AT THE start of that week, Andrew ‘Ladit’ Lawoko recorded a little video clip of a horde of boda-boda riders confidently going the wrong way in traffic, most of them carrying passengers.

Listening to him lament about the mental disorganisation that makes such behaviour normal made me happy to be in his circle of friends. 

See, not all is lost – there are still some people amongst us, like ‘Ladit’, who still believe in the need to Be Serious.

Just before he posted his clip I had watched former presidential aspirant Robert Kasibante’s media interview about applying to withdraw his petition against President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s election victory.

Within the first few minutes of his address I was skeptical. 

Not wishing to believe that Kasibante, having made it to being a presidential aspirant, is such an unserious person I sought out the petition itself and read it in most part.

It is 1,731 pages in total – mostly being annexes such as electoral rolls and what not. 

The main substance?

When I got to his signature on Page 63 and noted that he had signed under the word ‘DEPONET’, I believed his video clip to be authentic. 

He is not very (I have used that word fwaaa) serious.

Watching it again, I was initially unsure whether he was being comedic on purpose or trying to be serious while failing dismally.

Kasibante stated in broad daylight, for instance, that he made his application knowing that he would need a lot of money which he had failed to raise from his colleagues, and that he did not have enough evidence to prove that the election was rigged. 

Few people with a serious strategy anywhere in their minds would declare so solidly how they had no case to present. 

“Before we went into this,” he said, “we sat down as different political parties fighting President Museveni and we had agreed that they would come and support me financially and to give me evidence adding to what I had in my petition.”

“But after discovering that the evidence that I had needs more evidence, that’s when I said, ‘No. let me withdraw my case!”

And then he added: “They will ask me (sic) a lot of money which I don’t have because I am a peasant – I am from the Peasant Party and we do not have money….” 

…only to say with a lot of confidence when asked if he had been paid to withdraw the case:

“Ugandans, you can see me. Before I came into elections I was so big, I was so good, I looked nice, I had money! But when you look at me now I am like a peasant – a real peasant like from Kaberamaido…”

As you shake your head at this peasant who had money and yet became a peasant because of his political aspirations, believe it or not, his next charge was that the other political parties refused to contribute financially to his case, which was forcing him to withdraw.

All seven (7) political parties, he complained, ignored his request for money.

“Therefore,” he said, we should go into Plan B. “I want to caution Ugandans,” he says, “we should not fear…” 

What is Plan B? He does not say, as usual.

“All Ugandans, support us in whatever plan we come up with,” he says, asking the people who HAD REFUSED TO support him with funding and evidence to support him.

By this time in the video clip, Andrew Lawoko’s video clip had attracted numerous comments and I went to watch it again.

That’s when I noticed a stark similarity between all those boda-bodas and the type of politicking that people like Roberts (plural deliberate there) Kasibante conduct.

Boda-bodas in Uganda generally seem to number in the millions yet, in reality, they are vastly outnumbered by pedestrians.

(At some point I believed they were even outnumbered by motor vehicles but that has changed significantly in the last fifteen years.)

Seeing them on the roads, though, one can easily agree that they are the majority. 

But a rowdy majority, in all ways we see on a daily basis.

Their tendency to blatantly disobey traffic rules and disregard basic law, order and safety provisions on the road – risking their own lives, mostly – always makes us shake our heads but we have learnt to let them go by and keep doing what we do to keep going.

Trying to set them straight is very risky, especially on Kampala roads, because they are known to mobilise very quickly and will cause you major physical harm at the slightest provocation even when they are in the wrong.

And many of us fail to understand why they keep getting passengers to hop aboard them even when they are going the wrong way.

The explanation can be very simple. 

Their passengers are sometimes desperate or do not know much better or do not believe in the promise of other forms of transport to get them to their desired destination quickly.

Most times, their passengers are impatient or are not ready to plan their movements so they set off early and make steady progress till they arrive safe and sound.

Meanwhile, for all their perceived negatives in the eyes of the better heeled, your regular boda-bodas keep the economy running smoother patch up many public infrastructure and societal inefficiencies to keep us living sane lives.

And, most enjoyably, boda-boda riders are a major source of humour through their social commentary as they take you around on your chosen ride, just like the Roberts (deliberate) Kasibante of our world and his comedy outside the court house the other day.