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| (courtesy Uganda Diaspora News) |
Nze I am so waiting for the 19th of May for my telephone lines to be
switched off. Because I am utterly and completely fed up! I do not feel
like I am a Ugandan citizen. My family- Dad, Mum, son and I registered
for the National ID ——like ALL responsible citizens.
That registration process - i.e. filling in forms, and sitting in front of the camera for Take One and Two and Three, and finger and thumb prints, plus a session of “mulindeeko, kompyuta eweddeko charge"—— took us about two hours.
And when everyone else was boasting about how the NIRA agents had called them to “pick your cards”, we were there looking like lost sheep, staring at our phones hopelessly, waiting for them to ring.
Anyway, the calls did not come, and we did not even vote in the February 2016 election. Disenfranchisement of the highest degree, and yet there was a candidate I really had to show my support!
Can you imagine, even the LC lady at the registration center did not get her ID? And so did hundreds of others.
My Dad, 70-years plus, and of ill-health now, kept checking at Nangabo sub-county headquarters, I don't know how many times he heard the line, “Kaadi tezinnagya!”
Come April 2017, UCC decides to issue an impromptu one-week deadline for all sim cards to be registered. Tena, we are required to use the National ID that we didn't initially use to register our lines. People panic, line up at all centers- with no proper instructions from NIRA.
The whole thing’s become a total mess and we find out from a report in Matooke Republic that “thousands” of sim-cards have been registered using the same NINs (whatever that means!). Which also means that, wait, (God, help me to understand these things) that the telecom companies do not have the data that NIRA has because then, they would automatically know that this isn’t so n’ so’s ID number. Eh?
Then that week expires and we are given a one-month’s reprieve until 19th May, and despite the many attempts we have made, nothing seems to budge.
Thankfully, we now have the forms, but through such hardship, it brings tears to my eyes. And no, we didn't pay for them.
Anyway, there’s this chap called Obadiah, a village-mate we nicknamed “Ka-Uniti” because his never-ending song when he meets you is “Olina yo ka-uniti? Waliwo gwe njagala okukukubira.”
This Obadiah accosted my parents as they left the sub-county headquarters on the weekend, and immediately “guesses” what their problem is (don’t they all? These fixers). He showed them an envelope and very sneakily (shady guy that he is) let them have a peek at what would 'get' them their IDs “with no trouble at all”. It was a red-note.
For a moment they were lost, anti bo baamanyira those things of those days where employees executed their jobs faithfully, aka no bribes.
Of course they would not pay. 80,000 shillings for four people! That was money they had not budgeted for. And this kinda money is not receipted, so where do you start asking for accountability if Obadiah vanishes into thin air. Anyway, Obadiah told them to contact a one Nshekanabo oba Ndyanabo when they had got the money.
Naye God was watching, as he always does. Because just then, he came in form of another village-mate, the grandson of a friend. The grandson remembered my Dad and greeted him. He was one of those doing the registering. “But there are no forms right now. I will contact you when they finally appear.”
And so we waited for that phone-call. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Meanwhile, the deadline is crouching closer, waiting to pounce.
And so it was that Mum called the RDC for Kasangati on Thursday morning. The RDC was “shocked” that there have been no registration forms for so long. She made a call to the Town Clerk, and—— lo and behold!—— the forms materialized from nowhere, just like when Aladdin rubbed his lamp and the Genie appeared. Of course I have left out so many details- the ones that have made my eyes well with tears.
Yesterday at 4:30am, my elderly parents made their way to Nangabo headquarters where they were met a mlolongo of sleepy-eyed humans, most of them youthful men.
About an hour later, someone started issuing “numbers”. At that time??
By 6:30am, the registration equipment was being arranged. Then about one hour later the announcement comes that, “Only 50 people would be ‘worked on’ on that day”, and that the rest should go away and return the next day. These senior citizens, like I said, are 70-plus.
Of course, there are some who hung around looking forlorn and dejected, but the decision had been made. “Mugeende, munadda enkya!”
***************************************************
By the way, I do not recall, and I am not drunk, any census official coming to my house and taking my details, or any of my family member’s for that matter.
