Studying coalitions in love

While you were busy with politics and coronavirus, I took time out to study the effectiveness of coalitions in love relationships.

I used my interaction with animals. I generally deploy a handful of my time and resources to wildlife channels like Nat Geo World, Discovery, National Geographic, Animal Planet and YouTube channels.

I have sometimes done this at the expense of cozy romantic time and, I swear, I am not lying.

But, of course, when people profess an unsolicited vow about something you were not doubting, you know they are lying. Right?

Anyway, from animals, I draw glorious references for love relationships. Animals don't hide under laws or cultural ethics.

No one can ask a lion whether it followed the law in eating a peace-loving antelope, or whether a bull informed a she elephant's parents before mounting her.

So, whatever you get from the wild is an unwrapped package of truth.

Take, for example, the story below. It is a wrestling showdown captured by a group of tourists on a trip in Chobe Park, Botswana, last month.

The four-minute-long clip by Roselyne Kerjosse, showed a massive python ambushing a honey badger and coiling around it to squeeze life out of it.

I don't know how you call a badger in your language, but in mine, it is ekitega-ruhende.

I doubt if the dot com age knows what ekitega-ruhende is, but it is an average dog-size carnivorous wild animal, which uses a scent gland in its behind as a defence mechanism.

When attacked or threatened, it farts (sneazingyawutu from the anus) a strong, musky odour to put off the predators.

I am sure, because of that, it has a few natural predators. But snakes, which don't have noses like we do, are not affected.

I'm told snakes used to have noses until they lost them to human beings when they came to Buganda.

Now they just have nostrils to breathe with just. For smell, snakes use their tongues! Don't argue; it was God's mistake or punishment, if it wasn't a general rebellion by the snake population.

Whatever the case may be, this cobra was able to ignore the farting ekitega-ruhende, get close enough and attack, tightly wrapping itself around its body mass.

The badger was about to hand back its life to its creator.

Just then, two jackals arrived, shouting People Power slogans and saw what was happening.

Instead of minding their own business, and there was no evidence that the badger was their friend, they attacked the python.

If the tourists knew jackal language, they would have narrated how the two canines were accusing the snake of corruption, greed, torture and three decades of misrule.

The deadly snake took them on too, calling them inexperienced, ganja smokers, unpatriotic and jealous — in snake language, of course.

It was bound to be difficult for the python to fight two jackals, while keeping the coil siege on the ekitegaruhende.

The two frontlines soon became too much for the python, it let go of the badger to concentrate on one fight.

Unfortunately for the snake, once the badger got free, it joined the attacking jackals.

In the natural world, jackals and badgers don't eat from the same plate, but in that politics, it was PP, FDC, DP, UPC, NUP and etc in a coalition against NRM.

It was a matter of time for the hunter to become the huntwa (hunted).

As the fatally injured snake breathed its last, proving to the world the lethality of coalitions, I wondered whether there were lessons for love.

I know coalitions work in politics; but how about in love? Would you take advantage of combined forces to achieve someone's heart? Maybe and maybe not.

But the story isn't over yet. Once the snake died, the two jackals and the badger looked at themselves and wondered what the way forward was.

Apparently, they failed to agree on who should eat the snake. And the badger refused the democracy of voting because it was outnumbered.

So they decided to settle it by the way of the jungle law.

A new fight ensued between the jackals and the badger over the rightful owner of the snake carcass.

One side claiming rights as a previous victim and the other as a rescuer.

The badger, which had survived the python was again in danger of its former Wakombozi allies. What a word-for-word replica of political coalitions.

Once the common enemy falls, the coalition's common differences show face and that is not a favourite place for peace. You see how interesting animals are?

That is why, on that note, it wouldn't be wise to employ the skills of a friend in surrounding the heart of the person you love most.

Once the Jericho walls collapse, you may not agree on who enters.

One time in Mbarara in 2016, two policemen rescued a sex worker from a disagreeable drunken customer.

They guided her out of the ruffian's dangerous grip to behind a hotel where I was staying.

From the balcony above, I watched them negotiate their payment for the rescue.

They gave the girl three options: cash, in kind or both. She chose to pay in kind. A fight ensued over who, of the two guys, would go first.

They boxed themselves loud and long and neither noticed that the woman had taken off.