Category: Turning Point

“What has he come to do here?” Mr Mulimu asked his Secretary, on hearing that Mr Yaliwo, the former Managing Director (MD) of Bulya Cooperative Bank (BCB), was out waiting in the lobby. In the early 1990s, BCB, as part of agreement with IMF/ World Bank, had put been put up for restructuring. This was all to help stalled African economies revive by lending them money on certain conditions. BCB was one of many state enterprise consequently restructured which had led to Mr Yaliwo being laid off. Mr Mulimu, then a middle level manager, was one of the few survivors of a skeletal staff left behind. He was promoted as the new MD.

Soon after he received his terminal benefits, Mr Yaliwo, quickly noticed an error. He recalled back in the early 1970s shortly after joining BCB he was notified by the Head of personnel that 10% of his pay would be deducted automatically to contribute to a pension scheme based in the UK.  BCB would also add 5%; which made considerable savings for his retirement. However, in the mid-seventies, with the economy in doldrums, the bank started defaulting to remit money to the pension fund. Yet, in spite of that, the BCB continued to deduct staff pay and the money was used to cover operational expenses.

Once he got his pay slip, seeing the gap, Mr Yaliwo, immediately raised the matter with the new MD. “Some of us used to contribute to a UK pension based pension scheme yet you have not remitted us those funds,” he called on Mr Mulimu. “I know we kept deducting that money, as I was then a junior officer in the Accounts section.”

“That can’t be true!” Mr Mulimu did not take kindly to this claim. Soon after he had became MD he took quick offense if any person wanted to draw money from BCB accounts, which he almost viewed as personal. Not only would he have requisition papers sit for weeks, if not months, in his in-baskets, waiting for clearance, he would always find a way to reject claims, which often he claimed were fictitious.

Suppliers were habitually sent back empty handed, him accusing them of falsified delivery. Sometimes he watched them from his window apparently enjoying making them walk off BCB campus disgruntled. On occasion, upon receiving staff conference attending lists for workshops, asking for reimbursements, he would personally visit hotels, up country, to ascertain if the event took place. One day upon finding one workshop had not taken place, his vigilance rose to another pitch. Every claim that came to his desk had now to be routinely sent back for more proofs. “I need to see the photographs as proof of the workshop!”

Eventually, some staff decided to baptize him the nick name “Aswan Dam.” But on learning so, he took pride. “Yes, I am the dam against all those thieves hiding and wanting to steal money for no work.”

Not everyone was convinced though about Mr Mulimu’s motives. On one hand while he was slow and reluctant to entertain colleague request for advances, whenever he himself needed money, it would take just a few hours to force the whole Accounts machinery to release money to cater for his expenses. He would harass Accounts Assistants with repeated calls bordering on threats, noting the emergency of the matter, while easily shunning off any required proof, as not necessary. “This is urgent BCB business for the MD and please don’t frustrate company work or you will get yourself in trouble.”

So, when the former MD came back claiming that BCB still owed him money, his battle instincts rose. “I need proof of all those deductions Mr Mulimu hastily went on with objection, shunning off his former colleague.  When Mr Yaliwo, who now lived up country, left and traveled back with his pay slips, which he had meticulously kept, still Mr Mulimu demurred. “We have no money and what we gave you is enough.”

“But if BCB lacks the money,” Mr Yaliwo advised, “then take it to Finance Ministry since she is the one overseeing you. The debt can be passed on to the government and besides I also left some money in some reserves.”

“I will look into that,” he promised. But he didn’t.

After tiring of traveling back and forth, and being made to wait till late to see the MD, Mr Yaliwo, finally decided to team up with other laid off workers, denied of their full terminal benefits too and file a case in the High Court. But once he got summons Mr Mulimu, shrieking with anger, took the case to an old law firm of BCB, led  by a grey haired Senior Counsel, Mr Magezi.

“We must fight off these spurious claims by thieves!” Mr Mulimu urged the old seasoned lawyer. However, upon going over the files from BCB, Mr Magezi advised BCB that hers was a poor case. “Pay these old staff of yours,” he called BCB. “After all they used to work for you and are responsible for the BCB you found.”

“We paid them already and enough!” Mr Mulimu cut off the old lawyer. He then started shopping around for a firm that would help BCB win the case against these “ungrateful thieves”. He found one but at a stiff price. However, when it lost the case, Mr Mulimu remained still unfazed. “There is no way I am going to see BCB give out free money to those people!” He declared and appealed. “I was given this job to protect BCB against thieves.”

And that is when tables turned.

As part of the restructuring exercise, Parliament had passed a law that Accounting Officers like Mr Mulimu could only serve two five year- nonrenewable terms. In the heat of all his battles with ex staff Mr Mulimu had forgotten that his tenure was of a limited duration. Seeing his end coming, he called for a special meeting of the Board to sit and extend his term. It was at a resort where as usual he forced Accounts to release a huge envelope for each Board member in record time.

Now, on the Board was a young Christian lawyer who noted that  the Board had no powers to override an Act of Parliament. “Members we need to be careful not to pass rulings in violation of the law!”  Observing that this was being noted in the minute, the rest of the members cowed and agreed, in spite of helping themselves to the envelope. Mr Mulimu’s contract was not extended.

Out of a job, Mr Mulimu, received his terminal benefit and quickly noticed all the money he had once remitted for the pension fund, was not passed on to him. Without wasting time, Mr Mulimu, got into his car, and drove fast to BCB.

At the entrance the old MD was shocked when security delayed allowing him to proceed inside BCB campus. “Do you have an appointment?” A new gruff security man asked him.

“How can you ask when I was the former MD here!” Mr Mulimu growled.

“Next time, it is better to first call!” Security warned him.

Once Accounts staff heard “Aswan Dam” was back to lodge a financial claim, they deliberately decided to make him taste some of his old medicine. “There is no need to talk to anyone here,” said an intern staff who was sent to talk to the former boss, as he stood waiting in the corridor. “Your matter is being handled and you would be informed in due time!”

Flushing with anger, Mr Milumu stormed back to his car. He could not understand why the organization he had in the past vehemently fought for, was now treating him so coldly. “People are so ungrateful!” he raged. He decided to call up the new MD called Mupya. “I have all this money owed to me,” he shared, heatedly.

“I will get back to you after making inquiries,” said Mupya, who had been hired from outside and knew little of her past operations.

When Mupya passed on the concerns of the former MD to the rest of Management he noticed they seemed all bemused. They took their time responding but finally gave him word for Mr Mulimu. “There is a court case on this matter under appeal and we need to wait for the outcome.”

It is at this point, that, Mr Mulimu decided to look up Mr Yaliwo. He desperately needed this cash payout as he was deep in debt and close to losing a commercial building he had mortgaged. Used to an extravagant life and realizing that he was now without a steady income, he had to find a quick way to make ends meet. “I think we should sit down and talk to see how to get our money back,” Mr Mulimu, lightly asked the man he had once seen as a nuisance. “I am now on your side.” He giggled, nervously.

“Is that so!” said Mr Yaliwo, quite surprised to hear from him, at last, as he had never called him before. It had been close to a decade when he had been made to suffer for lodging this very claim only to be resisted by the very man who was now at the end of the line. In the course of time, some of the old staff  he had started this struggle with had even passed on, while dying in poverty.

“Welcome to our side of the line,” Mr Yaliwo, finally told once his old tormentor. Having hung up, he sat, shaking his head.

In his mind Suubi always dreamt that after school, once he got a good job, married a beautiful girl, all would be well. The hard life he had endured while growing up would all come to an end.

Suubi had narrowly survived the harsh guerrilla war that brought the new military government in power. It had all come at such a huge personal cost. Suubi had lost both his parents, grannies and four siblings. Fate befell him when the family home was bombed after some neighbour alleged they had been sheltering guerrillas. Suubi had not been home at the time of attack, for he was down at the well, but when he got back he found once his home all leveled, with dismembered bodies, everywhere, of people he loved.

