By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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Hey! greetings from The Late Joachim Buwembo, but don’t run away from me thinking I am a ghost; I am just being a true Ugandan, obsessed with titles. And now that we are in premature campaign mode, expect titles to be used with abandon. A title adds to your status.

But the problem with our titles is that they are rarely acquired on merit. So while an engineer should be recognised for all their training and qualification, every untrained handyman in Kampala slums insists on being called Yinginia as he vies for councillorship. If he wins, he becomes Lord-Councilor-Yinginia.

For a country that hosts the once ‘academic Mecca of Africa’—Makerere— our misuse of academic titles is embarrassing. People holding honorary doctorates are loudly addressed as Dr, same as local herbalists and witchdoctors! As if doctors aren’t enough, we now have professors who never worked at university.

Another eyebrow-raising title is Honourable used as a lifelong tag by anybody who has ever been in Parliament.

One title that seems to be earned without any standard for qualifying is Pastor.
There certainly are more pastors than villages—about 70,000—in Uganda. No wonder, those towering slightly higher than the novices become bishop though their See or diocese remains unknown.

Tightly protected titles are Architect and Counsel’ for qualified advocates and architects. Lawyers relish being called Kanso wherever they pass.

As for the easily ‘claimed’ titles, their rightful holders tend to add ‘Trained’ so as not to be mixed up with undeserving claimants.

So a physician will say “I am trained doctor so-and-so” when introducing themselves to an audience that has heard from other ‘doctors’.

And who said titles are not acquired by close osmosis?

In Uganda it is normal for a woman to be addressed by everyone in her neighbourhood as ‘Mrs Doctor’ if her husband is a doctor.

If you don’t have an impressive academic title, invoke club membership. So Rotarian comes handy at social gatherings. You can also use your business role for recognition. Thus a shareholder in a third-rate school becomes director and his wife, Mrs Director.

Your family status can also be harnessed for prestige. Widow precedes the name of a woman whose husband died and sticks for life. Widower is short-lived because widowed guys tend to remarry quickly.

Before our grandparents understood the science of conceiving twins, they bestowed reverent titles of Salongo and Nalongo to the father and mother of twins respectively.

They thought it took more effort to sire twins than one baby. Even a former Ugandan president formally added Salongo to his official titles when one of his women got twins.

But if a natural accident doesn’t give you twins, you can still enjoy a title of Mother of new baby or Father of new baby. And even if you don’t get a child, you can enjoy the wonderful title of Bride or Groom for as long as people can remember your wedding, or to remind them in case they appear to be forgetting that you staged a wedding.

Another easy-to-acquire title is Chairman. You could once have been a district chairperson which is even bigger than Member of Parliament; or you could be chairing your suburban drinking club.

So when a bloke addresses you as Chairman, those who don’t know why assume you are important, for you could be the officially elected chairman of the village where they are, and that matters.

I am tempted to sign off as Journalist Buwembo, but there are a 1,000 claimants to that title in Kampala.

So let me stick to The Late since nobody wants to compete over that title in superstitious Uganda.

Joachim Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail:[email protected]