Who will stop the boda boda epidemic?
By Moses Khisa More by this Author  Uganda is a nation of many epidemics, both socioeconomic and epidemiological. One of the most pressing epidemic today, that threatens the basic social fabric of the country, is the passenger motorcycle industry popularly called boda boda. What is on the face a worthwhile service and a handy source of income for many youths is in fact a deadly and culturally destructive activity. There are many arguments one can make to justify and promote the business of passenger motorcycles. The industry accommodates hordes of otherwise unemployed or unemployable young people. It facilitates transportation in a country with poor public transport systems. Boda bodas are an inimitable solution to Kampalas endemic traffic jams. No one can argue against these and other positive sides of the industry. Yet from a macro and long-term strategic perspective, the boda-boda industry has very little value addition to Ugandas economy. The net beneficiaries are the foreign manufacturers of the motorcycles, the middlemen companies and local agents in the purchasing chain. As a poor and socially underdeveloped society, we cannot successfully tackle our socioeconomic ills through some patchy shortcuts of which the boda boda industry is quite emblematic. The scale of unemployment, and unemployable people, requires grand and sustained engineering in order to drive large scale value-added production from which jobs can be generated. The boda-boda industry, even after it has penetrated deep into rural Uganda and present in every corner of the country, is simply incapable of making a fundamental difference in generating employment and driving down poverty. The real problem, however, the definitive epidemic that should deeply worry all Ugandans is not the economics of the industry; it is not even the much-talked about physical injuries and deaths resulting from innumerable accidents happening every day in Kampala and all over the country. The number one issue is the sociocultural and moral destruction being wrought by the boda boda industry. Boda boda riders and the ubiquitous presence of motorcycles are remaking and redefining our public morality, social behaviour and value system. We are all being swept and modelled to the boda-boda worldview, persona and cultural predisposition. Now, I might be overstating matters a little here, but there is no gainsaying just how our basic sociocultural and moral orientation is going down the sewers with the young men riding bicycles leading the way. The champions of our moral decay and degeneration. A great deal of what only yesterday we saw as socially unacceptable and contemptable is now increasingly normalised and embraced. Boda bodas have propelled unprecedented lawlessness and the sheer disregard of the most basic rules of public conduct, decency and right behaviour. No regard for the rules of the road, no courtesy and forbearance to others while on the road, no restraint and patience, lack of apt judgement about when to and not make a move on the road, etc. That is not all. Advertisement  There is the bit of insults and rude language with the slightest exhortation for bad conduct. The refusal to see that one has done wrong and, at a minimum, apologise. Many of us Ugandans increasingly no longer see the wrongs of the boda boda riders. Even worse, we are actually taking on those very mannerisms. We are actively albeit unconsciously cultivating, spreading and entrenching the boda-boda culture. In the past, it was common for many among the middle and working classes in Uganda to condemn and decry the runaway behaviour of our compatriots in the boda-boda trade. This has changed in recent years. Many who would see the perversion are now fully implicated in the industry as owners of the very motorcycles whose riders are taking us down the dark alleys of moral bankruptcy. They are investors.  Apparently, given the limited economic opportunities for real productive investment and avenues for better incomes, Ugandans with a few million shillings from personal income or a bank loan rush to buy a motorcycle as an income generating venture. This is perfectly understandable. But it is poisoned chalice. We are sponsoring enormous immediate and long-term damage to ourselves and future generations by propelling the boda-boda industry. I am sympathetic but sceptical to the thought that better regulation and corporatisation through initiatives like Safe Boda can ameliorate the negative ramifications. It is difficult to see how regulation and corporatisation can cure what is now a full blown epidemic. If the rulers are messing up our country, we the ruled are actively pulling equally in the same direction and the complicity we have in the boda-boda industry is quite instructive. moses.khisa@gmail.com