He fled. For days and nights, surviving on cassava he stole from gardens and drinking water from stagnant wells, he eluded government soldiers searching for rebels, as he made his way through the bush to the city. When he got to the city it was now a question who would take him up. He saw lots of kids milling around the streets and he considered starting life there too. But then he recalled he had an Uncle, Nkalyanzekka, a younger brother of his murdered Dad, who was a big shot in the city.

But he hesitated going there. Suubi knew that Uncle Nkalyanzekka had long cut himself from his family, which he despised. He had last seen him almost a decade ago when he came for a funeral of an aunt, in a big car, and quickly left once the funeral was over.

“That brother of mine is a very proud man,” Suubi had often heard his father complain. “He forgets he went to school only because we sacrificed and let all the school fees be used for him. But since he got up he thinks we are too small for him.”

That was part of the truth. Having got up in society Mr Nkalyanzekka had formed all sorts of negative views about the relatives he had left behind. He chided them for not being developmental like him. “Look,” he would hiss back in his palatial home of five bedrooms, “those people are so lazy. With all that land they still ask me money. All they do is drink and spend all their earnings in witchcraft chasing fantasies.”

So, how could he now go to Uncle Nkalyanzekka and ask for shelter when he had this low opinion of his family. But then he had no choice. Indeed, once he got to the house, tucked in a leafy suburb, before even greeting him, Uncle Nkalyanzekka on realizing who he was, cried through the window, “What has brought you here, boy, all rumpled up like this!”

“Everyone in the village was killed,” Suubi broke the sad news. Uncle Nkalyanzekka took in the news, without much of an expression. “Come in,” he finally allowed him in.” Suubi gingerly stepped on to the carpet.

“But I hear those people were supporting guerrillas,” his Uncle snapped, after taking in all the news. “So, what can I do for you!” He started pressing him.

“I need somewhere to stay,” Suubi pleaded.

“We have only a small place here,” the Uncle, who had two children, mostly away in a boarding school, wavered. It was only when his wife later showed up and hearing Suubi’s story of what had happened in the village urged her reluctant husband to take his nephew in. “He can also help us with chores, anyway.”

This is how Suubi had ended up being raised as a Shamba boy in his Uncle’s palatial home. He was housed in a boy’s quarter. Life was restless as the deal was to do odd jobs around the house as a way to earn money to pay for his school fees. Through hard work Suubi had finally made it to the university, and soon got a job in a government agency. Finally secure, he felt it was now time to live the life of his dreams, just like his pinchy Uncle.

But then he was in for a rude shock. Soon after leaving university Suubi saw one of his best friend die of a mysterious disease that had drained him into a poor skeletal frame. By then there were people dying all over, taken by a new strange disease. Finally someone gave it a name- Slim. After a lot of research, it was discovered, it was largely caused through sexual activity with an infected person. Young people like Suubi were urged to marry and stick to their partners, if they were ever to avoid it.

So, when Suubi married a girl called Mary, he knew his troubles were over. After all he had now a good job, a wife, a house and soon a car, all to himself. He would now be like Uncle Nkalyanzekka, a wealthy man living in the city, enjoying life to himself.

One of the things that had drawn Suubi to Mary was that she had grown up in a hard up family, far away from the village, much like his.  But Suubi and Mary had hardly settled in their new life of tranquility when in quick succession she lost four of her elder brothers to Slim. Her parents back in the village decided to send two of her remaining sisters, still in school, to her to raise. “With our grief, we can only manage to look after one child.”

Suubi’s first reaction was to send them back. “Why are your people coming here to enter our quiet life!” he wondered aloud. Mary did not answer. But later, as he reflected back on his life, Suubi recalled he had survived because someone had let him in, albeit reluctantly. Otherwise he would have ended up on the streets. Maybe by letting in these two girls, they too would survive, just as he had scrapped through the bush war, and go on to become something.

Those are the stories of Slim days. Although looked at as a very wicked period, and certainly it was, there is also a lot of good that came out of that dark period. In 1988 at its worst, a musician by the names of Phily Lutaaya, gave a feared disease a human face, by boldly presenting himself, and going a long way to reduce the stigma that had left many to suffer in morbid silence.

Earlier in 1987 after losing her husband to HIV/ AIDS, a young widow called Noreen Kaleeba, decided to turn  a tragedy into an opportunity, by linking up with others who had experienced as much fate, with a simple mission, to lift up each other and find a way  for life  to go on.  Eventually, from this band of widows, would grow one of the most respected global health organization called TASO, which has gone a long way to end this disease.

Times of tragedy can also birth the most heroic feats, as the days of HIV/AIDS revealed. On the other hand there are those who can become withdrawn and perhaps callous. Throughout history even in dark times, often in the midst of falling bodies, there are those who see this as their best opportunity to collect sacks of money they always longed for and build mountains of castles for their enjoyment. That’s how life goes.

But still,  there are those who choose to rise above the waters, forget about themselves, even if for a while, and become bigger, as we saw back then.

The Covid- 19 pandemic is no less, of times of upheaval seen through history. In spite of all the misery, it is a gift as well, to mankind, because it helps us draw back to find the very essence and meaning of life. At the end of it some will come out narrower in life; as other will have risen to become larger in life.

Something puzzling caught the attention of the young doctor. After observing carefully he noticed a sudden rise in number of patients, dying from a condition all the books he had read back in medical school did not properly describe. Once bright and up on their feet, stricken patients soon after admission would wither away slowly into skeletal frames, of much pity, before drawing their last breath. The young doctor applied all kinds of standard treatment to bring relief and recovery but to no avail.

Finally, he approached the head of his department, Professor Nkumbi. “I am puzzled,” he sighed. “We are losing so many people and none of the standard treatment is working. I suspect we are faced with a new dangerous disease.”

Professor Nkumbi had also been noticing through his regular rounds of supervision and his concern was growing. Over the years he had seen batches of new viruses break out to cause new strange diseases. But even with scarce knowledge there seemed always a way out to manage any. Many times he would use his vast experience to apply a combination of different medicine and administer their properties in different amounts to help heal the sick.

The Professor was a lazy writer but on occasion once certain of his treatment he would author a paper packed with statistics which he had assiduously gathered as proof of the efficacy of his treatment regime. His findings were reviewed and published in leading medical journals. It is only after the scientific community had reached consensus that he would accept invitation locally and globally to promote his medicine. The Professor was now recognized as an expert in managing tropical diseases and some of his medicines had been patented by leading pharmacies.

“Perhaps we should get out blood samples and anything we consider useful to a partner laboratory in the US,” Professor Nkumbi advised the young doctor. The two agreed, and quickly sent samples out by DHL. However, after a week anxious for feedback, came a terse reply. “There is nothing we found giving us clue to this new disease.”

“If they can’t figure it out,” said the Professor. “Then we need to figure it by ourselves. They have their problems and we have ours. Sometimes we need to take the lead.”

In his long career of handling epidemic crises Professor Nkumbi had taken an interest in studying human behavior under odd circumstances. Although at an individual level there were observable differences, there were also commonalities. First, human beings in the absence of assured treatment, many started panicking. This would be accentuated as the diseases became viral. In this case, Professor Nkumbi saw it happen when sometime later, the young doctor who had taken it upon himself to immerse himself in treating the afflicted, fell ill. Then, as were others, he wilted away, and in no time lost his life.

The death of the young doctor made all the health workers pause. Putting in long hours, working under strained circumstances with poor equipment, tempers rose. “No one knows what this disease is,” said a young worried medic. “This disease will wipe us away before anybody knows.”

