Why I am still stuck to taxis!

Jennifer Musisi is my favorite actress in this KCCA movie. This lady has strokes to dance to every tune. What do they call this really? Being smart! Just the other week , taxis decided to strike for reasons I did not clearly understand, but according to the information I gathered , the challenge was to do with using complex knowledge to interpret modest instructions.

Taxi drivers rejected the proposal by KCCA to be paying Shs120,000 per month as compared to the Shs150,000 they were paying before. I did not think we needed rocket science to explain what is good for them. Anyway, my friend Robert Kalumba calls it common sense. I did not blame them; I instead blamed the “man of the people” for wanting to politicise even the cause of house flies in his pit latrine! That man is something else. Did they not tell him that his function was ceremonial? Let him stick to that. You cannot begin wondering why you are not impregnating your woman when you are castrated.

Well, the “man of the people” with his accomplices ended up with a plan; to strike. Apart from the “man of the people” shooting himself in the foot by hurting his own people, there is no better way I can explain what the strike was about. Ironically, Musisi ended up in my favour. She totally understood the repercussions of coming late to work because my bosses drive. They need not to know whether taxi men are striking or not. What they care about is reporting for my duties before 8am.

The perfect solution therefore was to get the town service buses on the road. She did not only dump those bread shaped things on the road, she also cut my fare into a fair two. Who does that? Jennifer Musisi. Mmmhh! Of course it was a blow for my taxi men on strike who least expected the first number plates of the buses to be printed on paper and stuck on the wind screens using cello tape. The buses went ferrying passengers from all parts of the city to come and work at a laughable price. In words, this figure could be well written as “shut up Lukwago!” At the end of the day, we were all smiling like we have never cried before.

Of course the buses could not be enough for us all; I decided to go to the park after work with a thought that since the good men were striking, the fares would be hiked. On the contrary, I had never seen taxi men this humbled! They called their clients in a matter that was rather enticing and attracted as many clients as they could. The prices were rather untouched. For me it is the only time in so many years I was glad that I used a taxi.

I’m now certain that taxi men understand that we who still use taxis worry about their survival and it is because of us that they are still relevant in Kampala. They behave like a reckless wife whose husband has found another wife; she humbles herself and begins to baby sit, I will call it man-sit the husband. I’m laughing out loud! They will be fine, Won’t they?