I don't know what spell we, the citizens of this beloved republic, are under—but it must be potent. A dark, numbing concoction of fear, fatigue, and forced submission that has rendered even our coughs unavailable for rent when the government sneezes tyranny into our wallets.
You've seen that pensive photo at the steps of Parliament back in January 1986, right? Yes, that one. I wanted to joke that perhaps someone farted, a fetid fart, that day and the sanctity of Parliament was sullied - and with it our entire mental fabric placed under a spell.
But then I fear the joke might backfire on me - with fetid nous down my nostrils.
Ladies and gentlemen, Uganda has done it again. The new speed limit regulations are here, and like the good children we are, we have dutifully bowed our heads and opened our coin purses.
They told us it's for our safety. So now, if I’m cruising at 60km/h on a wide, empty bypass that could double as an airport runway, I am a national threat. I am a criminal. I am the reason we have road accidents.
Never mind the potholes with their own area MPs. Never mind the unlicensed drivers, the breathless traffic enforcers moonlighting as tax collectors, or the drunk buses belching death into the dusk.
No, it is me. Me in my little car, trying to make it home with a kilo of posho and mukene for my dog and the last shreds of my sanity.
They have declared my foot a weapon of national destruction. For pressing slightly harder on the accelerator, I now owe Shs200,000.
If I really let it fly—say, hit 90km/h on the Northern Bypass because the road is as clear as Museveni's bald pate used to be—I’m looking at a Shs600,000 fine. Six hundred. Thousand. Shillings.
That’s school fees for someone’s child, rent for a struggling boda rider’s single room in Kyebando, or half a month's salary in this economy. And for what? For trying to reach work on time so I can be taxed again?
And yet we are quiet.
Not a murmur. Not a demonstration. Not even a mildly raised eyebrow on a breakfast show. Instead, we swallow it whole and thank the government for giving us the opportunity to be penalised by a machine.
A camera snaps your plate, the system spits out a fine, and you—dutiful, docile, domesticated—you line up to pay. It’s dystopia on autopilot. And we? We are the proud passengers clapping as the wheels come off.
Let’s not pretend. Owning a car in Uganda is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity disguised as privilege. You don’t own a car because you’re rich; you own a car because public transport is a televised trauma.
And that car? Chances are it belongs more to the bank or a shark Karuhanga than to you. You bought it on a loan with interest so high it makes the Nile look like a puddle.
You bought it so you could get to work, drop your kids to school and return late under a semblance of safety than connecting by boda via dingy alleys in Najjera. And what thanks do you get?
Taxes on fuel. That third party licence fraud. Parking charges on roads whose asphalt is allergic to rain. And now, the cherry on this poisonous cake: fines so high they should come with a complimentary blood pressure check.
But we remain silent.
Even our rage is imported—packaged in memes from Kenya, delivered with Nigerian satire, while we sit in our vehicles, crawling at 30km/h on Lugogo Bypass, with no pedestrians in sight, no traffic jam, and no pothole to blame.
Just silence. We are the only country I know where the government can rob you with your own headlights and you’ll still give way.
Let me not lie—I am tired. Tired of being polite about policies designed in air-conditioned offices with no understanding of our lived realities.
Tired of pretending it’s fine that I need to pay Shs600,000 for using a road my taxes built, maintained by prayers, and regulated by a government that thinks logic is optional.
Tired of smiling through the fleecing, of calculating how many trips I’ll have to cancel this month so I can avoid being photographed by a robot with a grudge.
And yet, I know tomorrow I will still drive. Still dodge potholes. Still obey a 30km/h speed limit on a highway that cost billions. Still shut up. Still bleed in silence.
Because I am Ugandan. And in this country, we do not protest. We persevere. Oh, maybe only Besigye protests but they locked him up bad, jeez!
But Lord knows, one day we will be fined for breathing. And I swear—on that day—I shall at least muster a cough - if not a fetid fart!