On the Ugandan Nepo Baby.

Dear @ZeeroBrain and @BuniChristopher

I have been meaning to write to you but eh. Eh. Things have been so tough. Never have I been in a hole that required me to use my phone book and reach out to strangers extensively to solve what usually are penny problems. Been cooking as they say. My luck is so rotten that I doubt my ability to even get water boiled. Anyway, luseeke is for later.

I was at Kingspark, I watched the game. I know Ahamya, as a person. At least his name. Police didn’t say he didn’t do it. The family of the deceased didn’t say he did it. This is a familiar tale. It reminds me of the many times this happens. The perpetrator has to just sit out and let the sands of time blow the tale to the next excitement.

We all carry ghosts. We all carry egos and those things are so fragile god oh god.

Le Vieux as the first President of Ivory Coast, once called his extended clan to the palace. He read the riot act to all the princelings gathered. The time for lazy elites was over. They would make their way through the world with excellence. Tidjane Thiam his nephew listened, and he ended up the first black man to head Credit Suisse.

Yesterday I was sitted with one of what we call the President’s men. Those are men who always change addresses from this country when heads change. 40 years away had made him nostalgic but also traumatic.

We had learnt nothing and forgotten everything. Almost 40 years of the NRA haven’t given our hearts that feeling that we have direction or the proper one we want. More importantly, those who are close to power don’t understand the responsibility they have towards fellow citizens

To create Kanyamunyu, you require a track record. These things don’t just happen. You require parents so absorbed in their indulgence they can be blind to what society is seeing. By the time the brat interacts with society, he knows his place in the world is to be served not otherwise. I have been guilty of that on many occasions. I know I will walk away from it. I tend to have a strong bias towards our cousins from the west of this country. I don’t hide it, I hurt someone for the first time and my guilt won’t go away.

It is really low when men like that grow up, they don’t actually realise the scarcity around them. They think of bad days as unlucky days. The proverbial bubble we talk about. Very few people enter it and understand its nature. They abhor structure for it involves struggle. Like you said we have to tap whisky and so we can’t point out what the parents failed to rectify.

I have had the chance to work with peers across Africa and the world. Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria are my benchmarks. When you meet Zuma the nephew, his knowledge of mining is as huge as his size. No wonder his operation in the DRC works. When you meet Dr. Tolu, he espews knowledge of medicine both native and western. His grasp of Yoruba, Igbo and Pidgin always leaves me struck. Hey he went to Kings College both in Lagos and London as he jokes. I know someone from the Rawling family and boy oh boy. He will shock you at how much he knows about Africa.  The Kenyan elite love the fine taste of life but aren’t pretending where the power comes from. They will hurry to declare themselves the next tribal kingpins.

Meet ours. I don’t know where it went south. True I know many who put down an honest day at work and would really want to shy away from their fathers and the barrage of the state they have created. But they are few.
Meet the Ugandan Nepo baby. He is the worst of them all. Everything is indulgent and self seeking. It becomes boring. Like most powerful men, we love women and their charms. I doubt these ones even want that. They just want the mark of making someone naked in the most distasteful way possible. They don’t want to savour liquor and enjoy its taste. They want to imbibe in it till it leaves them senseless. They don’t want to interact with peers. They want to be praised. It is tiring. I feel that is the reason I am no longer invited to places and have little to no friends
Power should give you access. Not the one to just ask for favours because daddy will pound. That safety should make you challenge your mind to greatness. Today you have the resources to build a road to Wambio but you are at Bandali using your hands to touch brown thighs and lift glasses against imaginary haters. You think by endorsing the next princeling who is bumbling around clueless you have secured your future. You are comfortable to own a company whose returns you have never seen, in an industry you barely know about. After all the contracts committee will look your way with favour.  Since you can’t do the job, you feel everyone is envious of your presumed success and hence hate on you. So you need protection. THE GUN.
Don’t get me wrong. I am always lobbying to have contracts my way. I always ask the people around me, are we the best for the job. The men you see have no hobbies. No real passion. If they say they love rugby, why do they sell the rugby club? Demented distortion it is.
I can’t imagine dropping dead now and I am still referred to as my father’s son. I respect his work. I have been happy for the last 10 years, I am the elite. The elite who knows that fundamentally I have more access to resources than any Ugandan will have. I have been sitting home for the last 2 months trying to get myself back into the game.
You and Buni are men, like any other. Do you think given the circumstances you would have acted differently? NO. I saw my man go down the Luo path and get the BIG 3. A stereo system, a big car and a light skinned woman. Touchee. Maybe if we hold the peers of those men by the balls, they will come and account to us. We know these people, we always invite them to our functions. We cry to have our children admitted in the same schools as theirs. Maybe let me take my guilt out to work and try to get out of the gutter I am stuck in.
Au revoir.