Polygamy can keep the EAC going

He left his Kenyan wife behind, and before long, he married a Tanzanian woman.

He was prolific, and had about five children there.

EAC 1 collapsed while he was in Tanzania.

He never came home, except in his coffin.

It was his wish to be buried in Uganda.

His wives and children all came for the funeral.

They were splendid — the most East African family.

There were many reasons why EAC 1 fell part. There were the ideological tensions between Tanzania and Kenya; the political hostilities between Uganda’s military ruler Idi Amin and everyone else, especially Tanzania.

Looking back now, it seems we missed a great opportunity to save the EAC in 1977.

Amin, in his seeming insanity, once proposed that he and then Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere should step into a boxing ring and sort out their differences there.

A former boxer, Amin was hoping for an easy victory.

Nyerere treated the challenge with deserved contempt.

Then Amin said if Nyerere were a woman, he would have married her and there would be peace.

Now if Nyerere had looked around for a woman who looked like she was his twin sister, he would have appeased Amin.

And if he had stepped into a ring and strategically fallen to the canvas at the first Amin blow, Idi would have been satisfied.