The UPDF was recruiting in Kapchorwa recently when they discovered that some of the aspirants for positions in the army were Kenyans and not Ugandans. The recruiters, aghast and appalled, summarily dismissed these men and women (or at least the 40 they managed to catch in the act) but not before this news opened up a big fat gourd of questions to spill all over this page. Like, for example:
Why would Kenyans attempt to join the UPDF? Why not just go join the KPDF? Were they rejected by the Kenyan army and therefore decided to try ours as a second choice? Was it like when you plot to go to see Rose, but when you reach the hostel you find the door locked and see a blue Progres in the parking lot, meaning Fattie Money the Dzaddsie is already in there, so you just cross the road to knock on Cecilia’s hostel door instead? That doesn’t spell confidence for the Ugandan, knowing that we are the second choice: the backup option.
“How?” is another question. The recruits were required to show up with NIRA IDs and LC letters. The Kenyans who attempted to join up reportedly had both.
Does this mean that when we walked against corruption in December, we walked so far against it, and the corruptioneers who forge IDs were walked so hard out of Uganda that they ended up in Kenya distributing their fake ndagamuntus there instead?
Another question is, of course, “why not?” I am a Ugandan, living in Uganda and suffering all the disadvantages that come along with that situation, including the fact that those compatriots of mine who are willing to injure and kill other humans don’t join the army– they instead go to Kulambiro and become muggers, using knives, batons and other weapons to strike our skulls and take our phones.
Their violence would be put to better use protecting us than attacking us, of course, but you can’t tell the thug assaulting you that.
He or she –yes, don’t assume, you sexist, that women are not capable or empowered enough to beat your skull for your Galaxy S. Come to think of it, I really suspect that it was Nakibooko from Mutayimbwa Close who mugged me. I recognise those bow-legs– she will not listen to you suggest joining the army. She will not take your advice. She will take your phone.
So if we have people in Kenya willing to be violent for the Ugandan state, why not? If not the army, send them to Kulambiro as police patrol officers. We need some thugs on our side to fight Nakibooko. The more psychotic the better. And they won’t even need fake IDs. Just show us the blood of the last phone thief you knocked out and cackle in sinister manic glee.
Also, again, why not? As you are fully no doubt acutely aware, World War Three is upon us at long last. Trump finally did it.
By ordering the assassination of an Iraqi government official, he has instigated the events that will lead to the next global war and we are not going to be left out of it. We are going to be fighting. On whichever side China is on. And that will be the same side Kenya will be on, so Kenyan army and our army will basically be in the same trenches.
So why not just merge our armies now? Let Kenyans join our armed forces, let our guys join theirs and lets go fight the US? Au sivyo? Or rather “为什么不
Wèishéme bù” As we will say after the war when, in the aftermath, China has taken control of the world away from the West.
Finally, I know why Kenyans want to be UPDF. I read an article on Bloomberg that said traffic jams cost Kenya up to 1billion dollars each year.
That’s why Kenyans are fleeing Nairobi to join our army. Because they think Uganda army soldiers live this sweet life where they never have to sit in traffic jams. All soldiers do is ride around on pickups with sirens blaring and some Minister’s house help in the Land Cruiser behind them carrying the pizza they had been sent to collect from Acacia Mall.
Edited by David Tumusiime
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