The Professor knew that one of the first things he needed in the midst of an epidemic was to bring reassurance and calmness. The day after the young doctor was buried he called on all staff for a meeting. “I know many of you are scared stiff and for good reasons,” he said to the hushed room. “But I want to assure you that if we stay calm and work together on this thing we shall find a cure. Let us keep our hands joined together otherwise if we left fear take over us, we shall all lose out. I say, the only thing to fear is fear itself!”

“But how can we work under these conditions,” a staff raised concern. “We are short on beds and gloves. Patients are sleeping on floors. Our pay comes in late. We are hungry. Don’t sell us on this hope stuff.”

“I do hear you,” the Professor said calmly. “How I wish I was the one managing the health sector. But for now our complaints won’t help much. We are at the frontline. Everyone is looking up to us. Let us do all we can!”

The next day about a third of the health care workers did not show up. Professor Nkumbi had seen it all. But he knew a certain critical staff would stick on. It is those few he embarked on a journey of finding a discovery to this unknown disease.

The Professor decided to close off one of his wards where he would carry out rigorous research. As he studied the disease he noticed that a majority of patients fell in the 15- 25 age bracket. He would ask them all sorts of questions about their lifestyle. Yet he couldn’t figure out why this new disease was more virulent in attacking this rather athletic age group. He wrote to the Ministry of Health asking for funds to research more on this age group but he was quickly rebuffed. “Maybe you should write to the donors,” the Permanent Secretary wrote back. “The funds available are for buying cars for political leaders to sensitize the population about His Excellency programs.”

In the meantime, without much research going on, all sorts of speculation started going around town, explaining this disease. There were those who quickly pointed the finger to witchcraft. “This thing was brought by those witch doctors from our neighbors,” seemed to be the chorus in local pubs. As many were convinced, they rushed to local shrines to fight off evil spirits causing this unknown disease. There, almost all would not survive, including some of the shrine ministers, which left as many perturbed.

“God is punishing us for our sins,” a number of Pastors claiming to be in constant contact with God now took center stage. “If you come here and we pray for you then you will be healed.” Added to this, there were those who claimed that racist White doctors had planted the disease in Africa to wipe out the population and recolonize the continent! Promoters of this conspiracy were drawn largely from the more educated class.

All this Professor Nkumbi had seen. “Human beings will always grapple for answers from all sorts of angles in the face of the unknown,” he had once written a paper. “In situations of anxiety, it is expected for opportunistic groups to thrive.”

As all was going on, one-day Professor Nkumbi discovered that a young man on his research team had pieced some of his data to put together a concoction claiming it as a cure for the new disease. This medicine was marketed across the country, especially at bus stops and popular drinking joints, where a number would always come up with testimonies of “being cured” by gulping it. No one would take time to probe their testimonies. Marketed intensely, the new “cure” soon ran out of stock. When Professor Nkumbi learned that the chap behind all was on his research team, he promptly fired him. “I have nothing to do with anyone who takes advantage of poor people’s ignorance promoting unproved gimmicks.”

Poorly funded, Professor Nkumbi pressed on with the few staff left on his team. After many months of gathering evidence, his data started coming together. He discovered the young people who were most affected tended to exhibit an aggressive sexual lifestyle. He found that in the absence infection rates tended to be minimal. With this in mind, the Professor now realized that lifestyle change was one line of attack to reduce infection. He started advocating sexual abstinence as one line of attack. He also found that by using condoms where one’s status was unknown, infections fell to almost zero. He became a serious advocate of condom use.

Not everyone was pleased with the Professor’s findings. For those who were marketing “cure” concoctions, using some of their profits, they started waging a campaign against the Professor. “This man shall put us out of business,” they seethed. Meanwhile, certain government officials displeased that reports of lower infection rates meant the country was earmarked for less aid, also started attacking the Professor. They knew less aid would mean less funds to maintain their expensive lifestyle which they dared not forsake, even in the midst of a ravaging epidemic…

It is now nearly four decades away since Uganda was at the center of the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic, whose origins was initially a cause of so much speculation. However, after the rigorous work of dedicated research scientists in Uganda, it was discovered there was a link between the spread of the HIV-causing virus and unprotected sexual activity. Armed with this knowledge the doctors then started advocating abstinence, faithfulness and condom (ABC) use as a line of defense.

But as we all know the simple message of lifestyle behavioral changes, was not good news to everyone. All sorts of power centers rose up attacking ABC, without much else to show, but the power of charged emotions.

And so it is with Covid-19. A lot about managing this virus has simply to do with limiting its spread by observing simple behavioral practices – physical distancing, sanitization, mask-wearing, isolation of the sick, etc. More so, there are various tested vaccines fortunately now available which serious governments have quickly and without waste bought and ensured the majority of the population take immediate benefit of. Never mind all that. There are those places where things just never change.

Early in life, I noticed a queer thing. I was not growing as fast as some of the boys I had joined school with. I mean in height and size. It all started when I failed to get into the school basket ball team. “No, you are too short!” coach said. “Try something else.”

Hurt, when rugby was introduced, my heart leaped with anticipation. I had this friend called Sembusi, with whom we excitedly started playing. In the first major game, on opposite sides, we both divided for the red ball. But before I could snatch it, my friend gave me such a rough push that sent me reeling over with pain.  I couldn’t fight back. Sembusi had suddenly grown huge and put on a lot of meat on his biceps. I decided from there on only to enjoy rugby as Sembusi’s cheerleader.

My lack of rapid growth in height and size came with a certain boom though. When it came to entering our dining mess, the smaller boys were given the fast pass. The Idi Amin reign of terror was at its peak, with food scarce and the meals so skimpy. So, you can imagine, how I flew the steps to get to my table and scoop out as much posho, before the bigger boys arrived.

Actually my being smaller never bothered me, for there was also an area where I seemed to have the last lough. As I look back my love of books could have started there as a way to beat the bigger boys. There was this guy, a head taller than everyone, who loved to gather smaller boys around him. Weak in class, he compensated by grooming a gang of followers. I didn’t join though, lost in my books. He resented me for that.

While for me it was books there was another smaller boy I shall call Shorty who just didn’t walk away from the yard to go hiding in the library. As others grew and he stood still, Shorty decided to squeeze his smaller fingers into one bloody fist.  All it took was one small slight and he would snap. Tiny as he was, Shorty would throw wild punches hard at the bigger boys, always aiming for the balls. Only the teachers who stop him by yanking him away, all bloodied, a tooth on the floor.

When later I moved to the US for further study and work, I noticed something which would take me back to my childhood. Being a Christian I joined a church perched in a neat part of town where I soon discovered I was the only black. It never bothered me or let me say I didn’t even think much of it. All I could see where people who laughed, quarreled at times and had their share of problems. Every Wednesday we would go out to invite new members, like Jehovah Witnesses minders. What I remember, the Whites would receive us eagerly, but for Black dudes, never. They seemed to resent the missionary Whites.

Yet, if they knew, here was a homely church filled with regular guys, who went about coasting a simple life. Many drove to church in rather ordinary cars and seemed to dress ever in the same suits and had on the same shoes.  In fact, I hardly remember the kind of SUVs  later to find back home, in Uganda, congesting traffic along potholed tiny streets.

In this church was a friendly family that would often invite me after service for a meal. We usually went to a diner, where buffet meals were served, and easy on the pocket. On some rare occasion this family would invite me visit them at home.  Home was a glittering house seated atop a hill overlooking Tulsa city. There your eyes where washed with what they call old money.  Seated, after a fancy meal, sipping coffee, you heard things like, “my kids education was paid for by our grandpa!” Excuse me. “Next weekend I will be flying to check on my factory in Australia.” Eh! But the guy had seemed so ordinary.

