The Painter.

Basic rule of institutions, your food and security are the most important elements in life. This is basic wisdom that Monkeys in Mabira forest and parrots in the Amazon jungle would agree with;  that they need to be safe and have a good meal to live.  In short, one can't afford to have qualms and scores to settle with the cafeteria folk nor the watchmen. Your ego is bad for your digestive system!‎

There's a cop I know of, he speaks Runyakitara, I eavesdropped on his conversation once or twice before I conveyed wishes of a beautiful evening to him, inquiring about the day's work. He was taken aback by my crisp mastery of a foreign tongue. His child apparently is in that upcountry school I attended before I joined University. The same place I often return to extend a hand to. See, small world. He often waves when he meets me along the streets, sometimes he stops his Yamaha police bike and conveys his tidings, often reluctantly and apologetically waves his acknowledgment across the road.  His a burly man, soft spoken and polite. My safety is vital.‎

Last Week, while I lazily prowled these rather  calm and often sombre streets, I stumbled upon a rather unfamiliar yet not entirely shocking sight. A young man, in a faded orange tee, surrounded by  5 uniformed men wielding guns; their feet hidden within the confines shiny boots. His forehead bore the marks of a previous beating. His head; scarred like a carpenters work table was dented with vestiges of a thorough beating. He wore old brownish wet leather shoes, that seemed to have been prior owned by a highly committed fish monger. 

Save a few old drops of paint on his shoes. There was nothing to show for the trade he fervently claimed to partake in pursuit of an honest living.

"Officer do you expect me to carry a pot of red paint, overall coat and brush simply because I'm a painter? " He asked sarcastically. His English was astonishingly proper and his enunciation of words right. I drew closer.

His fleeting tiny eyes peered at mine. Before he continued.

" I'm being arrested because of my reputation! It's just my reputation, but I'm no thief! " he added.

He said his name was Mark. He insisted he was an ordinary painter, minding his business, walking aling these streets.He said he was only leaning against a Mercedes Benz when a pack of gun wielding possibly drunk policemen descended upon him like vultures upon carrion.

 He bore no iota of decency nor honesty. You could smell the bearings and markings of a fraudulent crook about Mark. He had neither identification nor any sort of document. He politely said he'd lost them. He added he'd equally lost his police letter.  

" Very convenient," I thought." He knows the system." He knows the cops will have no one following up his case. He'll spend a few nights in the coolers. Feast on roasted beans, feed government bugs with his blood ; return home to his hovel and steal again! That's the tale of many frustrated ghetto dwellers, they pay visits to affluent sides of the city; pick, take and carry away headlamps, sidemirrors, batteries, valuables within the car.‎

Policemen tend to know the prominent petty thieves. Another cop came and before anyone spoke to him he said.

" I know this young man, he is a reputable vandal. Last semester he abandoned his brother with whom he was found forcibly attempting to gain access into the Vice Chancellor's vehicle. " 

Mark had been found vandalising cars belonging to church going folk. He apparently spreads his trade on religious grounds. His preference for exotic and classy vehicles is unmatched.‎

The policehead soon came wielding a stick.  He posed a simple question to Mark.

" How many times have I led you to the hospital?? How many times have I salvaged you from the fangs of morbid mobs?"

His rather fretful tongue failed him.

Here towering before him was Mark's uniformed saviour. He politely replied he had reformed. That it was the devil that conjured him through these streets, that he'd all this while turned to the paths of honesty. That he'd found refuge in honest toil, that he wasn't vandalising vehicles any more. He said he wasn't looking at vehicles twice! He intimated he'd cut all contacts with all vehicle spare part buyers. He said he was sick and tired of fervently making love to death everytime. He said he wanted to go home. That He was just a passeby, passing through. ‎

‎

Last night, I saw a dark shadow lurking behind a car parked on the shoulders of these streets. When I raised my voice, the dark shadow sprinted into the pitch darkness. All I found was abandoned in haste was a left brown shoe. Mark's been stealing again. Mark's courting death again. Mark is fiercely determined. Don't be like Mark.‎

" A woman scorned!"

William Congreve in "The Mourning Bride"writes;

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury

like a woman scorned." Dr. Stella Nyanzi is living testimony to this phrase.

‎

She paces the length of the block where Professor Mahmood Mamdani's 3 offices sit; one for him, the other for his secretary and the last belongs to his personal assistant. Dressed in an orange African garb. She screeches, roars, screams, chants, hysterically laughs cold mirthless laughter. Like a self caged tigress she prowls with the satisfied gait of a war general bracing herself for battle.

