that my friend, like me, is absent from the abstemious list! More next week, if you can bear it.