You know you live in a truly blessed nation when a week doesn’t go by without a new story popping up of how your leaders are pushing the envelope. For one, we’ve been pushing brown envelopes for so long and with such zeal, we have very few peers globally. We’ve done it so well, we switched to using sacks to ensure sustainability.

A few weeks ago, we pushed the innovation envelope by choosing to address local manpower problems in the health sector by sending some medical personnel abroad. Only truly gifted people can see that this move will result in more medical personnel coming back since the ones we send will reproduce while there.

To show just how much we own this innovation envelope, a few weeks ago, former Government Chief Whip Justine Kasule Lumumba, unveiled to the world our latest innovation – she shared that 80 NRM MPs work from their vehicles. These forward-thinking leaders have led the way in cutting government expenditure by doing all their work, every single thing, from their cars. She merely let us in on an innovation that’s been many years in planning.

The plan started in 2012 when each MP, fresh into Parliament, received over 100 million for a new vehicle. The blind made a lot of fuss about it, not knowing that it was a huge saving in office space. Considering that there’d be no additional bills for utilities or stationary, 5 years’ worth of office space at that give-away price was a steal.

Phase two happened a year later, in 2013, when each MP was handed an iPad. While we went red with fury, we lost sight of the fact that iPads meant that each ‘office’ now had a computer.

Finally, phase three, last year, Shs. 36 billion was spent on a new parking lot for Parliament. While everyone went up in arms at the price tag, they didn’t know that this lot was no ordinary lot – it would ‘house’ the offices that would drive in and out at will.

We really need to find a way of packaging and commercializing this model quickly before an opportunistic nation steals it.  We’ll then methodically roll it out to other countries starting with developing nations since we know firsthand how they feel about always getting good innovations last.

Kenyan authorities have closed a Chinese restaurant in Nairobi after social media informed us that the place doesn’t allow African patrons to eat there after 5PM. I guess this means that a black person who finds himself still eating at 4:45PM would really have to rush through their sweet and sour pork to beat the impending curfew. My guess is that at 5PM exactly, Jet Li emerges from under the rotating table next to you, levitates to where you are and gestures towards the door. That’s your cue to pay the bill and make a hasty retreat without turning your back to him. If you don’t comply, you get to know what it’s like to be one of the extras in Shaolin temple – you get a beating while the people watching get entertained.

When questioned, the restaurant owner is quoted to have said that they don’t admit Africans they don’t know because they can’t tell who is Al-Shabaab and who isn’t. You cannot argue with that since as any learned owner of an establishment worth talking about will tell you, you cannot trust people walking around with all that melanin in their skins – that stuff can explode at any moment. Your patrons need to enjoy your exquisite stir-fried beef and black bean sauce without being scared for their lives.

Sadly, we’ve heard of blacks being treated different here too. Stories abound of bars (the story usually stars one bar or another along Acacia avenue) that have on a number of occasions made their rounds on the internets for mistreating a Kato, Mbabazi or Okot because they are black. One bar reportedly had (has?) a policy that required black people to pay to enter (while the rest don’t). The motivation for such an interesting policy could be anything; maybe we’ll enter the bar and our dance moves will break furniture so the entrance fee is really us paying for broken furniture upfront. Maybe we’ll be cheapskates and drink one bottle of water all night so they need to make sure the bar bill is paid somehow. Maybe we’ll get too excited at the music playing and become such a nuisance, the other patrons will need therapy. Maybe we are incapable of holding a beer and a conversation; when the beer inevitably pours to the ground, someone will need to clean it up. Maybe we’ll want to pay for our beer with cowrie shells.

Maybe we need the army to look into this too; why do cases of racial discrimination keep dropping bombs on us?

Is racism something we see often enough to worry about here in Uganda? What are your thoughts? Do share in the comments

This year started on a high for ‘By The Way’; the first article of the year was a call for every reader to be a ‘Batambuze’ this year. Mubarak Batambuze is a resident of Kaliro district who became a hero after killing a crocodile that had allegedly killed his wife and several other villagers. Batambuze’s story, in another place, would make for silver screen gold. Jason Statham, with his kicks and mean look, has nothing on a villager who bravely took on a crocodile that weighed almost a tonne with a spear and an axe.

This week is extra special – Batambuze did it again! A friend of his went fishing and got attacked by a crocodile. The friend promptly made a phone call to Batambuze who showed up a few minutes later, captured and locked up the crocodile for Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) to pick up. This felt like that moment you listen to a new song from an artist whose first song you loved so much, you were worried they’d never release anything as good-and then they did! Such exciting stuff. Batambuze is the wonder who went beyond his one hit (because he actually used multiple hits to subdue the crocodiles).

