The latest major disaster on Lake Nalubaale continues to evoke incredulity among many Ugandans. How does one make sense of the recklessness that claimed the lives of dozens and created hundreds of orphans? 

Survivors’ stories and the Uganda Government’s investigations reveal unintended homicidal and suicidal actions by some of the country’s wealthiest people. The ramshackle thing upon which they briefly floated was a deathbed that should never have been allowed near the water. 

Many unanswered questions remain: Why was this wreck of a boat allowed on Nalubaale? Where did the owners, now deceased, get the audacity to ignore the pleas of the police who tried to save their lives? Why do the elite of the land repeatedly get away with ignoring rules that govern their less powerful compatriots? Was the doomed boat the only unseaworthy vessel on Nalubaale and Uganda’s other lakes? 

Fortunately, time heals. The above questions will soon give way to less taxing conversations. The horror and grief will retreat into a mist of forgetfulness, as we continue to play Russian roulette with our lives and those of others.

Few things scare me more than venturing onto Uganda’s roads. According to the World Health Organization, the figure for annual deaths in Road Traffic Incidents (RTI) in Uganda is 28.9 per 100,000 population. This is higher than Africa’s average of 24.1 per 100,000 population and the Global average of 18.0 per 100,000 population. 

At number seven in the road death sweepstakes, Uganda is competing with South Africa, Nigeria, Iran, Rwanda, Thailand and Dominican Republic for the title of “Most Dangerous Roads in the World.”  

Many more are injured and incapacitated. Ugandan RTIs result in $1.2 billion worth of lost productivity and medical costs.  

This comes as no surprise to anyone who has ventured onto any of Uganda’s paved paths – whether tarmacked all-weather roads or rugged, potholed cattle paths that pass for roads in places like my home district of Rukiga. 

In a recent systematic review of the scientific literature on RTIs in Uganda, Joseph Kamuli Balikudembe and his colleagues at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences and at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, reported that the underlying risk factors include: extroverted and introverted road use culture; reckless driving; inappropriate driving experience; lack of respect for road traffic laws and vehicle roadworthiness. 

Other risk factors are road infrastructure deficiencies and inappropriate usage, alcohol and drug induced impairment, not wearing appropriate safety gear (helmet, seat belts and child restraints), speeding and overloading of vehicles.

The sight of untethered humans perched high on top of bananas piled in the back of a lorry, and of men hanging on to lorry cross bars above long-horned cattle being transported to Kampala’s abattoirs, reminds us of the little value attached to humans. One wonders how many men’s private parts have had unpleasant encounters with the tips of long horns. Do their lives matter? 

Incidentally, while the untethered men on the lories face the inherently deadly risks of Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion, the cows are usually safely tethered with ropes. The priorities are clear. 

Whereas the Uganda Police Force and the Uganda Government as whole have worked hard to reduce the road carnage, their institutional efforts have been sabotaged by a deep-seated national culture of recklessness, corruption among the monitors and enforcers of motor vehicle safety and traffic laws, funding constraints, inadequate awareness of road use etiquette, and suboptimal infrastructure.

Ugandan taxi (matatu) and bus drivers are often egged on by passengers to fly their vehicles along the country’s narrow and winding roads. A passenger that protests the speed or urges caution is booed and dismissed by the suicidal crowd. 

Boda bodas, Uganda’s silent killers, are a dangerous necessity in a land with very poor public transportation. They have become weapons of destruction, often carrying multiple passengers, including little children precariously perched on a torn seat. A whole family sits on a boda boda, its death wish often realized when they are thrown into a ditch. It is a recklessness that is licenced by the president’s insistence that they must be left alone. 

Unregulated and operated by often untrained cyclists, boda bodas accounted for 1,170 deaths in 2016. It appears that a good number of them moonlight as robbers and other violent criminals.

Seized by an attack of venturesome foolishness during our last visit to Kampala, I invited my wife to join me on an evening stroll along streets that she and I had walked during our student days at Makerere University four decades earlier. 

We walked from All Saints Cathedral in Nakasero, down Kyaggwe Road to Kampala Road, then Bombo Road to Wandegeya, then to Mulago roundabout and south along Yusufu Lule (Kitante) Road. Boda boda operators, speeding in both directions along pedestrian sidewalks, repeatedly shoved us out of the way. 

The open manholes were death traps that we avoided by keeping our eyes on the ground, defeating our goal of visual nourishment and a romantic walk down memory lane. The poorly lit streets did not help. By the time we reached Wandegeya, my wife had confirmed her suspicion that she had married an insane husband. In 2016 alone, 1,354 pedestrians were killed by motor vehicles all over the country. 

We have also been passengers in a car piloted by a very fine and highly educated lady which suddenly jumped the curb, cruised along a pedestrian sidewalk, with said lady transformed into a James Bond as she zigged and zagged her way through crazy busy traffic jams from Bwaise to Wandegeya.  Clearly the recklessness behind the wheels is not a preserve of the semi-educated and unlicensed. 

Space does not allow discussion of other examples of recklessness. These include consumption of untested and unlicensed traditional “medicines”; eating food served in unhygienic conditions by people who have no access to soap and water or modern toilets; drinking juices served in unhygienic buveera (plastic bags); subjecting oneself to the reckless ministrations and false claims of self-styled prophets, pastors and apostles exploiting the gullible in their miracle centres; women “cooking” themselves with skin-lightening creams; extensive environmental pollution with plastic bags; building in road reserves; holding roadside markets on the edges of roads and in dangerous corners; and disposal of oil and other fuels into water sources and reservoirs. 

These and many other suicidal engagements are part of a daily routine that has become a normal part of our lives. These reckless behaviours may not be as dramatic as the images of a sinking boat carrying some of Kampala’s who-is-who, but they are no less significant. 

Methinks that Rwanda has many lessons to teach us. Whereas that country has one of the highest death rates in RTIs in the world (32.1 per 100,000 population), there is a demonstrable political will to enforce order on the roads and to fight the menace. The orderly flow of traffic, including boda bodas, in Kigali offers a very sharp contrast with Kampala’s chaos. 

There is need for national self-examination and a change of direction to adopt healthy social habits, and firmer enforcement of civilized living.