A few days ago I was
assigned a couple of errands to run and I found myself having to move up and
about the city on regular occasions. On this particular occasion I was on a
Bod
aboda at Wandegeya traffic lights. I saw vehicles moving randomly without having
to follow the signal of the lights. I immediately struck up a conversation with
the person on whose boda I was riding. We spoke casually and I went as far as
asking him about how these lights work because within me, I was at a loss
understanding them. But his answer was plain and simple, “in Uganda there is no
law”. I held my breath as the sad reality settled within me. I probed on for
more and being a law student I found a lot that pricked my mind into thought.
The truth was staring hard in my face yet I seemed not to understand the basics.
I always sat in my lectures with the perfect feeling that after arming myself
with all the laws there are, I would walk into the world and conquer it. For
once I came within the boundaries of thinking that I was at University just
because it was my next level in life. However on further meditation I saw some
undertones of truth laced the man’s statement, it is rather time we faced the
facts.
Uganda has a wealth of
statutes that have been enacted by our honorable Parliament. The first piece
of legislation that crosses one’s mind when they think about the road is The
Traffic and Road Safety Act. This one emphasizes in its very first section that
for a motor vehicle to be fit to go on the road, it must have all its parts in
good shape. The reverse seems to be true and no wonder we are being made to pay
very heavily with the increased road carnage on our roads. That is only one of
the many examples that require one to be law abiding. For almost every activity
done, there is a law in place governing it. One’s knowledge about it is only a
secondary matter altogether. The late AIGP Andrew F Kaweesi said in his last
interview before his brutal murder that three things are constant in life;
death, sickness and crime. The people know the law but willingly go against it
and that is crime. All men have crimes but most of them are hidden.
Two things are normally prerequisites for any
law abiding citizen. The first is their knowledge of the law and the second is
their ability to abide by it. Statistically speaking I don’t need to be a
statistician to know that majority of Ugandans do not know that there is a
Traffic and Road Safety Act but however I can guarantee that majority know of
the various provisions therein which include driving vehicles in good
mechanical conditions, not to overload for public vehicles, to avoid careless
driving and many other road faults. Majority Ugandans know that once one is
sentenced to death but is not hanged in the first 3 years then that
automatically transforms into life imprisonment but very few know that it was
court decision in the Susan Kigula case. What that means is that the crimes
people commit are not because they do not know the law but rather try so hard
to circumvent it and find a way out. The hard questions will then be asked,
that if we know the law then why are we treated to daily scenes of reckless
road usage? Why are we witnesses to diurnal battles between police and hardcore
criminals. It all goes back to ourselves, who have seen and allowed our society
to decay, and have also accepted to go down to posterity with it. I have always
given as a way of illustration the simple example of a driver who bribes a
traffic officer for overloading his car. There are three parties involved here.
The first is the driver who well knowing it to be an offence goes ahead to have
excess passengers in his vehicle, the second party is the traffic officer who
receives the bribe yet it is their duty to make sure that people are safe on
roads and lastly the passenger who accepts to be the subject of the bribe
because he/she has accepted to be that excess passenger who is otherwise not to
be present. Each one in this case has the capacity to break the chain because
their abscondence from participation will leave little ground for the
occurrence. If therefore everyone woke up today and said they would not be an
excess passenger then it is highly unlikely that you would see bribery on
roads, if every driver woke up today and decided that they would not over speed,
that they would not drink and drive, that they would not drive while on phone
then we would definitely see a reduction on road carnage. The most important
improvement however would be if every traffic and police officer woke up and
decided that they would not take or compromise on any one who breaks the law. That
would be the biggest breakthrough since the birth of this our nation. It would
not require using the 7 billion phone app that was developed to track traffic
fine defaulters and neither would it require you create very harsh penalties
for the defaulters, the default mode would be set and that would be the
standard for society
But how did we get to
where we are now? I have since come to agreement with the one who said that poverty
is the mother of crime. For all the crimes that are committed today, it is
because of the startling poverty levels our country is facing today. Many may
claim that the rich are also part of these crimes, but never ever be deceived
as to believe that poverty is merely the absence of money.
