By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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In my next life I want to be a Ugandan pastor. If reincarnation really happens, then whoever manages it should hear my plea and make me return as a pastor in Uganda after I die. These guys are gods because they enjoy more power and privilege than the president of the republic.

Anyone doubting this got a glimpse of this power last week when the judicial common of enquiry inspected a gazetted, protected but degraded wetland in southcentral Uganda and found that a city pastor had hived off 40 square miles of the protected wetland. They found labourers working in slave-conditions.

Most Ugandans cannot visualise 40 square miles. In rural areas, 40 acres are owned by the very rich. In town, 40 decimals of an acre represents great wealth. Who dreams of owning 40 square miles, which equals 26,000 thousand acres?

Anyway, the city pastor wanted the 40 square miles and he got them. Did he buy them? Nobody has that amount of land for sale. Only the government can control such land and it is not for sale, so it cannot have a certificate of title to transfer it. But the pastor, a revered being, managed to get a title for the land which in the first place cannot have a title of ownership issued for it, because it is a protected place, a wetland.

The commissioners, led by an appeals court judge, had been sending invitations to the pastor to appear before them and explain how he obtained the title, but by the time they went to the ground, he hadn’t yet found time to see them.

Another pastor, a couple of years earlier was driving through a busy suburb when his car stalled. He needed help to push it. Bystanders were hesitating so he whipped out his pistol, fired a few shots in the air and they complied promptly.

Another pastor has been operating TV and radio stations which broadcast tonnes of lies with people claiming “miracles” on too frequent a basis.

Another pastor often gets dragged to court for maliciously infecting congregants with HIV and refusing to pay for their treatment and that of the children sired from this ungodly liaison. And nothing much comes out of the court cases when he gets reported to the police.

And on a daily basis, the rest of us “unholy” people are assaulted with maddening noise pollution in our humble residences in the suburbs and everywhere as incredibly offensive decibels from megawatt loudspeakers bang at our eardrums when we are trying to rest.

The local authorities, including the mighty Kampala Capital City Authority have been feebly pleading with the mightier pastors to stop breaking the anti-pollution laws in vain. Some of these pastors have only a handful of worshipers in their illegal “mabati” (iron sheet) walled churches but the noise from their speakers as they blast tasteless “music” gives the impression of a multitude.

This is not to say there are no other people breaking laws in Uganda. But the difference is that the others are hunted down while the pastors get away with anything.

They can terrorise you with all the noise in makeshift structures as the local authorities look on helplessly. They can rape, spread HIV, pornography and lies, but face no consequences. If you complain, you are reminded not to dare point at “God’s anointed.”

Joachim Buwembo is a social and political commentator based in Kampala. E-mail: [email protected]