I had an apartment in a less affluent neighborhood. There was a way I came to know of some people visiting. In most of the cases, whenever you saw a sports car, rooftop open, and heard almost deafening juke box music blaring, you didn’t have to guess much which race was behind the wheels. The car drove fast into the parking lot, shining wheels spinning to an abrupt squeal. A guy adorned with all sorts of golden necklaces like an African chief jumped out, and sauntered about. He looked like me. Quite jet black.

At first you would say he was loaded. But no; in those parts there was such a wide berth of wealth between the largely low living whites and quite ostentatious blacks. What I came to gather is that while the whites, like those I went to church with, seemed to be at pains to exhibit their pearls; the blacks, once they collected a few, couldn’t just wait.

I had this black friend working on a night shift as a cook in a fast food restaurant. Once, while heading for class, he dropped by my apartment. “Come and see my new Ford sports car!” He pulled me out. There it was: a cool, polished white animal, with bright Michelin tires. He smiled. “I now will be working hard!” He had too. Those cars didn’t come easy on the pockets. Sometimes he would call me desperate for a loan to help him pay up the car loan installment.

This is when I started realizing that some of the problem in our lives are largely driven by trying to compensate something we feel we are lacking. We blacks being poorer desperately needed something to show off as finally somebody. We craved for respect. We needed to prove we had arrived. Of course there were many cheaper cars around my buddy could get, save on, and steadily build up a fortune. But there was that gap or rather hole he had to fill up.

I am sure psychologists have studied this phenomenon and given it a name; but here I will call it, the compensation paradox.

This is how it plays out. Back to my childhood, which was filled with all types of crazy characters fidgeting around as Presidents of modern nations, aside from Idi Amin, there were two chaps who were never short of antics. Few of those who saw Presidents Omar Bongo of Gabon and Emperor Fidel Bokassa of Central Africa Republic, could ever imagine there were a bit petit, in life, for all their flare.

In the case of Bongo, diminutive in size, he compensated his lack of height by having on high heel  platform shoes, covered with some large bell bottom trousers. Meanwhile, Bokassa the Emperor of a country with starving orphans, compensated for all his deficiencies by strapping on a uniform filled with a suitcase of medals. When this caught the attention of an unschooled Amin, not to be outdone, the two forever, were locked in hot pursuit of each other, who has more medals.

For some these might appear like they were benign incidents, but what drove these chaps was the compensation paradox. For whatever they lacked our chaps leading independent nations had to find a way of compensating their deficiencies with platform shoes or just stuff themselves in such unconformable jackets packed with starry medals, for everyone’s attention.

But don’t think it is only individuals who struggle with the compensation paradox. Nations, especially poorer ones, struggle with that complex too. Just recently, I came across development statistics from East Africa. I found that my country not only has the least population of the three major East African nations but also the lowest GDP and per capita income. Then I found something puzzling. At 534 Members of Parliament, Uganda has the largest parliament of all and with an approved 80 member cabinet, it doubles the numbers of either country.

How do you explain this anomaly? Since she has the least economy, Uganda, must compensate for what she lacks by packing a tiny building called Parliament like a football stadium with infinite MPs, and feel some sense of greatness.

The problem with compensation paradox is that it can often lead one to make irrational decisions. I hate to report that my friend with a Ford sports car eventually failed to pay his dues, and at some point, lost his job, soon dying a miserable man. I saw the same fate befall many black families too who were always in a hurry to impress someone, take on outsized credit, only to default and be thrown out in the streets, as the whites they were trying to compete with cruised by.

Back home I have seen my poor nation struggle to pay its bills, yet take on more loans to buy a new fleet for her outsized Cabinet. What is killing us here? Meanwhile the lenders of Uganda, some of whose leaders find no qualms in riding bicycles to work, keep piling on her debts. Of course they are secretly laughing for not long they will come calling, mortgaged land titles in their hands.

The way I see it every life needs to overcome the compensation paradox, find peace, and start cruising peacefully in one’s God given castle.  It is what they call being comfortable in one’s skin. Those who fail to reach that point must get set for a rough ride. Never comfortable in his skin, fighting to prove he was still around, Shorty, desperately took on the bigger boys who made him loose a lot of teeth!

No one could ever forget the night when slaves in Bulaya revolted. A hated slave owner, Mr Smith had just retired to bed when the slaves stormed his six-bed room mansion.  The slaves had long tired of being worked day and night in the cotton fields and sugar plantations suffering whips under a scorching sun and moreover without pay.

For some days rumors of an impending slave rebellion had been circulating about in Bulaya. Sensing danger, Mr. Smith, a nasty large scale sugar plantation owner, had taken to the habit of going to bed armed with a loaded rifle, which he rested next to his pillow case. However, when the slaves struck, he was fast sleep. By the time he awakened the slaves were banging hard at his door. He reached out for his rifle. But the mob had already pushed inside. They seized upon him and savagely cut off his head.

From Mr. Smith’s compound the slaves, marched on, torching slave owners’ homes, catching most unawares. They would go first for the men, particularly those with a reputation of being task masters, savagely slicing off their heads, and then move to decapitate their wives and children too. It was bloody. By the time reinforcement arrived from the Bulaya Protection Command Post, twenty slave owning families had perished.  The commander of the rescue forces later commented he had never seen this much bloodshed before.

After rounding up the vanquished rebellious slaves and quickly executing them, the terrified Bulaya slave owning community sat down.

“We are having so many slave rebellions!” one slave owner who had lost his entire family moaned. “Almost every year there is an uprising. We must find a way to end this business.”

“We were wrong to haul these people from their continent to work for us here,” confessed another grieving slave owner. “But since we have now machinery we can do without them. I suggest we agree to send them back and use our machinery to farm.”

A number of slave owners protested, insisting they owed nothing to these “darkies who have now ungratefully killed our own!” But a respected elderly church pastor rose and urged to free the slaves. “We have been using these people for centuries without paying them a coin for their labor.  We have grown rich from their sweat. I suggest we are kind enough not only to send them back to their country but put up a development fund to help them develop their new country.”

After a long debate the majority voted in favor of this proposal.

And so the nation of Baddu was born, formed of ex-slaves!  From among the returnees, Mr. Washington, who was the most educated of all was elected President of the new found self-governing nation. Mr. Washington had no other memory other than growing up as a slave and the task was formidable.  A prayerful man, he started well by nationalizing all Baddu land and mineral resources to save them from ever being snatched by people from Bulaya.

His nationalism pleased many who still felt bitter towards Bulaya.  But, when President Washington started preaching reconciliation with Bulaya and establishing good working relations, he was opposed.  “We still need these people,” he urged his countrymen, the ex-slaves. “They have the capital and technology which we need to tap into for our development.”

There were those who wanted to sever all relationships with Bulaya because of the old history of exploitation.  When President Washington decided to protect the Development Fund created by Bulaya, earmarking it only for long-term development projects, he lost more support. “Let’s use these funds to build the future by investing them in quality schools, modern hospitals, good roads, and save as much for the future of our children.”  He pleaded.

“Saving for the future!” Members of Baddu’s parliament cried in protest. “When we were in slavery we suffered so much. It is now our time to eat and enjoy life. The future is here already. Let’s have our money.”

Matters came to a head when parliament came up with a budget proposal where it sliced for herself a huge allocation for new cars, free medical care and allowances for unlimited trips back to Bulaya where the standard of living was much higher. The moment the bill came to President Washington’s desk he vetoed it without hesitation. “As a developing country we must learn to live within our means!”

That very night President Washington was overthrown in a coup, led by the head of the army, General Mathews, also an ex-slave. He had been contacted by some of the ex-slaves unhappy with President Washington’s policy of monetary fiscal discipline. In his first address General Mathews, accused the former President of corruption. To ease  his grip on power he decided to shed off his military uniform. He then organized elections which he controlled all the way. After winning handily, he was sworn in as an elected civilian President.

