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IN Luganda we have an apt proverb to deal with the noises emanating from Mr David Pulkol, twice Director General of External Intelligence, difficult though it is to envisage how this came about. The proverb goes, âGwowonya eggere yalikusambyaâ. âWhose putrifying foot you cure is the one who kicks you with it afterwards.â A few years ago, Mr Pulkol was serving outside Uganda for a branch of the United Nations. However, it became clear the contract would not be renewed. And what do you suppose this selfless, upstanding son of Karamoja did? He sought out the same President Museveni, whom he is now busily kicking in the media, and told him that he was coming back to Uganda because his work was here. Lucky fellow, he fell straight into the director generalship. I bet Museveni smelt like the choicest rose to him at that moment. Where and when did it go so wrong? I remember a day more than a year ago when a meeting was called to discuss the China Keitetsi affair. (Keitetsi was causing a furore at the time, but in part because of our committee which was set up to look into her misdeeds, her evil star waned rapidly.) The meeting included Mr Pulkol as Director General. When it came his turn to speak his delivery was in the manner of a tremendous waterfall. At the end, I discovered I had understood less than ten percent of his over-passionate contribution. Now with his talk of people trying to kill him by asking waiters whether he drinks his tea at the Africana Hotel with milk or no milk (surely it would be most wrong to kill you in either case), I think I can see where the gentleman is headed. And indeed when you read intelligence thrillers, it is often the case that many of the characters soon get paranoid, with delusions in the moonlight that every bush and tree will kill them. What a difference from the carefree guy Pulkol was about seven years ago! Then his cry was, âI am Pulkol from Karamoja. You pull and you call!â We loved it. May he soon return to those golden days. Sad that through all his recent whining it wonât have been before he gave Andrew âTsetse Flyâ Mwenda the chance to write in Wednesdayâs Monitor the headline, Tough serving a dictator, with a grinning Pulkol beside it. Pulkol a dictator; whatever next?
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