Ugandans, time and Otunnu!

The Republic of Snooze

COMMENT | MARK MAGOOLA | “I am about to reach just ka jam here, here. Yiyi, natusedaa…” Meanwhile, the man is still in the shower. And if it is a she, worse. She is in bed; remember she needs another hour to put on her gloss!

But it’s okay. That’s us! How else will they know we are Ugandans if we don’t run on Ugandan time?

The routine is simple. Set five alarms. Snooze, snooze, snooze. Wake up to twelve missed calls from the organiser. Remain calm, because it is expected. Then, maybe two hours late, show up. You are still within Ugandan time.

By the way, this is something we train for from childhood. Ask any student in this country when the reading happens. Not in first term, not in second, and absolutely not in the first seven weeks of third term. It happens the night before the paper, by candlelight and panic, powered by RockBoom and Sting, between status updates begging for money and others threatening, “Course enegezamu okunzita…”

After graduating, the young professional is no different. The report due Friday is opened on Thursday at 11 pm, and the fight begins. We do not work in this country. We fight deadlines. Everything here is done under pressure, always, as though pressure were a national resource.

Everyone knows the arithmetic. If you want a meeting to start at 11, announce it for 9, and with the grace of God you may have quorum by midday. It’s called Ugandan time, and we say it with a grimace, but this is no longer a joke. It is exactly how we handle every single aspect of life, and sadly, that is how the country is run. We have normalised coming late, usually to react, and then go home.

Now see Ambassador Olara Otunnu. Twice, in 1991 and again in 1996, his name came up for the biggest diplomatic seat on earth, Secretary General of the United Nations. He was in his prime then, polished, respected, spoken of in the corridors of New York as the man to watch. And twice his own country worked against him. It was such a loud alarm: “Wake up, Uganda, take the centre stage!” And what did we do? We hit snooze. Now it is 2026. Otunnu is 75, the oldest of the seven candidates in the race, and it is now that Kampala has written the letter nominating him. I wish Mzee Otunnu well, sincerely. But let us be honest about what we have done. We have come out with our seeds after the rains have passed, and the clouds are as white as snow. Truth is, whatever the Security Council decides, the verdict on us is already in. We did not fail to see his worth. We saw it on Ugandan time.

You might think that is one isolated incident. Let me turn you to the National Cleaning Day, our freshest exhibit. Cabinet passed the resolution in August 2025. Then it sat somewhere, marinating quietly for eleven months. And when the government finally remembered it, it was announced on a Thursday for a Saturday, delivered to Ugandans as an emergency, complete with police vowing to enforce it, roads closed and businesses shut. Eleven months to tell us. Two days to comply. Even a good idea, in our hands, must arrive like an ambush.

Meanwhile, on paper, of course, we are the most prepared country on earth. Walk into any ministry and find the shelves groaning under policy frameworks, strategic plans, and visions stretching to 2040. We draft beautifully. We launch lavishly, with tents and teas and speeches about milestones, everyone holding the document like a newborn. Then the document goes to sleep on the shelf, and the country sleeps beside it.

Should I talk of how long we have been discussing a standard-gauge railway? Okay, that one is too painful; it might hurt you. So maybe we talk about that specialised hospital at Lubowa. Wait, that too is a bit sensitive. Maybe something so flagrant, then, the buses. Banange, our children! We legislated for compulsory vehicle inspection. The proposal was praised in principle and then swept under a rug so large it could carpet Namboole. Shelved. Sleep. A few accidents – ughh, that’s normal. Snooze. And now, those school children. The inspection happens in reverse. First the school bus crashes. Then the small coffins, the wailing mothers, and the minister in gumboots promising it will never happen again. For two weeks, every traffic officer remembers what a bald tyre looks like. By the third week the roadblocks dissolve, the bald tyres return, and the country resets its alarm for the next funeral.

But it’s not all bad. There is something that never delays: our corruption. Theft is the only industry where Uganda keeps time. A few years ago the Inspectorate of Government proposed lifestyle audits. Simple idea. If a public servant earns a teacher’s salary and builds like a sultan, someone should ask some questions. Wanna know what happened to that proposal? Google! All I can tell you are the results, a few of them. Like the iron sheets meant for the poorest people in Karamoja that ended up roofing kennels and pigsties in Kololo. Another big person amassed obscene riches. The international sanctions came, we all saw them, and we hit that snooze button until so much damage was done that headlines no country should ever read were wrapped around our media. None of it fell from the sky. It walked in through a door we were told, in writing, years earlier, to close.

Most times, Ugandan time costs us bodies!

The people around Kiteezi warned for years that the landfill was full, swollen, and overdue for closure. The reports existed. The deadlines existed. Then one August morning in 2024 the garbage moved like a hillside and buried Ugandans in their own homes, and only then did the excavators and the ministers arrive.

How do we remedy this? Heal from something we have been groomed into? Prayer? But who would lead? Who is willing to be as “stupid” as Archbishop Luwum? The ones anointed to speak have lost their tongues. Our pulpits, which can find fire and thunder for the offertory basket, go mute the moment the subject is Uganda. They pray for Israel more than they pray for Uganda. Jerusalem is interceded for weekly, fervently, by name; Karamoja, however, is not mentioned even once. Maybe someone should propose a tax on churches and mandatory theology degrees for those who lead them. Maybe then they would discover their voices, and perhaps finally have something to say about what goes on in this country.

Because that is what we are. A country that sets seventeen alarms and answers none of them. We have convinced ourselves that the ringing itself is the achievement. We point at the noise and say, look, we have a plan.

But the snooze button does not stop time. It only steals it nine minutes at a time until the morning is gone, the appointment is missed, and the opportunity is never to be caught again. The nations we now queue before for visas and loans were not cleverer than us. They were simply awake. They closed their Kiteezi before it fell. They inspected the bus before the journey. They asked the servant about the mansion before the mansion grew a perimeter wall. They pushed their best son forward while the world still knew his name.

Sometimes, God forgive me, I catch myself wondering whether we should start praying for catastrophes. They seem to be the only alarm this country ever answers.

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The writer is a lawyer with Eurytus Advocates, Kampala.