If you badly want Ugandans to do something, put it against the law. They will do it to prove a point. The obvious things are never challenging so they are always looking for some rule to break or experiment with.
Police Notice No parking
These zones are the hottest parking spots. Some argue that the No Parking signs are designed by people who think they own the city.
Every turn you make, especially on Wilson road, there is a car jacked or one being towed for poor parking.
Some witty characters scratch NO off the No Parking signs living PARKING.
Shell Total and Gapco on Ben Kiwanuka Street instructions stating that “Police warning. Off loading passengers at the petrol stations is prohibited”
But the warning is like an invite to taxi drivers to empty their taxis at the petrol stations. This always irritates passengers living them wondering if the drive is blind.
No smoking
Kahinda Otafire then Minister of Water Lands and Environment placed a ban on smoking in public places.
Otafire’s warning notwithstanding, it is rare if not impossible to find a no smoking zone without a smoker. Where the signposts are in big bold letters followed with a health warning “Smoking is bad for your health”, smokers line the place and puff at the sign.
Don’t urinate here fine 50,000
All the places that have this warning have a stench of urine hovering in the vicinity. A male friend once joked that God created the world and told them to go and irrigate it.
“If we were not going it by the road side the world would be a desert,” he commented.
During one of his morning shows at CBS radio, Presenter Abby Mukiibi commented that the worst comes to the worst when young children stare at the guys asking what he is doing.
“They scare the hearts out of our children,”
The witty characters again scratch the DON’T living the URINATE HERE sign. And then knock themselves out.
Keep Kampala Clean
So pathetic this phrase. This goes in line with the Don’t dump here signs. Green KCC containers with the humble request Keep Kampala clean squat in filthy flooded garbage alive with flies and a nauseating stench.
Talk of keeping Kampala clean. Don’t keep Kampala dirty sounds more like it.
Warm beer lousy food
This is what welcomes a reveller to Fat boyz Pub at Kisementi. But nonetheless, the place is always crowded with people despite the bar’s revelation that they will be served with warm beer and lousy food.
“I got it from Mexico. That is like playing on people’s psyche. They come to find out for themselves if it is true and don’t leave,” Darren Dooley the owner told Weekly Observer.
One way/No turn/no way through
There is a road sign on Makerere Hill road in Wandegeya that prohibits cars coming from town to turn into Junjju road. The same is with cars joining Makerere hill road towards Makerere Nakulabye from Junjju road. Police always have a field day teaching motorists to read the sign right but in vain. At Parliamentary Avenue is a sign that bars motorists joining from Jinja road.
Zebra crossing
You would think they were meant to alert pedestrians to give way to the motorists. Say the zebra crossing at Post office building. Think twice before expecting a car to give you way or else you will find yourself legs up in Mulago causality ward.
Beer not sold to under 18
Puleaze! Whoever coined this one should shoot themselves. School going under eighteens are definitely served liquor like any grown up.
Just go to holiday makers bashes and see the number of young boys and girls carrying beer with the words Strictly not for sale to under 18 inscribed on the bottle. Then they walk away in a drunken spell forgetting they escaped from home or school
Strictly 18 years and above
I always see school girls in Ange Mystique members club walking with a swagger like they own the club. And remember Ange Noir is restricted to under 18. Next thing you see her ogling a man fit to be her grandfather then you understand why she is there.
Youngsters love joints that bar them off their premises. They will do all things possible to find their way inside and later go and show off to their friends.
So if you want teenagers to stay away from your joint, make it open to them.
Don’t drink and drive
Huh! Probably the most abused. Even with the breathalysers in town today, you won’t miss a car making a bee line on Kampala’s roads.
If you are got, you either pay kitu kidogo or speed away for dear life.
There is a popular rich girl with a personalised car who you will see zooming around town, music loud, beer in one hand and a smoke in the other.
Order with Cash
“Why should I pay for what I haven’t eaten? Do you think I can relocate to Kenya because of this little money?” people will often ask a waiter in a restaurant or bar that requires one to pay before being served.
“I either get served or leave,” they continue before the waiter goes back to collect there order not wanting to risk loosing a customer.
Total silence
Reads the warning at CBS radio stations at Bulange. But the comedians who do the morning shows stand below the said warning making fun and noise like it reads “make some noise”.
This prompts the station managers to shush them sometimes in vain.
Switch off your phones please
Usually in the banks and petrol stations. Someone will walk into the bank talking on phone get to the counter and walk out still using the phone the Switch off your phones signs in the bank notwithstanding. And all this time some phones have gone off and the owners answered them. Maybe the banks should resort to installing phone jammers.
No shoes in the mosque
Shoes are considered unclean because the go to dirty places like toilets. That is why they are not allowed in the mosque.
But unfortunately they line the ventilation, windows and sides of the mosques even with the request at the entrance to leave them aside.
People reason that their shoes will be stolen if left outside. Whatever the hell happened to saying their prayers in an unclean environment?
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Bimbo let words like this escape her mouth?
Chanel 