The story isn’t without some evil villain trying to steal our hero’s shine; in our case, it’s Oswald Tumanya, a senior UWA officer. He is quoted to have said, “We have over and again warned him (our hero, Batambuze) but he is adamant but he should be ready for the repercussions…The Police should trail and arrest him red-handed capturing a crocodile and be charged in court, otherwise, his being a celebrity may cost him his life.”

Our nefarious villain argues that he’s concerned that Batambuze is endangering his own life and he should be arrested. If you followed the story from the beginning, residents and their leaders are reported to have made several attempts to contact UWA to capture the crocodiles. UWA allegedly, didn’t intervene, citing a lack of fuel. Interestingly, in the second case, Batambuze didn’t kill the crocodile – he captured it and handed it over to UWA, the guys whose job he’s doing (while they plot his arrest).

Wouldn’t it be easier, Mr. Tumanya, to train Batambuze in better ways of capturing the reptiles? He’s already doing it anyway and the community now calls him, not UWA (since it wasn’t there when they needed it). Capture the crocs, not Batambuze. It brings to mind several other instances where we arrest people we should be nurturing.

Our beloved leader has many times spoken of how on close examination, we are the donors. In the eloquence we’ve grown to expect, even demand, from him, he’s many times said that in exporting raw, unprocessed goods and eventually buying them back at a higher price, we are, and have been, funding several nations for a while now. I think in an effort to step up this benevolence of ours (because how can we be anything but benevolent yet we have a strong, visionary, generous leader), we exported a few medics to the Caribbean. We are sending 263 health professionals for work in Trinidad and Tobago.

If you aren’t informed, you’ll immediately think that, like Dr. Hilderman, these medics are going into the music industry (because who makes greater music than people from the Caribbean? A day there and you’ll have a hit album out. Jah man!). They’ll trade the stethoscope for a microphone, grow some dreadlocks and then find some vegetables to get them energized enough to perform before the thronging crowds that they’ll undoubtedly draw on their return. They’ll still cure people, but the healing they’ll bring will now be through music. Jah!

If you are in the dark, you’ll also think that Uganda has too many medical professionals. You’ll think that we had so many, some had taken to riding boda bodas from lack of work as medics. You’ll believe that chances are very high that that person serving you drinks at the bar is a doctor.

If you are uninformed, you’ll grumble about their destination. Trinidad and Tobago? Really? They could offer our medics better conditions? Really?

The truth is even in our time of dire need, when hospitals lack not just medicine but personnel, when mothers give birth, unattended, on hospital floors, when people die from being ‘operated’ on by askaris stepping in to fill a gap, when the few doctors we have must do 20-hour work days juggling their private and government work to keep gnawing poverty at bay, when sick people have to walk for miles to the nearest health center, that even in all this, we chose, as benevolent people, to give. Precious lives in the Caribbean need to be saved, how come the uninformed can’t see that?

It gets even more interesting – after completing their two-year service in the Caribbean, we’ll send another contingent of medics to replace them – a cycle the ministry of foreign affairs promises will continue for as long as there is demand in Trinidad and Tobago. Our generosity knows no bounds.

In the Daily Monitor, it was reported last week that police in Gulu district had arrested a police officer for smoking and being in possession of marijuana. The high officer (that should have been high-ranking) was arrested after his colleagues tipped-off their bosses of his strange behavior during working hours. In the story though, we didn’t tell you what that strange behavior was; that bit was intentionally left out for By The Way to fill in. So, how did these men of the law detect that their colleague was serving other forces, and not just the police force? What gave afande away? It was very hard to get in touch with all the officers in this story so I did due diligence and made a few (intelligent?) guesses on what might have transpired.

Afande was flagging down animals instead of cars. His colleagues first became suspicious when he motioned for a stray dog to stop. He then asked for its driving license. Naturally, the dog didn’t stop (or have a driving permit for that matter); if anything, it seemed to move away from what it probably perceived as an attacker. Afande saw this as dissent; how could a driver refuse to stop when commanded by the outstretched arm of the law? A heated pursuit ensued (much like the ones in movies where cars hurtle down streets, knocking over food stalls and surprisingly not killing anyone in the process) but this chase involved a lanky figure running in zig zag and a yelping dog running for its life.

Afande’s colleagues murmured a few things but eventually brushed it off – maybe he was just happy. The next thing though was that at parade, afande would suddenly break out in dance. He’d energetically motion for his friends to join in, asking whether they couldn’t hear that great Lingala song playing.

It seems though what eventually pushed his colleagues over was when he started to walk away from them to take calls from Obama. He’d talk for a number of minutes, laughing heartily, punctuating the call with “Yes President Obama”, before finally hanging up. It didn’t help that many times during these ‘calls’, his phone was off, from not being charged.

Not wanting to find out how high this road would go, afande’s colleagues finally turned him in.