"This Life-Guitar!"

His fingers struck away at the guitar frets,

Mind buried in a taunt-ful thought-world,

His fingers wondered over the guitar finger-board,

Heart slowly finding its way to the mind,

His fingers nibbly adjusting the pole-pieces,

Head rhythmically nodding to the sound,

His fingers strum the acoustic sound louder,

The sound that brought back light into his troubled life,

And keeps on strumming away at his guitar!

Strumming away, so that the light doesn’t go out!
#Omukiga-Wekiniga

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"Bottled-Up"

If you thought President Yoweri Museveni is your sole teetotalism icon, and your sobriety spine is getting skeletal by the minute! Get hold of your horses and don't jump off the radar just yet.

Check out re-known personalities that kept and keep, keeping the bitter bottle at arm's length:

• Adolf Hitler, Abraham Lincoln, Malcolm X,
•  Joe Biden, Mohammad Ali, Donald Trump, 
• Floyd Mayweather Jr, Elton John, 50 Cent, 
• C.M Punk, Tyra Banks, Jay Leno, Samuel L. Jackson, 
• David Bowie, Jim Carey, Akon, Tom Cruise, 
• Prince, Jennifer Lopez, Naomi Campbell, Bruce Lee, 
• Eric Clapton, Bradley Cooper, Anthony Hopkins, 
• Leona Lewis, Chris Martin, Eddie Murphy, 
• Kelly Osbourne, Natalie Portman, Daniel Radcliffe, 
• Jada Pinkett Smith, John Travolta, Shania Twain, 
• Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis.... Omukiga Wekiniga[I said it] 

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"Every Ugandan should sacrifice as a Ugandan to complain as a Ugandan!"

Ugandans should stop whining, throwing dirt at whoever is running this country and start paying their dues to the state.

We are all tasked to shoulder the burden of financing this state, before we can start complaining left, right and center that “govt” is not meeting its responsibilities to the citizenry.

We all had a cardinal duty of paying graduated tax as the minimum requirement to fully feel like a Ugandan.

We all duly deserved the right to question where “Our” money was going, because we all parted with something. 

This tax source was scrapped simply because many people complained about the cruel extraction process used by tax collectors and misappropriation of the money collected by local councils.

Ugandans had got used to the duty of paying graduated tax because it was very humiliating to be paraded before one’s family and fellow villagers for failing to pay the tax. Every man worked hard to at least pay the tax and brag that he was a responsible man.

We have shifted the burden to the working lot, restricting their social expenditure scope and depriving village folks of money they used to get from their working relatives; they would pay graduated tax and increasingly spend on goods and services taxed by the state.

We reason that we pay taxes on goods we consume and services we enjoy, but what’s the aggregate value of this tax? In 6-months can it construct 1,000km of a tarmac road, or build a school?

@Omukiga-Wekiniga

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"Why every Ugandan must be a Bad Black"

My favorite Hip-Hop artiste Marshall Mathers breaks verse-ice in his Academy and Grammy-winning track 'Lose yo Self' saying, 'Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity, to seize every-thing you ever wanted. One moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?'

Our lives have been so cruelly fine-tuned to toe the line of what Eminem raps about, once the holy virgin avails you with a one-in-a-life-time good opportunity, hastily grab it, polish it and use it to flung open doors that lead to a rosy and comfortable life!

Shanita Namuyimbwa(Bad Black) who is now a troubled socialite, has ironically offered Ugandans a top-notch life-style proto-type on how we can cunningly craft out a good life with out dipping our hands into Govt coffers!

Before she became a naughty house-hold name-tag, Bad Black was a typical me and you trying to mine a life at any cost. 

Sipping away on her Tusker beer (which was quite expensive to persons of her ilk) at a Rock Bar counter, she happened to find her self attractive to a wealthy-sex hungry white man (David Greenhalgh)! She had one shot and one opportunity, Bad Black seized the moment.

Which lady of the night lets go of a golden goose that splashes out 600,000/= ($235), after a single night of passion! Bad Black murdered no rich white man; she simply put to task what she naturally owned, a brain, a body and good sex!

David also confesses that he was 'wowed' by Black's entrepreneurial ideas; no body can fault her for maximizing her means of production to the core. 

Who in his right state of mind, wires 11bn/= ($4.3m) to an illiterate-lady of the night to break ground for a real estate business firm! 

Bad Black never stole a single penny meant for the reconstruction of Northern Uganda or Malaria and TB eradication, in fact she boosted the local economy by spending lavishly on local products and services.

Disturbingly, local police continues to viciously yawn for the young lady's blood after she jumped bail on financial fraud charges! These chaps should be questioning David on the source of the money that he throws around in a 3rd world country!