One of President Mathews first act was to recall the bill passed by parliament which his predecessor had vetoed and sign it into law. Of course, as President Washington had feared, the budget expenditure ballooned. Not long Baddu was struggling to finance her budget. It is then that someone reminded President Mathews there was the Development Fund. “Our money is sitting there and yet we are suffering,” one of the ex-slaves pointed.

President Mathews did not need much prompting. He raided the fund and started re-allocating money for the army and Members of parliament whose support he needed. He raised their salaries to become the highest in the world.  He bought for the army and his supporters in parliament brand new SUVs.  He sent his and their children to schools in Bulaya. Whenever any would fall ill the government would fund them to go back to Bulaya for medical treatment.

All of this started affecting Baddu’s development as essential sectors like agriculture were neglected for lack of funds. Once food secure, Baddu became a net importer of food. In fact most of the foodstuffs were now imported from Bulaya where farmers now used modern machinery and no longer cared for slaves. Baddu was actually helping Bulaya prosper as most of the household goods were imported from her.

It didn’t take long before the Development Fund run out. President Mathews now raised taxes. Yet people had no money to pay. So his government started printing money to help pay her bills. This led to sky rocketing inflation. Anyone who worked now found wages almost useless. Besides, because there was lack of investment, there was no one investing in building factories to create jobs. Since agriculture was neglected the youth who were the majority migrated to urban centers in search for jobs. But there were no jobs; so they  spent most of the day playing board games or loitering about aimlessly. Many occasionally engaged in petty crime.

One day something happened that caught the attention and saddened many good people in Bulaya and Baddu. A group of young men and women, grandchildren of ex-slaves, after finishing school and looking for jobs to no avail, happened to hear they could be trafficked to Bulaya where they could find jobs.

So, they saved and borrowed to pay the traffickers. After trekking through hills and forests, they led them to a boat down at the coast. The long trip started at night and took a slow and winding but sure path against the ocean winds to Bulaya. It was about dawn as the boat was fast approaching the coastline, with the youths on seeing the Promised Land their hearts pumping with joy, when a severe storm came from nowhere and knocked the boat aside.  All the occupants were lifted and swept out. None had a life jacket on nor knew how to swim. Sinking in the water the youths helplessly screamed out for help.

A rescue ship was dispatched. But by the time it got to the scene all the youths- grandchildren of ex-slaves had perished on the high seas! They had been fighting to go back to the country where once their grannies had lived and hated life as slaves!

“Can’t you behave like the first born!” Abiola Jr, grew up hearing those piercing words, which made him always feel like running away from home. As far as he could remember ever since he had dropped on earth, there was always someone around nagging him, eager to remind him of his duties decided for him, before he was even conceived. Being the first born son of Paramount Chief Abiola IV, Junior was expected to succeed him in a lineage that dated back over three centuries and become leader of his over two million Bola peoples.

Even as a little boy, Junior, would be dressed up in traditional attire, the agbada, and taken to some of the meetings and functions Chief Abiola presided over. He grew up seeing his father at a distance, seated on a throne, surrounded by courtiers, and ever wearing a permanent stern face, like an Egyptian sphinx. In his young mind he didn’t want to end up like this distant man constantly at work.

“You will one day be seated in that chair your father is in with everyone waiting on you,” his mother once whispered to Junior, as he slumbered through another long meeting, his eyelids dropping heavy with sleep. “So, stay awake and watch everything!”

He hated it all. It seemed no one was letting him live and enjoy his childhood. Largely because of this constant admonishment  he took to being the most mischievous child in the family.

In Chief Abiola’s compound of three wives and a dozen children, Junior was always the last to attend to his chores. At a local school, he stood out as a pain to the teachers, who were hesitant to punish him because of his royal status. But they would report him to the Chief, who would roar back, “You are embarrassing me and yet you are the first born!”

Pushed, but determined to have his way, Junior took to more cranks.  At every single opportunity he seemed to court trouble. Once he led his age mates to raid a garden of a neighbor and pick fruits without asking, against village norms. When reports got to the Chief, Junior was summoned and harangued. “You are not behaving like a first born, why!”

Junior lowered his head, hating everything about his birth.

Tired of receiving embarrassing cases of his errant son causing constant trouble,  fearing one day he might have to pick him from a police station, the Chief decided to send Junior to Justice Soyinka, a brother of his who was based in Abuja. “Maybe under a different environment you will grow up and start behaving like a firstborn.”

If Chief Abiola had expected a sterner hand to raise his wayward child it was the very opposite. Justice Soyinka was a busy man who after enrolling his nephew into a boarding international high school, simply cautioned him to stay away from trouble. But unlike all those people with whom Junior had grown up, Justice Soyinka did not reiterate to him his firstborn status. “You have to study well because it will be good for you in the future!” Then he left.

Freed from constant admonitions of a workaholic father, Junior hooked up with a group at school that spent more time patronizing bars than libraries. He barely passed his ‘O’ levels.  Soon after starting his ‘A’ levels, came the devastating news from Bola state. “You father has just passed on of a heart attack and you must leave at once for the funeral,” Justice Soyinka picked him from school.

After news of the death had sunk in, Junior realized that his father’s sudden death meant he had to succeed him as Paramount Chief as per age old custom. But he didn’t feel like he was ready at all. Junior had a girlfriend and was more interested in living his carefree life in the city. “I hope they don’t end up thrusting me into my father’s shoes when I don’t want!”  He thought to himself.

But just as he had feared, once the funeral was done, and he was planning to head back to the city and to his girlfriend, junior was summoned by the council of elders to the Capital hall.  Nervous, he walked to the palace hall, urged on by his mother. They found the Capital hall filled with all elders and  his siblings in agbada who bowed once they saw him step forward through the wide gates. They all immediately fell prostrate on the floor. Gingerly, Junior walked past, and was eventually led up to the empty throne. Then everyone got up and stood straight. The Prime Minister of the state, moved forward. He motioned Junior to take his seat on the throne.

He hesitated.

“You are now Paramount Chief of the Bola peoples!” the Prime Minister said. “Long live the Chief!” came a deafening chorus from the crowd. Junior sat nervously and started listening to speech after speech praising him.

Tired from the day’s meeting, once the ceremonies were , Junior called up his mother and told her he was not ready to become the Paramount Chief. “Besides, I need to go back to Abuja and resume my school work.”  He was thinking of his girlfriend whom he missed. At night without warning he disappeared.

Back at school, Junior picked up from where he had left of his old life of endless boozing and running around with his girlfriend. But when holidays came and he returned to Justice Soyinka’s house, he couldn’t be allowed to settle in. “You are going back to the Bola state to take up your duties as Paramount Chief,” Justice Soyinka told him in a matter of fact voice.

“But I don’t want to,” exclaimed Junior. “I just want to stay here and live my life.”

“Sorry,” the Justice said, motioning Junior to follow him to the car. “You do not have much choice in this. Just as you did not decide on your birth so is being Chief. This is your destiny. You can’t run away from your destiny.”

Driving back to the state with his uncle steady at the wheels, Junior sat in deep thought, hating every moment that he was being pushed into a position given to him at birth. However, by the time he got to the state capital he had accepted his fate. “I will just do my best!”

Once it was clear in his mind and he agreed to being crowned Chief Abiola V, Junior assumed his duties with remarkable zeal. From once the rebel child he was now the strictest Chief. He would spend the day in long meetings, much like his father, listening to intricate cases and receiving delegations from near and far. When his old village agemates would visit him and ask him to go out with him he would keep them waiting. Much later, he would send a chit that they should come back another time, when he might have time.

Junior’s old friends now resigned to seeing him at state functions where he sat alone on a raised throne wearing a stately face. If they waved at him, he would motion with a finger, his face a sphinx, as was once of his father.

