The naked truth: We worry not about poverty gap but the power(less) gap

Economists and statesmen always worry about the gap between the rich and the poor, continuously seeking ways of narrowing it.

In Uganda we have new field that needs studying—the gap between the powerful and the powerless. But while the poor always strive to become rich, the powerless in Uganda prefer to run farther away from power. Recent matters of public interest demonstrate this.

The most interesting is one of our state minister of finance in charge of investment, Evelyn Anite and the dying Uganda Telecoms Ltd (UTL).

This was supposed to be the equivalent of Safaricom, having the same founding background as the Kenyan giant, which is easily the biggest enterprise in the region. But UTL is the sick (wo)man of the telecoms industry, heavily indebted and disorganised.

A battle has been raging between minister Anite and Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana over what to do with UTL: To audit or not to audit it, to fire the caretaker CEO or not, and so on.

There seems to be no agreement on what the two ministers are disagreeing about regarding UTL.

But the focus of the powerless public is more interesting. You think we are joining the debate on how to make UTL take its rightful of being as great as Safaricom? Far from it.

Actually, the public didn’t care much about the UTL fight until Anite said something of great importance to them: That the people she is fighting plan to release her nude photos or videos. That is when the story became important.

She also said that the same people wanted to kill her. That was also a bit important. Now the honourable Deputy Attorney General managed to get the public more interested in the fight.

Reacting to Anite’s claim that the forces fighting her were planning to assassinate her, Rukutana clarified that he knows how to do better things with girls rather than kill them.

That did it. Everyone now got interested. More people who usually don’t have data on their phones topped up, in anticipation of the honourable nudes that were about to hit the cyberspace.

The public has been getting rather bored with the nudes of small-time musicians and wannabe socialites flying around. The release of nudes of a whole state minister would surely elevate the nation’s current pastime.

As for the boosting UTL to Safaricom levels—yawn, yawn—who cares?

The other matter that occupied the Ugandan public mind last week was, of course, a member of parliament who reportedly got pregnant.

There are about 150 female members of parliament, a majority of them of child-bearing age. Why the public should get overly concerned about the alleged pregnancy of one, a married one at that, says a lot about how “interested” we are in parliamentary affairs.

The masses are excitedly discussing her suspected pregnancy, which hospital in America she went to deliver in and the rocks her marriage is rumoured to have hit recently.

Ask any of them about her performance as an MP, what issues she has stood for and what she has opposed: Such things concerning her job as an MP don’t matter to the voters. What they want to know is why she quarrelled with her husband.