So—— am I a Ugandan citizen oba I should start tracing my lineage???
PS: We finally got registered after waiting for 10 hours. From 2am to 12pm the next day!!!
That registration process - i.e. filling in forms, and sitting in front of the camera for Take One and Two and Three, and finger and thumb prints, plus a session of “mulindeeko, kompyuta eweddeko charge"—— took us about two hours.
And when everyone else was boasting about how the NIRA agents had called them to “pick your cards”, we were there looking like lost sheep, staring at our phones hopelessly, waiting for them to ring.
Anyway, the calls did not come, and we did not even vote in the February 2016 election. Disenfranchisement of the highest degree, and yet there was a candidate I really had to show my support!
Can you imagine, even the LC lady at the registration center did not get her ID? And so did hundreds of others.
My Dad, 70-years plus, and of ill-health now, kept checking at Nangabo sub-county headquarters, I don't know how many times he heard the line, “Kaadi tezinnagya!”
Come April 2017, UCC decides to issue an impromptu one-week deadline for all sim cards to be registered. Tena, we are required to use the National ID that we didn't initially use to register our lines. People panic, line up at all centers- with no proper instructions from NIRA.
The whole thing’s become a total mess and we find out from a report in Matooke Republic that “thousands” of sim-cards have been registered using the same NINs (whatever that means!). Which also means that, wait, (God, help me to understand these things) that the telecom companies do not have the data that NIRA has because then, they would automatically know that this isn’t so n’ so’s ID number. Eh?
Then that week expires and we are given a one-month’s reprieve until 19th May, and despite the many attempts we have made, nothing seems to budge.
Thankfully, we now have the forms, but through such hardship, it brings tears to my eyes. And no, we didn't pay for them.
Anyway, there’s this chap called Obadiah, a village-mate we nicknamed “Ka-Uniti” because his never-ending song when he meets you is “Olina yo ka-uniti? Waliwo gwe njagala okukukubira.”
This Obadiah accosted my parents as they left the sub-county headquarters on the weekend, and immediately “guesses” what their problem is (don’t they all? These fixers). He showed them an envelope and very sneakily (shady guy that he is) let them have a peek at what would 'get' them their IDs “with no trouble at all”. It was a red-note.
For a moment they were lost, anti bo baamanyira those things of those days where employees executed their jobs faithfully, aka no bribes.
Of course they would not pay. 80,000 shillings for four people! That was money they had not budgeted for. And this kinda money is not receipted, so where do you start asking for accountability if Obadiah vanishes into thin air. Anyway, Obadiah told them to contact a one Nshekanabo oba Ndyanabo when they had got the money.
Naye God was watching, as he always does. Because just then, he came in form of another village-mate, the grandson of a friend. The grandson remembered my Dad and greeted him. He was one of those doing the registering. “But there are no forms right now. I will contact you when they finally appear.”
And so we waited for that phone-call. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Meanwhile, the deadline is crouching closer, waiting to pounce.
And so it was that Mum called the RDC for Kasangati on Thursday morning. The RDC was “shocked” that there have been no registration forms for so long. She made a call to the Town Clerk, and—— lo and behold!—— the forms materialized from nowhere, just like when Aladdin rubbed his lamp and the Genie appeared. Of course I have left out so many details- the ones that have made my eyes well with tears.
Yesterday at 4:30am, my elderly parents made their way to Nangabo headquarters where they were met a mlolongo of sleepy-eyed humans, most of them youthful men.
About an hour later, someone started issuing “numbers”. At that time??
By 6:30am, the registration equipment was being arranged. Then about one hour later the announcement comes that, “Only 50 people would be ‘worked on’ on that day”, and that the rest should go away and return the next day. These senior citizens, like I said, are 70-plus.
Of course, there are some who hung around looking forlorn and dejected, but the decision had been made. “Mugeende, munadda enkya!”
***************************************************
By the way, I do not recall, and I am not drunk, any census official coming to my house and taking my details, or any of my family member’s for that matter.
So—— am I a Ugandan citizen oba I should start tracing my lineage???
PS: We finally got registered after waiting for 10 hours. From 2am to 12pm the next day!!!
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