Kajeke's exit: The cry of a Mbalelite

In 1991, I made the long trip back home. With my mum, the four siblings we were, had in early 1985 taken to economic exile in Kenya. There, we had first lived at the border Malaba town, then moved to Ndalu, near River Nzoia and later central Kitale town as my mother taught in a couple of schools around there.
Then, in 1991, my old man decided that we should return to Uganda. He was running a clinic in the middle of Mbale town and we settled in a colonial relic mansion in Senior Quarters, two blocks away from the famous Mt. Elgon Hotel. There, I enrolled at the modest Fairway Primary School and in no short time; Mbale had become the best place I had ever lived.
It is where I gained my education foundation, made friends, got the warmth of relatives and generally began a journey to maturity. I remember how we would swarm Mbale Stadium during games and the manner we took to streets, either as victors or losers, and sang and made merry. I remember one day, the good old D’Souza, our Asian headmaster, chiding us for singing “ani yabagamba, abaana ba D’Souza mubasobola” (Who told, you could easily take on D’Souza’s children?). He reminded us how he did not want us, black kids, shouting his name on Mbale streets.
Even when it came to joining secondary school, Nabumali, a few minutes’ drive from Mbale town became my first choice. It was the age when you went to any school in any part of the region and still flourished academically. My choice was partly because Mbale to me had become an identity, an abode. It was here, under the Yoga administration, that we cut our teeth as teenagers, with the accompanying escapades. The escapes to Club Oasis in the middle of Mbale town for a night out and et cetera.
When I broke from the yoke of Mbale, I went to Jinja College, but there, I never really amalgamated. No wonder I had to return to Mbale College for A’ Level, did a short stint at the Islamic University in Mbale before finally heading to Makerere.
Mbale, to me, was my launch pad. I remember growing up in a Mbale that had well-paved streets, with the lighting from Municipal Council offices down to Indian Quarters all functional. I remember how we would take to the greenery of Cricket Ground and play games or watch the young couples hang around. Uhuru Park opposite Nkoma SS was another relaxing point for us, especially when with cousins we had just visited Uncle Gideon down at Health Manpower offices.
I was lucky to have seen these last vestiges of planned Mbale because what followed thereafter, in early 2000s was the rape of a town that many thought had given credence to Churchill’s description of Uganda as Africa’s Pearl.

When Mayor Kanindo took over, the town crumbled like a pack of cards. The greenery was no more as the capitalist greed caught up with Mbale. Parks, the golf course, wetlands, were all overrun in the mad dash for property. In extreme cases, as was revealed by the Fiona Egunyu Commission, plots were either double or triple allocated. Ministers and their protégés jumped into the fray; the lights no more, potholes took over and quickly the town gained the notoriety of a sick abode. Quickly, it was competing for honours among the worst of this country’s towns!
Many thought that perhaps the town’s problems stemmed from a leadership that had overstayed its time.

The likes of Eng. Sakwa, Justice Masika, Late Wapakhabulo, Wanjusi Wasieba, Late Muyiiyi, were thought to be the problem. The quest for a young leadership took over. That’s how people barely out of their 20s like Mayor Kanindo and MP Wilfred Kajeke came to the scene. The longing for fresh blood, hope that the unblemished would start a new chapter…
But who knew that these would be the same guys, who would push to death, a staggering Mbale? That brings me to the concern of this blog. Yesterday’s resignation of Mbale Municipality MP Wilfred Kajeke from Parliament on grounds that he has realized he can’t do much to change the corruption in this country and has therefore opted to quit.
Reading his resignation speech, one would see the work of a genius, the words of a democrat, but that’s just where they stopped-words. Because beneath it, Kajeke hid the truth of his buy-out by the NRM government. Beneath his speech, he hid the fact that he had cut a deal to cede the constituency that he gained on the opposition FDC ticket to the NRM government. What Kajeke never mentioned in Parliament was that up to Shs120 million had exchanged hands, some of it in installments to help the NRM take over the constituency and make a political statement. What he never mentioned was the impulsive action borne of a Besigye-Kayihura spat in Rock Hotel sometime last year during the fuel crisis.

He did not make mention of the story about him going abroad to study and leave an orphaned constituency....
What he concealed from his constituents was the fact that an ego and superiority war between him and fellow FDC MP Nandala Mafabi was eating him slowly like a cancer. These and many more are the truths that Mbale people will never get to know.
The outside world, longing for a symbol to demonise this government, will jump and hail him. For me, I weep for a generation given the chance but decided to screw it up. I will weep for the young people that Kajeke and Kanindo represented but let down. Above all, I will weep for my much-cherished Mbale and how deep it has sunk in the murky waters that is corruption.