Welcome to Uganda; a fool's paradise where everyone, everything could be fake

There is no telling how far the forgeries and false utterances of individuals’ personal data in Uganda will go. Since the disease seems to have gone as high as the Deputy Chief Justice, who was reported to have sworn an affidavit to amend his age by reducing it to sixty-six years from seventy years.

He did this in order to avoid or postpone his retirement. This madness may as well afflict anybody below, which is about all of the 37 million people.

And even above the Deputy Chief Justice, the battle to defeat age could be taking place because some political opportunists are alleged to be mooting a plot to legally remove the constitutional age limit of 75 years for contestants for the presidency. This is aimed at enabling octogenarians in future to rule Uganda, a country whose 52 per cent of the population is below the age of 15!

However, matters of changing papers by judicial officers did not start yesterday. I remember I was a little primary school girl when the present leaders came to power 31 years ago. Among the first scandals they had to deal with was a high court judge who was exposed as having forged high school certificates to gain admission to Makerere University’s Law school.

While it was possible to dismiss and disgrace the judge, nothing could be done about the many court rulings he had made, including passing death sentences! And those were the days when death row convicts were promptly hanged, unlike today when the last professional hangman retired and there have been no efforts to recruit a replacement.

Big joke

But judges aside, members of Parliament are simply the worst at falsifying academic papers. One woman has just been thrown out of Parliament after her papers were found to be less than authentic. Her Primary Leaving Certificate, usually obtained at the age of 12 years, bears her title and marital name; not her maiden name without any title! Can you beat that?

Then we have a comedian, whose profession and full time occupation has been stand-up comedy for as long as the public can remember.

Then last year he stood for parliament and won an urban seat in the capital city. Then the comedy started. He was dragged to court for lacking the requisite papers.

Though the man actually went to Makerere and studied Drama, it transpires that there are major question marks over the lower papers he used to gain admission to the university. His accusers claimed his papers were a big joke! He has spent the first year of his parliamentary term in court and the drama continues.

In all, there are about eighty parliamentary seats being challenged and a big chuck of the petitions are over forged academic papers. Yet the country has had free universal education for two decades.

Basically, most of what Ugandans eat, drink, smoke, even the music they listen to could be counterfeit. Each time there is a crackdown of any nature, Ugandans are always shocked by news of this or that fake. From teachers, lecturers, medics, foodstuff and all.