A homosexual has been stabbed in Kampala. Mr. Stephen Kabuye, an openly gay man and proud Executive Director of Colored Voice Uganda, a nongovernmental organization that serves the LGBTQ community is believed to have been attacked by an unknown assailant on his way to work early this morning. Because he is an opprobrious homosexual, and he does everything within his means to make sure homosexuality is not only espoused as normal in Uganda but also promoted.
In a video posted to his X handle, he lies down in the grass and wails like a child. He calls for help in Luganda and says a man almost killed him. There is a wide gaping wound on the back side of his left arm, deep enough for us to almost see his bones. A knife is stuck in situ in the left side of his lower abdomen.
The attack on Mr. Kabuye has sparked the outrage of the LGBTQ protagonists. They are angry at Ugandans’ refusal to coexist with the various sexual minorities, and rightly so. They are angry at Ugandans’ lack of manners. They cannot wrap their heads around the fact that such a young man can be hated to the death just because of his sexual orientation. But what would they expect from a citizenry who recently looked on and cheered eerily as their parliament passed a law meant to criminalize homosexuality, lesbianism, and every other sort of sexual crookedness? It is highly likely that those who aren’t straight will be hated, harassed, stigmatized and in worse scenarios, attacked the way Mr. Kabuye has been. Because they (Ugandan citizens) are too conservative to smell any of that coffee.
There is quite a lot about this video that leaves my mind in a jumbled state. The fact that he cries so loud with his eyes so dry and devoid of any tears. The fact that even in that turmoil he manages to smoothly draw a smartphone from his pockets, feed it with the correct password, find the correct camera app and records that video. Thereafter, he is still able to subscribe to the correct mobile data bundle, log in to his X account and post that video. All by himself. What sort of person is that? How brave is he? What are his priorities?
It is claimed that he was attacked by two men who arrived on a motorcycle. Their intention was to kill him, of course, but he refused to die in spite of their genuine efforts. But where are they at this time when he is on his phone capturing the moment on camera? What do they do as he records the video? Is their grudge against him suddenly settled? Are they not interested any longer in finishing off what they started in the first place? What about the bystanders; do they all just remain at ease and wait for him to first finish recording the video and posting it to the internet, so they can help him up and into a health facility?
I have been plying my trade in health facilities since 2016. I have dealt with survivors of road traffic accidents, victims of domestic violence, and countless cases of physically traumatized patients. Disoriented chaps. Hardly anyone ever finds his phone, bag or wallet. Most of them don’t even remember how they got to hospital in the first place; it was the mercy of bystanders that saved them. Some of them have deep bleeding wounds and missing teeth but aren’t feeling the pain yet; leave alone the unconscious ones. When a person is attacked, floored and injured in that manner, science says there will ostensibly be the ‘fight or flight’ response (go and read about it). It is not likely that he will draw a phone from his pockets and record himself crying and post himself before he rises to flee the scene or fight in self defence. Of what importance is a video to a man who is bleeding his life out?
In order to have the correct answers, you need to carefully observe the knife stuck in his abdomen. That is a blunt knife that has lived all its life cutting vegetables in a home kitchen. A careful murderer would not carry it to the crime scene. Even if he did, it would not cut a man so deep as to leave a wound of that magnitude. Even if both of the above miracles happened concomitantly, the victim wouldn’t have his white shirt look as clean as what Mr. Kabuye wears in this video. The victim would not lose just about two or three drops of blood as Mr. Kabuye in the video on his X account.
And no, I am not a sadist dancing on a homosexual’s grave. In fact, I wouldn’t mind the young man’s recovery even if it was quick. But I have to say his wound is so surgically clean, so deep and cannot have been inflicted on him by that cheap blunt knife in his abdomen. The most likely thing is that it was made by a careful and experienced health professional who obviously knew what to do to arrest the hemorrhage, hence the minimal blood loss and the cleanliness of the wound.
