You cannot be comfortable in a country of the uncomfortable

To build a better Uganda, we must relearn how to build together. We must shift from deceit to design. From manipulation to multiplication. From short-term cleverness to long-term systems.

COMMENT | APOLLO BUREGYEYA | There’s an old tale from Ntungamo about a cunning man named Ishekatabazi. After a 2 week trip to Tanzania, he returned with a lie that the Omukama of Nkore kingdom had warned of an anthrax outbreak killing cows. He said the only way to survive, was to cut out the cows’ tongues.

The villagers didn’t believe him. So he woke early, smeared blood on his cows’ mouths, and waited. By morning, his neighbors saw “proof” and followed suit, cutting out their cows’ tongues in fear.

By midday, all the cows in the village — except Ishekatabazi’s — were dead. He became the richest man in a ruined village.

Uganda has too many Ishekatabazis in families, in Parliament, in State House, in boardrooms.

Leaders who manipulate fear. Who sacrifice the collective for personal comfort. Who lie not to protect, but to extract and frustrate.

And yet, even Ishekatabazi couldn’t feast alone for long. Because in a broken village, wealth is useless. There’s no milk market, no joy, no peace, just resentment and ruin.

You can’t be comfortable in a country of the uncomfortable.

Poverty corrodes everything; service quality, infrastructure, education, public health, even trust. It’s not just the poor who suffer. The rich breathe the same polluted air. They drive luxury cars on potholes. They pay for overpriced private services in a collapsing public system.
They guard their homes like prisons, because they live among desperation.

This is what trickster economics brings. Bandits of a season just.

But the era of Ishekatabazi has to end. There is nothing much known of Ishekatabazi beyond his bad stories, and how they’ve conditioned our leaders. The terrain we seek is unfamiliar, so the transformation can’t be easy. The hardest part will be in unlearning the former things.

Unlearning the lies that success must come from someone else’s failure. That “otibire tatunga” (the honest don’t get rich), that cynical statement attributed to a pigeon’s song is invalid (Proverbs 13:11). Unlearning the belief that poverty is normal and inevitable. Unlearning the selfishness disguised as strategy.

To build a better Uganda, we must relearn how to build together. We must shift from deceit to design. From manipulation to multiplication. From short-term cleverness to long-term systems.

It’s not about handouts. It’s about infrastructure that lifts everyone. Policies that empower more Ugandans to earn, build, and grow. A nation where no one has to lie to win.

We don’t need another Ishekatabazi. We need engineers of equity and efficiency. Self-interest may win moments but destroys systems in the long run.

Let’s stop cutting our cows. Let’s build a country we’re all proud to live in.

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The writer is an engineer, entrepreneur and industrialist. THIS COMMENT WAS ADAPTED FROM X @ApolloBuregyeya