Uganda: The Police Force And Sports Arenas

2 April 2011

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IT would have escaped my eye if someone hadn’t pointed it out. But Ras, the cartoonist, dragged me up the New Vision stairs to where he had kept his previous day’s paper. He shuffled through the pages and asked, “have you seen this?”

I hadn’t. Picture of the week. So what’s so special about a plain photo of Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura addressing a parade of Special Police Constables (SPCs). You will know in a second.

In the days when I went to Namilyango College, there was, at the epicenter of the school, a stone’s throw away from the Main Hall and the A-Level wing, the gigantic Boxing Pyramid. What a marvel it was.

Even at the time, boxing had lost a lot of its appeal but the Pyramid was a symbol of the school’s great past in the sport; a kind of pilgrimage sight for all former students revisiting the great College.

But a headmaster called Pellegrin Kibuuka (hope I spelt his name right) decided that the Pyramid should be turned into a library, and so it was. In a shallow way, it made sense to put the massive structure to contemporary use, but it came at a huge intangible cost.

As a library, the Pyramid has lost its aura. Strolling around it is no longer the romantic recoil into the past that it once was. It’s lost its power to arouse fond memories.

The problem with Uganda is that there are so many people who think like Kibuuka. Everything is prized according to its monetary value. No intangibles. No romance. No historical value.

Thick forests are razed to plant sugarcane or sunflower because we need sugar and oil. Nobody cares for the past or the future. All that matters is the present. If we must fell a 60 year-old tree for charcoal then so be it .bring the saw. If an investor decides that his mall must be located where the Uganda Museum stands, then the museum must give way.

As a competitive sport, hockey has fallen on hard times over the past couple of years. The league didn’t conclude last year and is yet to commence in 2011. In spite of that, the hockey ground in Lugogo is an arena of romantic significance.

Its construction some years ago started amidst a great deal of fuss with a $15,000 grant from the International Hockey Federation (IHF). The people in charge of the sport at the time are thought to have made off with a good part of that money.

Rather than let it stall, the International Olympic Committee gave a further $10,000. The result is a beautiful, well-laid ground which is a symbol of considerable national pride. The condition attached to both grants is that only permitted footwear should tread on the surface.

But building such a facility and leaving it in the care of National Council of Sports is casting your pearls to swine. The ground has suffered abuse since its completion but nothing compares to what Kayihura and his SPCs did earlier this week.

The same SPCs who desecrated Namboole Stadium and left it in a stench and in need of a Chinese grant to restore it to a level of respectability have invaded another marquee sports arena like swarming locusts primed for destruction. With their heavy and muddy boots, they marched and stamped on the delicate surface.

What, if I may ask, do the police have against sports facilities?

There are more than three grass fields within the Lugogo complex that could have made for parade grounds. But the police choose the most delicate so they could leave their destructive mark on the $25,000 surface, making it the most expensive police parade in history.

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Ugandan football has produced more than its fair share of villains. Finally, we have a true hero to toast to. That man is Victors boss Livingstone Kato.

At the time when the game’s most vain showman Lawrence Mulindwa was stealthily withdrawing his Bunamwaya team from Continental competition, Kato took the bold decision to register Victors.

The Kakungulu Cup winners from last year said they incurred losses of up to sh27m when an afternoon downpour made Nakivubo stadium unplayable and forced them to push the home leg against Motema Pembe to the following day. If they’d pulled out of the second leg and taken a CAF fine, we would all understand.

Instead Kato secured the $25,000 needed for the return leg in Kinshasa and even said he would shoulder an extra cost to move his team to a better hotel. He is a brave man.

Last year, SC Villa, with its impressive fan base, pulled out of CAF competition because they couldn’t raise enough money to travel to Sudan.

That should give you a clue about the weight on Kato’s shoulders.

Victors are almost definitely going to lose the tie —- the Congolese are a better-drilled side and might have won in Kampala but for the soggy pitch. But Kato is a hero. Nice to know that football can still produce some.

AllAfrica – All the Time