Some years later Justice Soyinka happened to visit Bola state and called upon his nephew. The moment he saw the young Chief he noticed something wrong. The once light hearted boy who used to live in his house full of life was no more. In spite of his youth, Junior’s face was all harrowed with lines of worry. His hair was fast greying. He noticed the boy was now walking with a hunch.

“Do you ever find any time to rest,” the uncle asked his nephew.

“But how can I!” replied the Chief. “My day is filled with all these cases to decide and delegations to receive. Everyone wants a piece of me and I have all this work to accomplish to protect our state.”

“You used to go out a lot with your friends,” the uncle pressed on. “Do you ever find time to play with your old friends?”

“But how can I! replied the Chief. “There is no time to play. What will I talk with them anyway? I am now Chief Abiola. They have no idea of the hot chair I am seated on.”

“Son,” the Justice after a long pause, drew his breath. “If you don’t start relaxing and having time for yourself, find a way to relax with your old friends, and laugh, do things you enjoy, not just because you have to, within a couple of years you will drop dead like your father. It is good that you finally accepted your destiny. But for your gentle sakes place, just as you resisted everything before, now remember the State is not you, for you have also a life to live.”

Everyone who heard that Mutambuze had quit his job, as a Partner in a Wall Street Investment bank to go and settle back home in bushy Africa as an orchard farmer, thought he had lost his mind. The job he was giving up was not like your run of the mill assignment.

After graduating at the top of his MBA class, the Dean of his US Midwestern Business school, impressed by his grades, had advised him to apply for a job at a famous investment bank. Mutambuze had done some case studies analyzing some of this bank’s ventures, but had no prior contact.  Nevertheless, not eager to go back to Africa, and end up job hunting for scarce jobs, he complied.

Being recruited at Lion’s Investment Bank (LIB) was notoriously competitive. It snapped the best and brightest kids from top B- Schools handing them six figure dollar salaries. Invited for an interview, Mutambuze noticed he was the only black. The rest were white and Asian kids, who came from Ivy League Colleges and carried themselves with supreme confidence, if not cockiness.  So he was most delighted, if not shocked, to be called the day after his interview. “We are offering you a job at LIB!”

Having joined, when he received his first paycheck, Mutambuze almost went crazy. He had to go over it, wild eyed, to make sure it was him. If he was back in Africa it would take him probably five years to earn this kind of money. His life instantly changed. He secured a Penthouse apartment overlooking a Lake. There was almost no toy beyond his reach now to acquire; he quickly spoilt himself to a sports car. This was some life, even in his wildest dreams, he had never dreamed of.

Mutambuze discovered earning this kind of money at LIB was by no means a walk in the park. Young investment analysts like him worked 24/7, going over huge files where they analyzed various firms balance sheets before recommending acquisitions. So often they had to fly out to visit these firms. Living in planes and at airports in the US, as he was always shuttling between cities, hardly having chance to enjoy his neat apartment, became the norm.

LIB had a masculine and competitive culture close to open bullying. Assignments had to be delivered yesterday without fail. Staff were constantly harassed to deliver results or be dropped. “You are lucky to get a job at LIB!” any would be reminded, if there was a hint of a complaint.

For Mutambuze, having grown up under harsh conditions, surviving on coarse posho corn meal and weevil-laced beans in the boarding schools he had gone to, this was no issue. Indeed, he excelled and after five years was rewarded as a Partner. This came after he had gone through three days and nights without sleep to write a report that earned the firm a major acquisition in China. A partnership at a top investment bank came with even more benefits.

Around that time he married a beautiful black girl from West Indies, called Anne. The two were attracted to each other being both immigrants and working in the financial industry. Soon the married couple bought a multimillion dollar house in a leafy suburb, circled with the best schools, wide roads and malls, and looked forward to a happy bright future. After struggling for years they had a son and settled into a life of a wealthy suburban couple that vacationed in Hawaii.

Then one day their lives changed abruptly.

Mutambuze was busy at work when he got a call that his mother back in Africa had suddenly passed away.  Mutambuze knew he had to attend the burial as he had missed his father’s funeral while attending graduate school. Having called up Anne he boarded a plane and after 21 hours of flying across the world, he arrived just in time before burial. He had expected to leave immediately after due to pending office assignments. But just after burial he started receiving delegation after delegation of elders seeking his counsel and decision over some outstanding family matter.

As heir to his father, a former chief and head of clan, many of the locals recognized and looked up to Mutambuze as a cultural leader. They had been waiting for him ever since. Besides attending to them, Mutambuze, got to understand that the land his father had left to the family, was now being encroached on as he and his siblings had long migrated to the US. The matters were quite complicated that he called LIB asking for a week’s extension. The bank denied his request.

It is on his flight back to work when Mutambuze made the decision to quit. “Why can’t I stay and develop our land with a mango farm and start a juice making factory!” He wondered, reflecting on all the companies he was restructuring around the world before selling them. “Cant I take this knowledge back home!”

When he got together with Anne, he told her, “I want to go back to Africa and start life as a farmer!”

“Have you lost your mind!” she sneered at his proposal. “We are happy here with a child and have a dog. If you are going, just know I am not following you.”

Later, after debating the pros and cons, it was agreed that while Anne stayed behind, Mutambuze would go and give the project a two year time limit. “If nothing comes of it I will return,” he promised. “I will ask the bank for a two year unpaid leave of absence.”

The bank didn’t promise to keep his job, though it mentioned he would always be considered, if he ever wished to return. Mutambuze wound up his duties and then flew back to Africa to start large scaling farming.

In his former career as an Investment Analyst, Mutambuze could easily figure out how to turn around a firm from loss to profit making. But going into large scale farming here at home was nothing like he had ever expected. It seemed he was hitting road blocks everywhere he turned. The machinery he imported could not arrive on time and when it did the taxes where through the roof. Simple implements like seedlings and fertilizers were almost impossible to procure. The workers he hired were slothful and quick to cheat on him.

Initially Mutambuze settled in the city, whose life he was more accustomed to. But as no work was making progress, he moved to the rural farm, throwing away his suits for overalls. He now lived in a small hut and spent the day out in the sun.

Two years down the road he had not even started planting trees. He called up Anne to ask for more time. Her response was fast. “I am leaving you!”

Mutambuze considered giving up the project and going back to the US, to return to his old life. But then, as he reflected, in spite of all, he was enjoying what he was doing. Life was far more rewarding; he was providing a valuable service as a farmer to his community and was consulted on for many things, including cultural issues as a clan head.

“Anne, it’s okay but I am staying here!” The couple agreed to a divorce, with Anne going with his son and their multi-million dollar house.

Much as he had lost his job and all his investment, Mutambuze trudged on. Slowly, things started coming together, though he was always up to a new unexpected challenge. The mango trees he planted were often subject to pests and once they ripened he had to deal with thieves.

Once it was time to harvest Mutambuze noted he had never wanted to be a seller of raw materials, like a peasant. Using his old connections he got investors to start a mango juice factory in his district with ultra-modern machinery. Being a cultural leader he convinced his people to supplement on his farm produce as out growers.

When his juice factory released its first product no one was as excited. Mutambuze developed a marketing plan which he executed, turning his juice product into one of the best-selling on the market. Eventually he started selling regionally and to the Middle East.

All this time he remained in regular contact with Anne, who with time, remarried. Mutambuze also started a new family. When his son was about to graduate, they invited him for graduation. At the ceremony hearing his son’s name read, he had a moment to reflect and look back on his life.

By returning to Africa it had cost him immensely in terms of his professional career and wealth enhancement, given all the opportunities he had left behind. He had lost his marriage and time witnessing his son grow.  Whatever success in life he knew of had come at a huge price.

