I WAS heavily amused the other day when excited babble broke out in a couple of my WhatsApp Groups about the Tullow Oil announcement.

Having done zero academic work on oil and gas in general, I was comfortably unqualified to weigh in on the situation, and hesitated to forward the document announcing this doomsday announcement.

It was the kind of Forward that would have caused me great challenges if someone responded quickly by asking me to walk them through the repercussions.

I did that to a couple of people in the other WhatsApp Groups and they suddenly became busy or seemed to have gone off to explain the situation on Facebook or somewhere.

For years this Oil and Gas situation in Uganda has continued to cause misplaced excitement every time it is mentioned.

Just last week an acquaintance of mine who claims to be an entrepreneur was lamenting about not being given “access to opportunities” in oil and gas.

When I asked him whether he had joined the AUGOS, he was licked. I explained that it was the Association of Uganda Oil and Gas Service Providers, which was set up years ago to do exactly what he needed – give him access to the opportunities.

He had never heard of it.

Then I asked if he had registered his company, enterprise or self on the National Supplier Database of the Petroleum Authority of Uganda. He was learning something else that was new – just days to the close of the deadline for anyone to register for the next twelve months.

He was clearly neither ready not interested enough to participate – but certainly ready and interested enough to comment vehemently.

That club of Ugandans is something of a tragedy.

They can’t compare to the likes of one Moses Kisembo, an enterprising young fellow I bump into every so often at random but whose company I hope to keep for much longer.

The last time we met he had just walked out of an Oil and Gas Suppliers Conference. He wasn’t in the business, he explained, but had forked out time and money to find out more about how his particular field could be put to use in the oil and gas sector.

He is an agriculturalist, and is establishing himself as a Farm Manager. He goes up to people like myself who seem to be educated and have access to land that we are not using, then establishes farming ventures for us. The proceeds of the farm pay for his efforts.

During the conference he had just attended he had paid specific attention to the numbers being discussed and had confirmed light ahead.

“If,” he explained, “there are going to be 150,000 workers in Hoima because of Oil and Gas, there is an opportunity. They have to eat.”

He wasn’t going to do any catering, but was now proposing to grow basic foods on as much land as possible so that the caterers wouldn’t have to truck produce from Kampala (or further!) to kitchens in Hoima.

Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic…basic ingredients that can grow easily and go into all dishes. He was even going further to establish whether there were any specialty foods for certain nationalities expected to be in the field. What do the French eat, if they were going to be many of those employed by Total? And the Chinese for CNOOC?

Clever fellow, that one. I admired his approach and applauded him.

If anyone was going to take proper advantage of the Oil and Gas ‘boom’, it was going to be people like Moses Kisembo because they didn’t need to go to other countries to do a fresh degree in the discipline – they were going to use the skills, knowledge and other resources already at hand.

And so I told myself that if I were going to discuss the announcements by Tullow and Total, it would be with people like Moses Kisembo – because they are being dealt a very big blow.

Unless, going by how enterprising they are, they persevere and extend the opportunity they identified so they serve other sectors like Tourism or Manufacturing.

All is not lost – provided we have people like this Moses Kisembo being more ready to participate than comment.