By Bake Robert Tumuhaise
If it wasn’t one of the police bosses who knows me and loves what I do, possibly I would not be typing this. This mob would have lynched me.
I took a 6 & 1/2 hour journey to Mbale today to speak at an event that had been organised to help young people turn their ideas into business. I arrived unaware of what was going on in the minds of some people. While about half of the people had come with pens and paper ready to learn what can change their lives, the others had come because they expected cash from the government. So one by one they started to complain of hunger, thirst etc, and I thought I understood since they had sat there for some good hours without eating or drinking anything. But about 30 minutes into my session, some ringleaders who were drunk and some looking like they had smoked some illegal substances stormed the front and stopped the session. They had a book with 227 names and demanded that I give some money to each name because I was coming from statehouse to mobilise for NRM.
I told them I do not even have a political party but that I had sacrificed my time and money to come and share some ideas that could develop them. None of the was ready to listen. It is as if, while their counterparts had brought their minds to learn attentively, these ones had had left their brain at home. It was not time for reasoning. They opened the box of books I had taken for sale, claiming I had 6bn shillings there.
When they found no money they decided to drag me out of the hotel and started demanding that if I do not give at least 2k to each person they would apply mob justice on me. One of them was a man aged around 75. He also wanted 2k. I gave it to him with a smile as a way of mocking him. It made some of them join me in the light moment but others got even more infuriated (maybe the word I am looking for is indignant). While they were trying to push me further into the bush, I saw a police car park. And there came my friend and the DPC. Apparently, I did not know that friend had even joined police, but he was aware that I am a facilitator at that business event.
So when someone called and reported that there’s mob justice taking place at that hotel, they rushed to rescue the situation. That’s when I remembered what Dr Gudula Basaza said at the #AuthorsForum: “It does not matter how many people you know but rather how many people know you!” I am glad this police officer had not known me from a crime scene or another dubious thing but rather from the Authors’ Forum, a powerful inspirational platform I created. May God help the people of Mbale because with that mindset I saw, a lot of work still needs to be done. Even if governments change 20 times, no one can help people who are unwilling to help themselves.
I thank the liberated ones who had come to learn. I apologise that you did not get the full package; things were beyond my control. To the government, the Opposition and NGOs that use money to mobilise people, God is watching.