But Mutambuze was happy. He felt a very fulfilled man, having gone out and done something close and dear to his heart. He had built in his country something enduring that created jobs for many while also saving family land. Life had presented him two roads to choose from. He took the one filled with all dangers and less glamour. “Even if I was given another chance I wouldn’t choose differently,” he nodded, as he saw his son walk down with his degree.

Cathy Mcpherson never forgot the day she first came across a copy of National Geographic magazine. Her father, a university professor of linguistics, always came back home with a bunch of magazines like TIME, New Yorker, LIFE, Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest and more. There was also this magazine with glossy pictures of often distant dark skinned peoples, secluded away in some tropical forest in the Amazon or lost down on a remote island floating on the Pacific ocean, that caught Cathy’s attention most.

National Geographic fascinated her as here she read about a semi- nude people, hunting down and feasting on wild meat, retiring to dance excitedly beneath a full moon. At a very early age she decided she would study more about such remote tribes.

Once admitted to university she decided to major in anthropology after her first degree, a subject that explores the lives and cultures of peoples in different habitats. For her Ph.D the university required her to venture out and write an original thesis about a distant tribe that westerners had little knowledge of. Of course such tribes were becoming rare but through connections at her local church where there was a mission organization targeting un reached tribes with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, she came across one.

“There is this tribe of the Togela peoples who only allow in visitors briefly,” a missionary at her church shared. “Perhaps you could go there and help us understand why there are so resistant to the Gospel.”

With the help of this missionary Cathy  was allowed in to study the ways of the Togela . “If you have not come here to preach to us about abandoning our ways of life and take up yours we can even allow you stay longer,” Chief Asilika nyo welcomed her.

Ever adventurous Cathy quickly settled among these secluded people. She would rise up early from her thatched hut and after a breakfast of yams with hot tea spiced with lemon grass, walk down bare feet to clear bushes for plantations. She worked with the women and their little kids with extended bellies. The men would meanwhile splinter off to the forests where they spent the day hunting, sometimes returning late at night with their trophy.

In the evening these men would sit around in a circle to sip a brew which had been prepared by the women, upon return from the gardens. Seeing all, Cathy made her first observation- “in this culture the women are ever bent in back breaking chores while the men feast from their  captured wild meat to dance and clap. It is not good.”  She wrote.

The Togela culture forbade women to taste beef and sip on intoxicating brew, a high offense which could lead to a woman being ostracized from the tribe. But being a foreigner Cathy was given a pass; she tasted some of the roasted game meat, which she found delicous.

One day Cathy also took a sip of the local brew. She had noticed that the men could spend almost all night sipping on it after a hunt while munching their roasted meat called muchomo. The brew called Lira-lira had an effect on them and would get the men jumping up and down in a wild dance as they called for more liquor to be served. Exhausted they staggered back to their huts where they would commence on beating the very women who had been serving. Sometimes it was like the whole village was lost in wails from these beatings by drunken men. In the morning one after the other the women swept away broken teeth while nursing their black eyes. “This needs to change,” Cathy wrote.

Back at her home Cathy had grown up around various spirits and brandies which her father regularly imbibed, and she an occasion lazily sipped too. But the day she decided to take a few sips of Lira- lira she quickly blacked out. After she got up from her delirium there were dark men standing over her, pointing to her lamely, “Poor white woman weak! She can’t stand our Lira- lira.”

Back on her feet Cathy wondered how any people could drink so strong a brew ( Lira- lira could even light up like paraffin) night out after night. When she started asking her women friends, at first they laughed her off. But gradually as she gained their confidence they started opening up to her.

“Those men drink so much because there are unhappy,” said Abyotodde, one grandmotherly confidant. “They need to for there are hurting so much.”

“What is it you are talking about?” Cathy asked.

“You see here we have so many secrets,” Abyotodde pulled her within ear’s reach. “Lira- lira helps break our men free for a while.”

“Can you let me on in some of those secrets,” Cathy whispered.

After glancing around and seeing no one was within ear’s reach, Abyotodde started. “We have men who get home and after beating their wives turn on their daughters and rape them,” she said, her eyes melting with tears. “Those men could be a product of rape too and they grew up very embittered. You wait when we go to war with one of the neighboring tribes and you will see what I mean.”

The Togela people regularly engaged in bloody scuffles with neighboring tribes. One day it was reported a hated tribe had encroached upon the Togela land. In the deep of the night, Chief Asilika nyo sounded a war drum. All the men came out dressed in war garb of animal skins. Without waste they started pursuing the enemy. At dawn they returned with a column of prisoners. What happened thereafter shocked Cathy.

The prisoners were pushed down in a trench which served as a prison. For Cathy the rules of war dictated that a prisoner of war should not be tortured or maimed. Yet here now they started freely torturing war captives, including pulling their nails off, one by one.

Peeping from her hut and overwhelmed by deafening wails Cathy noticed that the men who indulged in this torture seemed  to relish it all. They casually bludgeoned their captives to death with small hoes, pushing bodies off like some useless cockroaches.

“They do that because there are hurting within,” Abyogedde, explained to Cathy once they got together. “Our people grow up feeling unloved because of all the abuse they endured. They have bottled anger and this is why you should never stand in the way of a Togela who is mad. Anything can happen.”

Deeply concerned Cathy decided to approach Chief Asilika nyo. “Chief I  know I am a visitor but I want to help on some  important matter.”
“What is it my child,” Chief Asilika nyo said in a fatherly voice.

Cathy pulled her stool nearer. “Why is there a lot of domestic violence here? Your men habitually beat your mothers down to bloody beads. Some have told me the men are also victims because they grew up seeing their fathers unleash reigns of terror in homes. They don’t know how to express themselves other than through violence. This is why after war they ghoul out captured prisoners eyes, yet torture is forbidden among civilized people.”

“The problem with you is you forgive too much!” Ataseka loved to remind her husband, Kasana who had an irritating habit of passing slights, believing forging and maintaining relationships was far more important than holding on to grudges. “Life is long and no need to hold on to petty slights.” This was one of Kasana’s favorite sayings.

Ataseka would have none of that. There was one particular incident that really irked her.
Kasana had applied for an executive job of a newly created government agency. If they got that job there was no doubt it would improve the family fortunes. So eager was he for this job that Kasana took effort to inquire about the recruitment process. The news he got was comforting. On the interview panel would sit an Assistant commissioner from his ministry, a man he had himself recruited. “At least I have a vote in hand,” he thought to himself.

After the interview, Kasana waited anxiously for his appointment, quite assured he had done well. To his shock, another candidate was appointed to the job. Eager to know what happened he used his inside networks to find what had gone wrong. And that is when he discovered that the Assistant Commissioner he was dependent on had actually voted against him.

After the news had sunk in, he shared it with Ateseka. She vowed never to forgive
“that man and any members of his family. I recall how he was unemployed and you took him to the ministry,” she reminded Kasana. “And here he was the one speaking against you. I will never speak to that man again!”

Kasana was as equally mad. But other than hit back, taking his philosophy of a long view of life, he just settled back in his old job where he continued to work with the very Assistant Commissioner. He had in his powers to make life miserable for the Assistant Commissioner by, say, putting out a damaging dossier yet he chose not to. Part of his reason was tactical. “You never know whom you may need one day,” he would shrug off Ataseka’s urges to have the Assistant Commissioner fired.

In her life, Ataseka lived with a maxim of a scorched earth if she run into anyone who ever slighted her. At the National referral hospital where she worked as a nursing supervisor all the nurses and junior staff under her lived in terror of ever getting on the wrong side of her. She would not hesitate to put one on ‘katebe’, for daring showing the slightest disrespect.

One day came this particular nurse, Onsanze, who started boasting having a nursing degree unlike Ataseka who as an enrolled nurse. In meetings, Onsanze would making alternative suggestions countering her proposals. As it was in her powers, Ataseka had had her re assigned to a dead-end shift, past midnight, one where she was denied of any serious work. “That is what you do with a smart aleck!”

