Literacy challenges in Uganda
Literacy levels in the country are plummeting, viewers, because more and more of us only read the headlines and not the full story.
For example, the Nilepost last week proclaimed that the public was to vote for the most corrupt government officials.
Instantly, without any further perusal, I grabbed my whatsapp and my gourd of what used to be sachet liquor but is now gourd liquor and sent a text to Honourable Kayaye Yayeri, the most corrupt Ugandan I know.
“Sis, they are already announcing general elections,” I typed.
She responded, via the means of an emoji due to aforementioned literacy levels, that she did not fully understand what I was talking about.
“Nti the public is to vote for the most corrupt government officials. In other words, general election. Isn’t that what we do every four years?”
She then sent me a meme indicating that she needed further elaboration.
Being as literally lazy as I was that day, I could not read beyond the headline, so where was I going to get the joules to copy and paste the whole link? I took a screenshot and sent it to her.
A few moments passed before Hon Kayaye sent back a voice note. She had been consulting with her peers in the state corruption industry and had an update for me. It was not the usual vote, she had surmised from their conversation, but rather a separate, different election. It was like East Africa’s Got Talent but with an emphasis on Uganda and abuses of public office.
The members of the public were to vote for the most corrupt government officials in an exclusive corruption championship event.
I was even more excited to hear this. I rose off my sofa and moved to the balcony where reception was better, called Posha on NXT Radio, requested Patte Afta Patte by Big Trill just so I could have the appropriate accompaniment as I danced for joy.
With the corruption championship on the way, I was ready to take the next step in my career. I was going to become the agent and manager of the leading contestants.
Hon Kayaye, for example, voted for Social Media tax but still uses VPN all the time. Moreover with data paid for by the taxpayer.
And not only did she vote for Social Media tax, but she voted irregularly, seven times.
Hon Kayaye is so corrupt that, not only was she elected by a majority bolstered by ghost voters, her whole constituency is a ghost. It doesn’t exist. If you look for the latitude and longitude of her constituency all you will see from the satellite footage is hippos and mosquitoes splashing around an otherwise uninhabited and nondescript section of Lake Victoria.
Hon Kayaye is so corrupt that she bribed her way onto the House Anti-Corruption Committees. She never even shows up for meetings. But she always collects sitting allowances.
Hon Kayaye is so corrupt that she embezzles funds to build mansions, and then builds them with substandard materials because she is too corrupt to buy pure cement. The mansions are built out of a mixture that is 82 per cent cigarette ash.
I was very excited to be the campaign agent for the frontrunner but then I made the mistake literate people make of reading other things. I looked at NBS news. I read more Nilepost stories. My heart sank. Because, you guys, you know that I am just joking and that there is no such person as Hon Kiyaaye Yayeri, and that I just made all this up because I am trying to be satirical so I can get retweeted by Samson Kasumba but then I read deeply into the archives and you people…
That is just the tip of the iceberg.
Even if Hon Kayaye was real, the competition in corruption in Uganda is incredibly stiff. The actual, real, non-fictionalised acts of corruption that have blighted our government are so vast, immense, staggeringly massive that they make my so-called Hon Kayaye pale to the scale of a snail at the starting line of the New York Marathon.
So, defeated and deflated, I had nothing else to do with my life but read the rest of the article that started this wild train of thought. I learned then that what is actually happening is that ActionAid is opening an awards race to recognise those who have done the most to fight corruption in Uganda.
So, if your literacy isn’t corrupt, please read the story, get involved in the fight, and nominate the heroes in the war for integrity.
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