President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda is a man of multifarious skills. One of the more remarkable is wiggling out of political tight spots almost effortlessly.

And so it happened that one day a journalist sought to put him on the spot about corruption in his administration, especially among people he appoints to high positions of power and responsibility.

As if surprised that the issue had been raised at all, or that someone should think he was to blame for his appointees’ misconduct, he turned the discussion around with characteristic panache and said it wasn’t as if the officials in question came from somewhere outside Uganda.

As far as he was concerned, he said, the people being pointed at as corrupt were people society had given him. Their ways, he emphasised, mirrored those of wider society.

In other words, the officials were made of the same raw material as those who were complaining about their behaviour, who were likely to behave in similar fashion. Where, he wondered aloud, was he to find people to appoint, who would not be corrupt?

Of course, claims such as these coming from a head of state ought to debated thoroughly rather than simply swallowed without question.

Indeed, some of the people who heard him speak went on to accuse him of trying to run away from the issue and from his own responsibility. Others, possibly a very small minority, took time to reflect on the matter and found they agreed or, at least, did not disagree much with him.

Recently, I found myself reflecting once again on this Museveni strategy of deflecting responsibility for corruption in Uganda’s public institutions. The reflection followed a cyber-conversation among a group of Ugandans that had I picked up on.

It started with one person insinuating that Ugandans were not to be trusted. He wasn’t saying anything new. Ugandans who travel in the region will have come across these claims, usually made in jest, in Kenya, Tanzania, and to an extent in Rwanda.

Apparently, “something about Ugandans” makes other East Africans that much more careful when dealing with them. This, of course, is a terrible generalisation, but one that gets thrown about quite a bit.

Back to the cyber conversation: Someone reacted by suggesting that Ugandans who talk in those terms about their own countrymen and women are somehow guilty of self-hate. It was as if he had thrown a stone into a hornets’ nest.

What followed was a torrent of stories by Ugandans about fellow Ugandans who had done all sorts of things to them that, they argued, provide some evidence that indeed caution is necessary when it comes to dealing with many Ugandans.

Some stories were about dodgy motor vehicle mechanics and purveyors of all manner of services. The craftiness described is hardly unique to Ugandans. Visit any country and listen carefully. You will hear many stories of frustration with used-car salesmen, tailors, builders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and the like.

And then there were stories of gunfights with thieves, burglaries, and car break-ins in “well-guarded” parking lots. Again, there is nothing uniquely Ugandan in all this. Any Ugandan who thinks there is ought to visit South Africa or even next-door neighbour Kenya.

What made me wonder about Museveni’s take on corruption and wider Ugandan society was a story a particularly civic-minded and public-spirited participant in the conversation narrated. On several occasions, the poor man has repaired the local road in his village. Each time the culverts have been stolen.

He plants tree seedlings and they too are taken. He tries his hand at rearing goats. Locals steal them too. One day, he buys a piece of land and the next thing he learns is that a local official has stolen it and already built a house there.

Elsewhere, he buys another piece of land and compensates all the squatters. They vacate it, only for a local official to encourage them to return and claim more money from “the rich man.”

Many Ugandans are by now familiar with what happens each time a new road is built or an old one repaired and new traffic signage erected. That, too, gets taken, as witnessed by the storyteller in his own home area.

His encounters with roadside fruit sellers have seen him buy a mix of fresh and rotten fruits. Roadside butchers? Take your eyes off the meat and you end up with bones and fat. Goes to show how, even if Museveni’s take is rather self-serving for an all-powerful head of state, he makes a strong point.

There are, of course, many upright Ugandans in and out of public life. Stories such as these, however, raise questions about popular understandings of corruption and strategies for fighting it.

Perhaps more significant, they show why levels of trust within communities have been eroded. What with wondering if your neighbour is not the one stealing your stuff, and whether next time you want to hire anyone to do anything, they won’t turn out to be another thief or con artist.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs.

E-mail: [email protected]