When Mpuuga and Ssemujju come to your omnibus ride to Jinja

SATIRE | I was the last person to hop into the omnibus inside the Old Park shortly before 9pm Thursday. Destination: Jinja. A man promptly jabbed a ticket into my face and I parted with my hard-borrowed Shs10,000 just like that.

The omnibus, a Rosa 'breed', was soon fired up by the driver who looked to be well into his sixties. His pate gleamed like that of Dr Tom Rush or Old Fox as the multitalented Rushedge was called.

After taking us on a fool's errand of evading traffic here and there, we ended right back outside the Old Park nearly one hour later. It looked like MPs fleeing from public scrutiny in the midst of corruption scandals only to be recalled from recess.

We eventually made it to Jinja Road only for the Rosa to ground to a halt near Total. The irony of being stuck near Parliament was stark.

Earlier, during the jam-dodging escapade, a man wearing a rangers hat kept exchanging words with the old driver. He blamed him for everything - including why bleaching creams can no longer be banned in Uganda.

And now that the Rosa had experienced mechanical problem, the man got up with the impatience of a hyena after a lion's kill.  He literally climbed over my thick thighs to get out and in that moment, I saw his distended belly and it looked like a half-done sketch, or an abandoned sketch, or both.

He had followed the old driver outside to ask what was going on. Soon everyone was out. The driver said there was a problem with the wheel and that he had called up a mechanic.

The problem is that the mechanic appeared to be busy in Nyendo Mukungwe at the very moment we so badly needed him. See, unlike Mpuuga who can negotiate own service award, we had paid and stood no chance for a refund.

It was to either wait or get another commuter and pay afresh. At some point, the commuters ran impatient and became irate. They crowded around the old driver.

One said his bald pate made him look like Ssemujju, adding: "I suppose you also avoid social media, eh?"

The ranger with a sketched potty had dragged his family away with him to board another vehicle. He had been angry when the old driver with his Ssemujju bald pate said the ranger was losing focus of the big issue.

"You're like Ssenyonyi now, you're forgetting a Shs500bn problem at Lubowa hospital," he said, pointing at the dead wheels.

"Yes, like Ssenyonyi, you're allowing yourself to be led by OO into following a Shs500m issue by attacking me instead."

When the mechanic finally arrived from Nyendo Mukungwe where he seemed to have been helping fix Mpuuga's NUP wheels, he dived straight under the Rosa and proceeded to attend his own May 6 meeting at which he would negotiate with drive shaft or whatever it was.

The young man from Nyendo Mukungwe took his time under the Rosa. When he finally pushed his rickety frame out, the tired omnibus was able to move again.

The mechanic fella negotiated his "service award" and I tell you, none of the taxpayers in us was going to call his monetary undertaking "corrupt" and "immoral" or accuse him of abuse of mechanical tools.

Inside the alleged forest called Mabira, it was raining and that is where we found a Drone taxi stranded with the passengers desperately flagging down anything that was moving.

It will look like I'm making this up but one of the guys even waved down an owl that was doing its rounds in the woods.

The old driver pulled up his Rosa and to our shock, the ranger and his family were the victims of the Drone attack. He was drenched and more humbled than a dry leaf being swept in a village compound.

Then, as we were about to emerge out of the alleged forest, a woman suddenly spoke up like Ssekikubo and Tinkasimire who had just realised it is the election season again.

She had been fast asleep at the backend of the Rosa and had missed her drop-off point. After a protracted debate inside this Rosa parliament, she accepted to be dropped off in Njeru where she had a relative.

We got to Jinja at 1am in one piece, many fast asleep and yours truly following Europa games on phone.