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Staying in flats is like living in an open glass village. You never miss any drama.
Living in Bugolobi flats in the 80's we always got to see wives clobber their drunken husbands and the reverse.
A friend in Bugolobi flats one day told me an embarrassing scene they witnessed from their balconies.
He and the neighbours on his block stood at the balconies watching a group of children play. Soon a quarrel erupted between two boys.
One boy told off his playmate in no uncertain terms. "You're stupid, your father is very poor."
Embarrassed, the people at the balconies sheepishly peeped at each other and sank behind in total embarrassment.
I guess the boy based his remark on what he had seen at his playmates flat over the time. The children always got to know almost every detail in each flat even better than the owners.
I'll always remember the week Milton Obote fell from power, courtesy of the late Tito Okello's coup.
We had a sol
dier on our block. He was Langi. The coup caught him out of his flat. He came racing back visibly shaken, as did some other soldiers who were staying in the army barracks in part of the flats.
The looting in town had started. We spent days glued on the balconies watching the soldiers returning from town with the loot.
Cars commandeered by soldiers drove into the flats loaded with looted merchandise.
Behind our flat lived a very elderly soldier. He spent most of his time sunbathing on his balcony.
As the looting intensified, the front of his flat became the scene of some rare drama.
Almost every hour a vehicle drove in loaded with loot. The men, women and children rushed out, performed some Acholi dance around the car and emptied the loot into their houses.
Meanwhile, the visibly shaken soldier on our flat had also joined in the looting. I got a bit confused. One had not expected a Langi soldier to be part of the looting. We expected him to be i
n hiding like most Langi soldiers had done.
He made quite a number of trips returning with cars loaded with loot. At one point he looked up at the balconies to notice that all the eyes were glued at him. He had forgotten that he had all along been watched as he ferried in the loot.
Embarrassed, he pulled a bag of sugar aside and announced in kiswahili: Mukuje mugwane (come and share this).
No one moved. He walked off to his flat. Later some children whose parents were away for days came and dragged the bag away.
Days later, a car drove with soldiers to the front of our block. They pointed at the flat of the Langi soldier. They went up to his flat only to return with him as a "prisoner of war" and drove away with him.
The night before Museveni's rebel army entered Kampala, we once again witnessed some melodrama.
We were awoken in the middle of the night by noise as soldiers at the Bugolobi barracks fled with their families through the flats. It
was a sad sight seeing how the women with babies on their backs and toddlers run in the darkness.
Some men kept on ransacking parked cars as they fled. Call it looting eyenkomelero (the very last looting). The car owners watched from the safety of their balconies.
Museveni's soldiers didn't loot. I recall the Baganda youths that walked the streets with AK47s in tattered clothes, some with dreadlocks. It was obvious the Baganda youths played a big role in the final battle to capture Kampala.
A day or two after Kampala fell to Museveni's rebels, the residents of Bugolobi flats were yet to witness another drama.
Lorryfuls of NRA soldiers drove in the barracks in the flats. Each time a lorry or bus drove in, soldiers alighted and performed some kinyankole dance as they sang victory songs.
The only difference was that they carried no loot. We were told they were from the western front and had come in to back up the youths that had captured Kampala and free them to pursue the remnant soldiers of the deposed regime.
Since then, Uganda has turned into some huge balcony where citizens witness another sophisticated form of looting.
It was some sad scene as ministers and MPs lined up to receive Shs 5m each
to support the "sad term" for President Yoweri Museveni.
Embarrassed citizens sank behind their "balconies" in shame as one MP Wambi Kibale in the queue was reminded that his ears didn't look Movement.
The remark reminded me of the Bugolobi flats boy who told his friend; "you're stupid, your father is very poor."
Unlike the Bugolobi playmate that took the abuse stranding down, MP Wambi didn't.
"But I look Movement, the moustache, clean shaven head, and I move with a swagger," he retorted back to the NRM cashier, MP Anifa Kawoya.
MP Charles.Bakkabulindi was not done at making drama when some daring citizens made some noise about the Shs 5m that had been dished out.
He boasted that that was just the appetiser. Another Shs 15m was on the way for those that will support the fifth term for Museveni.
The remark reminded me of the UNLA soldiers and their families that danced around cars with loot before emptying it into their flats.
The only dif
ference is that the NRM chaps are too heavy to dance. They just swagger around the loot.
And unlike the Langi soldier that offered a crumb (bag of sugar) of the loot to the citizens, the NRM chaps are reluctant. Looks like they have commenced on looting eyenkomelero.
Uganda's history often repeats itself. I fear for the day when the NRM chaps will - like the Langi soldier - be taken 'prisoners of war". Or when like the Bugolobi barracks soldiers, they will be forced to flee in the dead of night, scampering for safety.
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