Bazanye's Bad Idea: How to develop Uganda faster

ERNEST BAZANYE'S BAD IDEA

Good evening those who buy newspapers and read the best parts of them. I am Bazanye and this is my column where I dispense weekly wisdom and insight. Today we are going to talk about how to develop Uganda even faster. I am bored being the only middle income status holder in Kisementi. I need the rest of you to catch up.

So today we are going to talk about how to increase balance of payments and national revenue through exploitation of wildlife.

Lions: Lions are reputed to be graceful and magnificent and wonderful to behold. This is the case when you watch Lion King the movie on a flat digital TV. Actually lions in the Ugandan wild are unfortunate, rather hungry, lazy and frankly dirty things.

If we want to get tourists to spend their remaining Euros coming on safari to see lions, I think we need to deploy some of our vast underused natural resources to solve this problem.

I mean, of course, that legendary 80% of unemployed youth.

Services they can provide:

Advertising: Many young people spend all their time taking what are known as selfies, or photographic self portraits taken by phone camera for those of you who still tuck in your t-shirts. Some of these selfies, if taken by "slay queens" (the term for heavily painting but lightly clothed young women) garner a lot of attention. If we had them take "selfies" with our lions they would advertise the wildlife and attract visitors to the parks.

Note that slay queens filter and photoshop and airbrush their selfies with such vigour that by the time the picture is posted, each lion will look like Beyonce Knowles.

Exercise: The lion is supposed to be a mighty, powerful beast, a roiling death machine, muscles and sinews primed to slaughter with no remorse and less time wasting.

However, most of the Ugandan lions you see in the wild look like bathroom rugs. Just "theeyatheeya", if I may use a common vernacular term.

This is because they are used to gazelles and antelopes which don't provide much of a chase.

Send in the youths to give the lions a challenge. Especially university graduates. They have accumulated skill in running and hiding from predators from all their strikes and riots so they will certainly improve the lions physique.

Also, when caught, they will improve the lions diet with extra protein.

Sanitation: Many youth had grand plans of graduating into business moguls. The unemployment rate, however, had no options for them. Their uncle pointed out that there is always space in the unisex salon he owns for a barber, pedicurist, masseur and braider. The youth scorned the suggestion, sneering that he did not spend three years on campus to be a barber. No. He spent those three years cutting lectures and making sex tapes.

Here is where we sweeten the deal. The youth need not be a barber. Tourism companies can employ them to be lion stylists. We need someone to comb and brush the fur, apply the lipstick, gloss the teeth, spray, shampoo and condition the mane, apply the right cologne, foundation and makeup, not to mention doing the animals nails.

If you can take a job and  do all that for local music star Sheebah Karungi, you can do it for our local lions.

O Uganda. I have proven myself once again to be wise beyond your already high expectations of me. If you feel the need to send appreciation tokens, please refrain from flowers. Just search for me on twitter or Facebook and we will be fine.