No one can blame Bad Black for running off with 11bn/=, Dan Byakutaga a former UPDF paymaster scattered with just 1.2bn/= leaving behind a family and a good career in the army!

Instead of making millions of Ugandans dawdle in abject poverty at the hands of corrupt govt officials, why not become a Bad Black! Prey on the rich-adventurous persons and narrow the wealthy disparity!

#Omukiga-Wekiniga

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"Heart-Splattered Aisle!"

He heavily fell back into his seat in a rattled-dampened spirit, impulsively holding onto the lower edge of the church window-pane!

He was now choking on his own breath and simply couldn't open up to what he was seeing; he simply couldn't allow what he was seeing sink-in!

He just detested what reality was dragging before his eyes; she was all he had ever wished for, full of life, spiritually grounded and took on life like the Venetian beauty Desdemona.

But she was now being snatched away before his lazy eyes, dragged away under his heavy heart! Every step she took down the aisle slit his heart open, he watched on helplessly and hopelessly as she drew closer to her soon-to-be husband!

Was he again slow, was he again vain-smitten, and was he again afraid to fall again! But one thing he was sure of, another one had been grabbed right out of his plate and he painstakingly cheered on as she tied the knot with another man!

@Omukiga-Wekiniga

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'The Hunchback in Uganda's Rehabilitation institutions'

Rehabilitation can plainly be defined as a process to restore useful life thru therapy and education or restore good condition, operation or capacity.

Save for the 'naturally' mentally ill persons, substance abuse and life troubles have been cited as major contributing factors to 80% of mental health patients finding home in Uganda's rehabilitation institutions! 

Unlike most general hospitals in Uganda whose conditions are utterly appalling and inauspicious, Rehab homes are one of the most effectively run health institutions in the country.

Medical supplies are adequately stocked, patient-medication done on time, hygiene standards fairly good, except for 'intensively' mentally ill patients whose personal hygiene is understandably hard to maintain.

However, Rehab homes seem to unfortunately limp in service when it comes to psychotherapy and counseling of mental health patients! The most grand of interventions when dealing with such patients should be sitting down and talking to these individuals and together crafting ways in which they can 'sanely' deal with their life troubles.

Rehabilitation channels for mental health patients should be tailored around helping them open up about their troubles with emphasis being weighed on causal-factors, before solutions are conjured up and road to normalcy is paved.

Psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors must channel most of their energy in building solid one-on-one bonds with patients to enable them fully open up about their lives because they feel safer and at peace during personal conversations than in a communal-kind of therapy.

Also allocation of professional mental health personnel should involve patients' input, to enable easy build rapport and connection.

Unfortunately most Rehab homes schedule such sessions during the closing weeks of a patient’s stay at the home which in most cases has less impact, because they know they are leaving soon anyway!

Lastly, most Rehab homes don't prepare patients for real life outside the Rehab home walls, most of them relapse in character and behavior upon discharge due to reality shock!

It’s more like pushing kids into a candy store!

#Omukiga-Wekiniga

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"Substance abuse: Your single-journey ticket to the Grave!"

It all starts like a simple snort, just a puff or sip, then it becomes a behavior and before you know it, you’re shackled in a death-trap of substance dependency!

In spite of their grave short-term end-note, substance abuse and addiction have stealthily muscled their way into the club of incurable diseases that we have helplessly allowed to gain ground amidst us!

We continue to simply watch on as more kids taste away on drugs and alcohol to also experience the 'higher' life for the first time!

We continue to simply watch on as youth get hooked on drugs and alcohol to fit in with their peers or simply try to confidently ride with the life tide!

We continue to simply watch on as parents wreck family-fortunes to the bone in effort to water their drugs and alcohol dependency!

You need to spend a few hours with substance addicts to wade thru how substance dependency can wreck an individual's life till he takes his last breathe.

  

You need to share experiences with substance addicts to understand how life can be slit open with just a snort on 'ice', a puff on weed or cigar, or a sip on liquor! Substance dependency has become so rooted in our society that most of us view it as the cheapest remedy to calm down nerves in troubled times, or a celebratory norm when luck smiles at us!

However, unlike other incurable diseases, a minute over-dose on substances such heroin or cocaine, or an alteration in content mixing of drugs can result into loss of life in just seconds!

Never before has humanity experienced such soaring figures of mental health illnesses and deaths all linked to drugs and alcohol abuse, like we do today!

Every morning, for four weeks I sat quietly at this rehabilitation home and listened to tear-jerking stories from recovering addicts, break-down how their addiction journeys began with just a  simple snort, just a puff or  sip, then it became routine and before they knew it, they were shackled in a death-trap of substance dependency!

#Omukiga-Wekiniga

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