You think a govt that shows you ‘Shege’ won’t find enough garbage to kill you with?

Sometime in 2015, the Somalia-based terror group, Al Shabaab, overran an AMISOM base manned by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, killing 19 soldiers. The story made news but there was no national commiseration of the tragedy. In fact, the President referred to the horrific incident in passing, while he was away on a foreign trip.

The President also admitted that the Al Shabaab had captured some UPDF soldiers, but didn’t disclose the number. The following year, the Al Shabaab released a video where a one Private Masasa, was pleading with the President to negotiate for his release.

It is probable that Kampala worked its back channels to have him freed but failed. Unfortunately, in 2017, the Al Shabaab released another grainy video in which they executed Pte. Masasa. I don’t quite remember but I think the army released a statement saying they would avenge the killings. That was it. We moved on.
Back home, images of the nasty and needless bloodshed that characterised the 2021 general election are still fresh. There are families which, up to today, are still not sure where their loved ones are, whether they are alive or not. Many of those who were killed (like Yasin Kawuma) or abducted by security forces were Opposition supporters.

But there was also the curious case of the former captain of Uganda’s boxing team, Isaac ‘Zebra’ Ssenyange, alias Mando. He was a renown ruling party mobiliser and fixer especially in Kampala’s slums. Mando was shot and killed outside his home in Bwaise.

At first, the crime was attributed to unknown gunmen but it was notable that the usual fall guys – the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) were not accused. It took the President admitting in a televised address, that it was “our people” who had killed him.
It wasn’t the first time – neither would it be the last – for “our people” to summarily shoot and kill a citizen without bothering to have them subjected to any court process. Later that year, more than 50 people were executed on Kampala’s streets by security forces in the protests that followed the arbitrary arrest of presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi. A lot of this criminality was captured on camera, showing that many were innocent bystanders – but nothing was done to the perpetrators.

Every Ugandan has a horror story about an avoidable death – or several – on the roads, in hospital, on the lake, at home, in school, in a bar or wherever. Nowhere is safe. In most of them, the common denominator is that something that should have been done by the government wasn’t done. But also, that there were no repercussions.

There is little evidence to suggest that saving and preserving the life of citizens is a key priority for those charged with the responsibility to. That is the background to the tragic incident in Kiteezi, where a heap of garbage collapsed and killed a yet to be established number of people. The official number  on Wednesday evening was 30 but if you are familiar with the density of slum housing, you know that this is a very very very conservative estimate. And this being Uganda, we shall never really know. We shall not mourn them. We shall move on to the next deaths.

There is a reason why. The government of Uganda probably ranks among the lowest in the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) index. In basic terms, VSL is the cost of avoiding the loss of a human life. The idea being that it should cost so much to lose a human life; and, therefore, governments should put whatever measures are required to avoid such an eventuality.

VSL estimates in Western countries range between $1 million to $10 million. We don’t have a figure for Uganda, but whenever the government has bothered to compensate families that lose their loved ones to some tragedy, the average rate is about Shs5 million ($1,300). It is not clear how this figure was arrived at but the fact is the government attaches a negligible one thousand dollars to Ugandan life tells you why they don’t care whether and how you die.

By most indicators, the average Ugandan lives a rubbish life wrought with all manner of indignities. Ergo, to be buried under a collapsed heap of garbage is as dark a poetic ending as only this government could have written.

Mr Rukwengye is the founder, Boundless Minds. X: @Rukwengye