Now, time came when Kasana and Ataseka retired from their formal jobs. Soon, a son of theirs graduated and started looking for a job. Then Kasana reached out to his old networks. He found that his old Assistant Commissioner had eventually taken up the job he once coveted. Kasana decided to approach him. “I have my boy just out of school and can you find him something to do here?”

The Assistant Commissioner had long been torn with guilt over what he had done to Kasana. What made him feel even worse is that Kasana had chosen not to retaliate, going ahead to leave behind a positive recommendation that had catapulted him into this agency, one of the best payers in the country. He also recalled how Kasana had once been of help to him in his struggle to secure employment at the start of his career. Quickly, he called in the Human Resource Director. “I want you to find something for this young man immediately.”

Kasansa left beaming with some satisfaction. “I am glad I left the doors open,” he reported back to Ataseka.

Out of a job, Ataseka continually suffered poor health. Whenever she visited any clinic they would refer her to the National referral hospital where she had once worked. “Those are the ones with expertise to handle your situation!” But Ataseka hesitated going back to her old work station. As a nursing supervisor she had left a trail of enemies and feared now finding herself dependent on those she used to harass.

However, her condition continued to worsen. Late one night, as she struggled for life, Kasana had to call for an Ambulance. There was no other place to take her but the National referral hospital.

Admitted, in the morning when Ataseka opened her eyes, there was Osanze standing erect and gazing at her, along with a troupe of other nurses, she used to work with. Ataseka closed her eyes. She wanted to bolt out of the hospital, but there she was, and in her weak statre, all she could do was to pray for the good graces of those she had once terrorized.

Taking a long view of life means that in human relations there are certain fights which you let go, and appear even a loser at the time, simply because you really have no idea who in the very end will be in the driver’s seat. Slights are ignored not because they do not bite but simply that the big picture matters more.

There are words that are told to us once in life, whose significance only rises with time. When Abebi was passing on of a cruel diabetic condition, she called up her son Abiola and told him, “Always be trustworthy!” In her weak state she muffled a few other things, the betrayal she had met in life but bore no bitterness because she believed in a just and fair God. Then she breathed her last.

At the time both were living together, having been thrown out of the family home. This was after Abiola’s father, Chikuemuka, had secured a younger wife, Katali. Chikuemuka was a trader in cotton which he would sale largely to travelling merchants. He always bought on credit from peasants but yet would never sell to any merchant unless by cash. Now instead of paying back the peasants what he owed he would use the proceeds to acquire square miles of land for his growing business empire. Whenever his many debtors would call upon him up for payment, he would put them on hold insisting that he had no money. “Come back when I get paid.”

That’s how he became one of the wealthiest men in Umondi county. But Chikuemeka’s fortunes started going down when one day he trusted one merchant with a huge delivery on credit, which he rarely did. He had done business with this particular merchant many times before and when he called him that he wanted a huge purchase, Chikuemuka quickly went back and collected as much cotton from the peasants. “Trust me this time,” he assured all of them of payment.

But once he delivered the assignment that was the last he saw of the merchant. Chikuemuka kept waiting for his payment in vain. Then the peasants started demanding their payments too and for sure this time Chikuemuka had no coin. They got the local authorities involved and started confiscating his land.

As his fortune spiraled down, at his home, Katali the new wife started accusing Abebi of engaging in witchcraft that was the cause of their husband’s misfortune. Chikuemuka sided with Katali and threw Abebi out of the family home with her son, Abiola.

Chikuemuka was eventually arrested and thrown in jail. Once in jail Katali run off with what was left of his property. Chikuemuka died a miserable man, unattended, regretting the pain he had caused to all those peasants he had used to get ahead in life.

After the death of his parents, Abiola, dropped out of school and started doing odd jobs. He would go to rich people’s gardens and plead to be allowed to till for them. But he hated these jobs which exacted faithful hard work for poor pay. Then one day he met a village mate who convinced him to start brewing local gin. “It is easy to make money here because you can easily cut corners and sell people even bad stuff,” said the village mate. “They are mostly drunk anyway and can’t tell the difference!”

Cutting corners involved minimizing contents like molasses, yielding a brew with a high poisonous alcoholic volume. One day several deaths were reported in Umondi. When investigations were carried out the culprit was found to be Abiola’s ginnery. Villagers moved to lynch Abiola. But he caught wind of their advance in time and fled to Kumasi.

Kumasi was a big city where Abiola found he could easily survive by passing with a false identity. Using some of his savings, he started by boarding a nice apartment where he paid for the first three months. Then he stopped. When the landlord showed up, he begged for more time. But after three months he decided to vacate in the night; he was confident of being safe, since in the big city, no one could trace him.

Abiola took up another abode where he paid for the first three months. As before, he disappeared after tossing the landlord up and down for the next three months. “If I can get away in a year by paying only half the rent,” he thought to himself. “This is good saving!”

This became Abiola’s standard way of living and doing business. He would start off by being a good client to someone he was trading with, and once he had the unsuspecting person hooked, he would make a huge transaction on credit, then disappear with the client’s money. From this way of doing business he started buying huge tracts of land in the countryside. He was happy with his progress and started thinking of starting a family.

After sharing his need, a friend in the city introduced him to a young beautiful girl, still in school. They struck a bargain with her agreeing to be married to him, if he could pay her school fees in a beauty vocational school. “I don’t want to be seated home all day!”

“No problem,” Abiola agreed without hesitation and started bankrolling her.

From trading and pulling fast ones on the unsuspecting, Abiola’s business empire kept growing. Aware of all the enemies he was making Abiola acquired a pistol for defense. He always moved stealthily ready to fire back just in case one of those he had cheated caught up with him. He drove cars with tinted glasses and ever at breakneck speed.

As a tycoon he decided to invest in real estate too. Once he had set up rental units, he had no problems in having them taken up. But something strange started happening to Chukuemuka soon after. Every now and then came those tenants, who started by paying well, only to disappear into the middle of the night after keeping him in suspense for three months or more. He was furious, seeing all the damage they had caused to his property and without paying.

Abiola decided to report the culprits to police. “Why are people here untrustworthy!” The police knew he was a wealthy man. All they did was to extract as much money as they could from him, pleading they needed all to carry out investigations. Frustrated for lack of progress Abiola gave up chasing delinquent tenants and suffering more losses. “You can’t trust anybody here!”

One day Abiola needed to secure a loan from the bank for his business. When he offered some of his titles as collateral the bank upon verification found the land was encumbered. Abiola couldn’t believe it. He recalled how the seller had given him all assurances that the land was unencumbered. But here he was discovering he had been sold air. “You can’t trust anybody here!” he spat.

Just then he got another blow. After paying school fees for his girl fiend, and as she was about to graduate, she sent him a chit mentioning that the friend who had introduced them had all along been her lover. The two were planning to wed. Abiola was crushed. He felt like the end of the world had come after all his investment in this girl. “Why me!” he moaned. He took out his pistol ready to end his life.

Down and disheartened, wanting to end his life, it is then that Abiola recalled his gentle mother, Abebi’s last words. “Always be a trustworthy person!” The pistol still pointed to his head Abiola saw that all along he had been riding on other people’s back to get ahead, and his sins were finally catching up on him. “She said this to protect me!” Trembling, he lowered the pistol in deep contemplation….

In any society there are those who decide that to get ahead theirs would be a life of pulling a fast one on those whom they deal with but who happen to have fallen asleep. The consequence of that is theirs is always a fast life one of constantly looking over the shoulders, fearing that perhaps one has met their match, and it is now game up! And, perhaps for that reason, is why some have suggested preaching virtues like trust and honesty is literally in one’s interest, because otherwise you are living on borrowed time!