I recently visited Kampala, the land of many hills and I was struck by the sheer mayhem boda boda riders wreak all over.
There are millions of half-crazed boda riders who have no respect for all known and unknown laws. Traffic lights have no meaning to them.
I stood at a traffic intersection and the mayhem I witnessed is incomparable to anything. You have to see it to believe it. To visit Kampala is to experience a city with a heartbeat all its own.
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For the first-time visitor, the initial encounter is nothing short of sensory whiplash.
The city, beautifully draped over a series of lush hills, moves to a tempo that seems anarchic and without order. The rules of the road are not so much broken as they are entirely rewritten. At the centre of this maelstrom are the boda boda riders, an army of millions who are both the lifeblood and bane of Uganda’s bustling capital. Standing at a major traffic intersection during peak hours is an experience that etches itself into memory.
This is where the theory of orderly traffic flow comes to die. Traffic lights appear to serve as mere suggestions, or more accurately, as decorative urban lighting.
Whether the lights are red, green or amber, a swarm of boda bodas will lunge forward, without any regard to life or limb of both pedestrians and pillion passengers.
They weave between cars, mount curbs, and slip through gaps invisible to the naked eye.
The air fills with the collective sputter of two-stroke engines, the blare of horns, and the shouted exchanges of riders. To call it mayhem is accurate, yet it fails to capture the strange, pulsating energy that keeps this ecosystem from total collapse. And the traffic jams!
On any normal day, traffic congests the road and it can take hours for a short journey. But, if the President happens to be in town, total chaos ensues.
Everybody, including pedestrians, are swept off the road, sometimes hours before the entourage starts making its way to State House. Quite a sight to behold.
The boda boda is the antidote to Kampala’s infamous traffic jams. In a city where a short car journey can take hours, the boda boda waltzes through gridlocked cars and saves on time.
They are the couriers, the ambulances, the delivery trucks, and the commuter trains for millions of people. A rider’s disregard for conventional lanes is not born of mere recklessness, but of a ruthless, acquired efficiency.
They are masters of urban topography, knowing every alley, every shortcut, every unpaved path between hills that a car could never navigate. Yet, this indispensable service comes at a cost. The agility that makes them effective also makes them perilous.
Accident rates are high, and lack of safety gear is a constant concern. The relationship between the public and the boda boda is one of simultaneous dependence and apprehension. They are a necessary risk, a pact made with fate for the prize of punctuality.
Attempts to regulate this force have been like trying to herd cats. Registration drives, mandatory helmet laws, and designated stages are well-intentioned, but the sheer scale and entrenched nature of the boda boda economy make enforcement a Herculean task.
This is more than a transport sector; it is a massive informal economy, providing a livelihood for a vast population of young men. To tame it completely is to risk strangling the city’s mobility and the financial survival of millions.
Ultimately, to understand Kampala is to understand its boda bodas. They are a manifestation of the city’s spirit: entrepreneurial, resilient, chaotic, and fiercely adaptive.
The intersection may seem like a vision of pure bedlam to the uninitiated, but with time, one begins to see the invisible threads that connect the riders.
There is a method to the madness, a shared, unspoken language of movement that keeps the city alive.
-The writer is a communications consultant
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By Mutahi Mureithi