Che Guevarra is as Ugandan as all the good runners from Uganda are Kenyan

“All Ches are Ugandan.” This Kampala wag “set the record straight” by saying that Che Guevarra was Ugandan. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYANGAH | NATION 

In Summary

• Kenyans had better beware that any attempt to claim Ugandan athletes will be met with the most spirited resistance by Ugandans.

By JOACHIM BUWEMBO
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Uganda and Kenya almost fought over Migingo island in Lake Victoria. And you know who was right; the precious one-acre rock is in Uganda, only that its waters are in Kenya. Kenya backed off but did not entirely abandon its schemes to claim Uganda’s treasures.

Next was Uganda’s golden son, Stephen Kiprotich, who won the Marathon gold at the 2012 London Olympics and some Kenyans were celebrating like he was their own.

I think they were invoking the biblical verse of taking from a poor man who has little and giving it to the rich man who already has plenty.

Kenya has won a bag full of Olympic gold medals since Independence, but they didn’t want Uganda to keep its first in forty years and only the second since Independence.

Uganda’s witness to this attempted claim was Kenya’s own President Uhuru Kenyatta. While addressing members of the Ugandan parliament, he told them that when Kiprotich won the marathon, Kenyans celebrated, and didn't care that he was Ugandan. They considered him one of their own.

And now Uganda has done it again at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. Ugandan girls — gold medal winner Stella Chesang, bronze medal winner Mercelin Chelangat and seventh placed Juliet Chekwel — demolished the competition in the 10,000 metres.

Kenyans had better beware that any attempt to claim them will be met with the most spirited resistance by Ugandans.

And of course the biggest upset for Kenya was Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei taking the gold medal in the men’s 5,000 and 10,000 metres races.

Learning the Kenyan claim game, someone recently said that “all Ches are Ugandan.” This Kampala wag “set the record straight” by saying that Che Guevarra was Ugandan.

In revenue collection, Uganda’s tax to gross domestic product is the lowest in the region at 14.2 per cent and the more we inflate our GDP growth figure, the smaller the tax ratio becomes since we cannot inflate the tax.

So when a big oil explorer sold to an oil exploiter and tried to avoid paying the capital gains tax, the civil servants concerned did their routine job and collected the tax.

Then they congratulated themselves so loudly that they claimed a golden handshake of $2 million shared by two dozen officials.

So undeserved was the handshake that the attorney general who handled the legal work and was also a beneficiary denounced it, saying he personally believes he did not deserve the money because he was simply doing his job.

But windfalls like transferring oil wells don’t come everyday, so the Uganda Revenue Authority last month came up with a desperate one – demanded details of all bank accounts in the country.

The Uganda Bankers’ Association went to court and the government and public laughed URA out of their dream.

But don’t think they are about to give up. We are learning to claim stuff. Or are Kenyans tricking us into this claiming business the way US president Ronald Reagan tricked the Soviets into spending themselves into economic collapse to match his imaginary star wars race?

Uganda will keep its eyes open. But for now, “all the Ches are Ugandan,” including Che Guevarra.

Joachim Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com