" He locked my office with two padlocks, I have 2on his office block pathway." she sneers contentedly.

"Checkmate!"

"Mahmood Mamdani is an intimatedator!"She adds.

My arrival at MISR coincides with the departure of a seething Ddumba Ssentamu, Makerere University's Vice Chancellor; a puffy raven black Afro sits on his head. He had just been defied by the woman who had just undressed to her black undies. He enters his cream vehicle and leaves. My 3rd year at University and I've only seen him thrice. A few students see him and chant. " Dictator."

Two students stand outside the barricaded red gate, while the online lioness spits fiery magma! Heavy Coastal  Tanzanian accent riddles the chants against what they purport to be Mahmood Mahdani's intimidation work policy.

They hold placards and markers, and white sellotape soon covers their lips in an X to represent suppression and gagging.

"You have nothing to lose but your chains! We are oppressed at MISR!"

"I want Makerere to protect my office, I have no disciplinary actions against me.

MiSR website is littered with scandalous accusations."

Stella soon returns seething hotly, she accuses Mahmood Mahmdani of hiring terrorists. She accuses Lydia Kaweeka of labelling MISR cleaners "unlearned dogs!" The cleaners watching the drama with mild aghast, evident shock and unmasked concern somehow vanish when they're brought into the picture.

She holds a bottle of water in her hand. She mockingly  implores Professor Mamdani to kiss her tities. She retires to the basement. 

Professor Sylvia Tamale; a law school human rights activist and passionate feminist arrives. She conjures Stella out of her "dungeon," Stella returns. She loses her hitherto firm demeanour and breaks down. Her voice heavy with unshed tears. She lets them flow. She draws back when Sylvia attempts to hold her, she in one swift motion pulls her dress off her body, her bra follows suit! She stands naked in black panties, her voice broken, her resolve unbroken, her unbridled spirits fly with unrestrained rage. 

" Sylvia Banziita!" (Sylvia I'm dying, how will I feed my children.") Sylvia begs Stella to calm down. She doesn't budge. She sobs stark naked.

Sylvia leaves; her characteristically calm face shows signs of defeat. Stella apparently was Sylvia's research assistant for two years before she got a job a MISR as a research fellow, a job she's held for 6 years.

She bares all to the live cameras. 

A small crowd has gathered as more media houses arrive. She asks for a break. Hysterically laughing.

Her students take over; they chastise this reporter for trying to shield Stella's nudity from the NBS tv camera. Sylvia Tamale politely slams NBS for lacking ethical appreciation of their work. 

Stella returns with a pot of orange paint, she spurts the liquid against the walls.

" This is the blood of every research fellow who has been reduced to a teacher, I am sick and tired of oppression."

She smudges the walls and her face with the orange "blood."

"Fcuk you Mahmdani, there's more blood running through my veins, I'm going to fight, either you leave or I leave. If we must stay, return my office!" she hisses amid sobs!

"I am fighting with nudity, because it's the only weapon I have, I am fighting for my children."

Stella returns bound in thick chains, her mouth crossed with sellotape. Stands defiant momentarily and leaves. She returns without her sellotape; she directs her gun nozzle towards Lydia Kaweeka who she brands "a terror, not an employee." There's another oppressor in Lyn Osome; she's lesbian, another terror is James Ochita. Come save Makerere! "

" I'll defend my job to the dead! Makerere should fire me, I've not been lazy, my work speaks for itself!"

‎A young fellow soon arrives, tiny dreadlocks dot his head, he wears faded fluorescent green pants and has ear pins in his ears. Stella identifies him.

" Bad Black banzita!"

"I've been outside the country Maami, what's the matter mummy??" he asks coolly.

" They want to kill me, fcuk Mamdani, he runs this institute like a private firm." she spews more scathing vulgarities in Luganda!

Refuses to take question only responding to one. She swears rather agitatedly when one of the reporters' phone rings. Switch off your darned phones, I can't concentrate."

She mocks the policemen who arrive, the female cops sit down dejectedly.

" What's the way forward?" asks a reporter.

"This has to work(undressing) the exposure,

I've bared all with exception of my vagina!"‎

"He has sat on my promotion for two years! I was his first recruit! All my pleas to the HR have gone unanswered!"

At the end of it all, a bouncing Stella hugs her students, beaming; her office keys in her hands! Victorious once again. Is this the beginning of a new dawn??

Have the Amuru undressing ghosts taken over??‎

You don't mess with Stella Nyanzi!