Tuesday morning, all his colleagues at the Namugongo Boda Boda stage seemed to know the cause of his death. For the deceased had been a troubled man in recent days and stopped even bothering to hide his secrets.
Seven months ago, Alex Nuwagaba had got to own his own boda boda on credit, and he thought his dream had come true. The excited rider could now afford to date and soon got himself a girlfriend of his dreams. But before he could settle down with her, he spotted a cuter girl and added her to the first one. With enough money to spend and date, he found an even better girl and she also accepted the guy with a daily income, something considered so precious in these tough times of rising commodity prices and high unemployment.
Soon enough, all three girlfriends (separately) broke the happy news to Alex Nuwagaba that they were pregnant. But he was thrown into dilemma as each girl insisted on getting married to him before the pregnancy became too big.
If Alex thought he had a problem on his hands, he didn’t know that real trouble was around the corner. It transpires that he did not have a national ID and to get the boda loan from a Ntinda based vehicle leasing company, Alex had had to use a friend who had the precious ndagamuntu which is a basic reuirement for the loan. It was the friend whom he used to give the money for the weekly instalments to pay to the finance institution.
After remitting the weekly instalments for four months, the friend with an ID started keeping the money to himself instead of paying it to the lending company. With the repayments no longer being made to them for three months, the lenders’ agents waylaid the boda boda motorcycle and impounded it.
When Alex realized how his friend had double crossed him, he was devastated. The outstanding amount was only Sh250,000 but he did not have it. In any case the leasing company did not know him.
Because of the current hard times, Alex could not find any friend to lend him to meet urgent requirements like house rent. In his last days, his friends say he used to mumble about the pregnant girls and the unpaid rent.
Editors Note :
Committing and attempted suicide is a crime under Ugandan Criminal law .
