Rujumba Abwooli Omurungi W’Abasambu, ethnic Uganda is largely a constitution of strictly two tribes. One has to pledge allegiance to either one of the two. However what is fashionably striking about the two tribes is their numeric standings. One tribe totally outsmarts the other numerically. Thus if it was a race of numbers, one is miles ahead of the other. These two tribes are the rich and the poor. One has a mandatory obligation of belonging to one. There is no other to belong to. These tribes are the rich and the poor!
The children of one tribe can be spotted with kwashiorkor- hit stomachs, showing ribs, running noses, dilapidated manyattas, dry or no bank accounts and a long strewn thread of problems that have accumulated over time. This description firmly fits the tribe of the poor. Thus the poor man’s kith and kin enjoy a lamentable way of living, is more disease prone, has the benefit of being syringed in a skeleton like structure with no drugs and sufficient qualified medicine men. But amidst all these woes, he goes on to survive!
On the other hand, the ones that belong to the tribe of the rich have such symptoms like fattened, round bellied stomachs, walk with bulging wallets and have their own walking fashion as though they are going to cause cracks in the earth, get the attention of the world’s finest neural surgeons in case of the slightest headache, fly abroad to deliver million – dollar babies, don’t trust their own medicine-men, are creative vote counters, sky the clouds with monster metallic birds that don’t come cheap. It is alleged that each bird goes for $100 million. The houses they live in are adjacent in quality to the biblical paradise exclusively for the doers of good or Janna for the followers of Nabbi Muhammad!
Yet amidst that gap in standards of living, the rich man and his tribesmen wantonly disregard the aspirations of the poor man and his henchmen as though he is not part of the human race! They segregate against them right from the schools they go to, clothes they cloak themselves in not to mention how they laugh at their modus operendi. For how can an adult man with a family go on to show the thighs and back that produced his children by going around swinging them in tattered clothes?
In yet another show of how the poor man is determined to segregate against his disadvantaged cousin, one of the rich in charge with Education nodded in affirmation to the proposal of tuition increments in all public universities namely; Makerere, Gulu, Busitema and Mbarara. The increase was not a slight one that a poor man can hoe to achieve, but a mind-boggling 40%. Yes, Rujumba, by 40%! It was communicated by none other than the NRM minister in charge of higher education- Mwesigwa Rukutana.
This prolific reflection of outsourcing and the junta’s commitment to the universally acclaimed benefit of education for all follows another resolution by the rich that there shall not be any meals in the students’ halls of residence. The government and the creatively set up university council of Makerere University, majorly a reserve for the rich, have now reminded their poor cousins that the use of a University is academic. It is not a catering institution. It is hub of academics. Period!
Rujumba, now I suspect two things here and pardon me if they may in any way hurt you.
1. The rich are finally implementing their long harbored prosperity for all design of creating a Varsity that is exclusively their preserve, a fitting symbol of class and brass. They are tired of rubbing shoulders with people whose bodies are friendly to ticks. They are now gazzetting themselves a no go area to avert the danger of contracting those small parasites.
2. The Junta head is at his old tricks again. Cause outcry the country over and drop from heaven as messiah. This fees thing is unallowingly high and not good for the poor farmer. In a show of gratitude, the peasant farmer will shower you with votes like a sheep that has survived slaughter!
Abwooli, I beg to be protected.
KYOMUHENDO- ATEENYI