In a different part of Uganda, a man of God, Pastor Aloysius Bugingo, survived an attempt on his life while we slept last night. On his way back home with his driver, unknown gunmen opened fire on his vehicle, fled the crime scene on a motorcycle and vanished. The man of God is believed to have been their target but when they couldn’t have a piece of him, they managed to kill his comrade who was identified as Mr. Richard Muhumuza. These events happened in Namungoona, Kampala. Despite the injuries he sustained, Pastor Bugingo managed to drive the vehicle to Mulago Hospital and was reportedly admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). At least, that’s what the authorities reported.
Speaking to a local journalist of BBS Terefayina, Mr. Mutebi, one of the people in Pr. Bugingo’s inner circle and presenter on Salt TV (owned by Pr. Bugingo) gave a dissimilar account of the events. He narrated that the man of God, when he heard the sound of bullets, used the hand brakes to stop the vehicle, hid under the steering wheel and waited until the gun fell silent. Mr. Muhumuza was in the co – driver’s seat and he took all the 13 bullets on the pastor’s behalf. But the fact that Pr. Bugingo recovered from that state of shock and drove after the armed assailant(s) opens a can of worms and the events just cease to add up. From where did he suddenly borrow all that bravery? How easy was it for him to stop the vehicle using only the hand brakes? Then there is this small matter of having driven the vehicle to Mulago Hospital on his own, with a dead friend next to him. When people believe such embellished stories, it is because they do not imagine how it feels to be shot at over 13 times; they just can’t relate. But there is hardly any Ugandan civilian who is likely to first drive after armed assassins after that incident; what would be his point in chasing them? To knock them dead and then, what next? Where are the witnesses’ accounts of what happened? Why is the information about the shooting so scanty yet everything happened as early as 9pm?
We are villagers. Whenever such shooting incidents occur, throngs of people are attracted to the crime scene just to stare. The victims are shocked out of their skins even when they survive. They pinch themselves to confirm that they are really still alive and not just in the throes of a bad dream. When Gen. Katumba Wamala of the UPDF was shot at in June 2021, he escaped with injuries. Serious injuries. Tens of bullets had been pumped into his military SUV, his daughter and driver killed, and even he couldn’t quite figure out something as basic as getting out of the car on his own. We are talking about a 4-star General being shaken to the core. A former Chief of Defence Forces. A bush war veteran. A 65-year-old man who has lived all his life by the gun and befriended it. The retired General, with his cloths soaked in blood, was helped onto a boda boda by the bystanders and rushed to hospital for urgent treatment.
Not Pastor Bugingo, though; the daring man of God needed no help after all this. How a civilian man who knows not the sound of a gun and death recovers suddenly and chases the armed shooters is beyond my understanding. How he drives the vehicle to hospital despite having a dead colleague next to him is even more baffling. How this whole fracas attracts no people to the crime scene is as well enigmatic. And by the way, did I forget to mention that the only injury he sustained from the attack on his life is the cannula prick? Why was he even admitted in the Intensive Care Unit in the first place?
Later today, a photo of him appeared on the internet – and it is the only one we have seen thus far. In the picture, he sits on a hospital bed, poses with a poker face like there is something he knows and we don’t. He looks away from the camera so as to be captured unaware the way you lot pose when you feel sweet about yourselves at lavish events. He holds his hands together and rests them on his lap. He looks anything but a target of a high-profile assassination attempt. In an ideal world, this man would be the most important figure to aid the investigation process. Surely, he saw the gunmen while he drove after them. Also, he was not surprised by the attack – probably because he was anticipating it.
The new year has gotten off to an intriguing start and at this pace, I wonder what will happen next. Whatever the case, today’s fiction movies have been poorly planned, poorly orchestrated. Both of the actors seem to have hired directors of Indian origin, for only they (Indians) can pull off such other-worldly stunts in their movies. But our eyes are wide open. We refuse to be taken for these rides.
About the author: The writer is a worthless MugOfPorridge. His articles have appeared sporadically in print and online. He drinks, smokes and hopes to die by suicide.
You guy studied satire!
Bujjingo should be sick in his head