I am fast becoming a hardened criminal. The other week I bribed a cop; now I am one of those people who have been trying to defraud the Electoral Commission of Uganda. My career in crime started innocently enough – all I wanted to do was make my parents think I was a responsible citizen by registering to vote.

I was successful on my first attempt about a decade ago, and although I don’t remember who I voted for, I felt a tiny bit of patriotic fervour. And then I moved out of my parents’ house, changed towns and realised I could not vote in the village any more. So when the next round of voter registration was announced, complete with the promised technology of photography, I went to my new ‘village’ to register. However, the machines at the Electoral Commission refused to recognise me. I did not appear in the new voter register and was therefore unable to vote in the last election. It was a little bit annoying because at the time I had a better idea of who I wanted to vote for and why.

Recently a new voter registration exercise was announced and I thought this time round I might get lucky. I have moved back to my village of origin, so I thought I had a better chance of getting registered. So I lined up and had my picture taken and did the responsible citizen thing once more.

Yesterday, I was informed that under Section 16 of the Electoral Commission Act, I and people such as myself will be prosecuted for registering more than once. Yes, the EC has unveiled my diabolical plan to vote once in Jinja, cut off the finger that has gone into the indelible ink, jump in the car, drive madly to Kireka and vote a second time, thereby ensuring that my candidate carries the day.

Generally speaking, a person who registers more than once with exactly the same name and exactly the same details is not a criminal mastermind – just someone who has been frustrated by the loopholes in the voter registration process. One might suggest that the logical thing to do in this case would be to delete all prior registrations and retain only the most recent. That way if I try to vote in any other place I will be frustrated, and if I genuinely have registered at the station nearest to me, my right to vote as a citizen of Uganda is defended.

However, there are many things in this country that rarely run on logic. Therefore I suppose at some point tax money will be used to prosecute me. When that time comes, I hope you will remember to bring me some cigarettes in jail. I am told that they are more valuable than dollars if you want to buy yourself some ‘votes’ from the other inmates.

Published on Sunday August 15, 2010

This is the year of our Lord two thousand and ten; a new decade in a relatively new century. Putting a man on the moon is old news. There are teenagers who have never seen a telephone which is connected to wires – let alone a telephone with an actual round dial.

The internet is out of control and amazing. I can count the trees in my compound on Google Earth. I can chat with someone 5,000 miles away. Using my mailbox I can work for clients I have never even met – and get paid with money transfers directly to my bank account, all without leaving the comfort of Sofa Inc.

Surgeons can operate without cutting you open. They just make a little hole, insert a tube thingy with a camera on one end and a light somehow inside the camera and a laser beam all rolled up into one. So they see and cut and stitch and they are in and out of your innards before you are even aware you were under anaesthetic.  You can shift fat from your rear to your lips or vice versa – it seems the only thing we cannot do is share fat with thin people who want to put on weight.

So can someone please explain to me why a trip to the dentist is still such a soul-numbing, bone chilling, pee-in-your-pants and weep experience? Did they miss the bus? I took my son and nephew to the dentist and after seeing two patients come out, my son, who had never even been to a dentist before, began to cry and ask to be taken home. The mere aura of the waiting room had frightened him.

And I must admit he is not the only one. As soon as you sit back in that dental torture contraption they call a chair, and he swings his tray of lethal and sadistic looking instruments towards you, you can’t help but panic. And it does not help that many dentists have perfected a tone of voice which is much akin to a psychiatric nurse soothing a madman before he plunges a great big injection full of sedatives into his arm.

We are centuries beyond performing amputations on the battle field with nothing but a manual saw, a bottle of whisky and several men to hold the patient down. Why does dentist still equal pain? Is it lack of PR? Do dentists take professional pride in being more frightening than undertakers? Is the amount of horror you generate one of the benchmarks of how well your dental practice is doing?

I guess this is my way of saying I have to have 3 teeth filled and I am not budging till someone gives me a guaranteed pain-free project proposal. Or a large bottle of whisky.

Published on Sunday February 21, 2010

We spent a whole term of some class (I forget which) in primary school learning question tags. But what exactly were they for? I rarely use them or hear people using them.

All they did was serve the purpose of creating much hilarity when they were misused or mixed with vernacular.

Allow me to share an anecdote from my friend Deo, whose primary school teacher wasn’t shy with his question tags. As the school soccer coach, he took every opportunity to shout to his boys out on the field: “Naawe olinda ki? That is a good cross! Teeba… Teeben’t you!?”

I suppose he was asking: “Tooteebe? – Won’t you score?”

So who’s going to score with some more classic question tags. If we can’t use them, at least we can laugh at them!