The dark side of Uganda's boda boda boom

The number of people who died in traffic incidents in Uganda rose by more than 10 percent in the past decade, despite global road traffic deaths falling by five percent per the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Uganda Police Force statistics attributed nearly 45 percent of deaths caused by road accidents in 2023 to motorcycles. Across the past decade, the spike in motorcycle-related accidents and the opening of wards in hospital facilities dedicated to motorcycle-accident victims has corresponded with a telling increase in imported motorcycles. 
According to a dataset by the taxman, the average motorcycle imports in Uganda for the entire year is between 140,000 and 150,000 units.
Over time, motorcycle taxis, popularly known as boda bodas, have gained notoriety for violating traffic regulations at a great cost. While the boda bodas fill gaps in public transport services, a compliance rate with a directive around wearing helmets has not helped matters. Boda riders, who on average earn just under Shs23,000 each day, evidently view buying helmets as a major expense. This is despite entities such as Boda Plus setting up a manufacturing plant for two-wheeler helmets in East Africa.
“Politicians in Uganda on both sides protect boda bodas because they see them as a constituency that votes for them. Also they are a very useful political tool,” says Mr Tom Courtright, a postgraduate student at the University of Cape Town whose doctoral research revolves around the political economy of the two wheelers.
Powerful constituency
In May this year, leaders of loose associations for motorcycle taxis in Kampala City and Wakiso District met President Museveni. This was after undergoing an eight-day patriotism training at the Oliver Reginald Tambo School of Leadership and Pan-African Centre of Excellence, Kaweweta, Nakaseke District. Uganda’s President since 1986 was accosted for impounding bodas for violating traffic regulations, including carrying more than one passenger. The boda riders also sought Mr Museveni’s help in lowering fees on their permits.
“One of the challenges you are facing is driving licence charges which are at the same rate as that of a motor vehicle. I have never heard about it because you put a curtain on Kampala, so you are always there with your Opposition people […] we don’t get to know what is happening on that side,” President Museveni said.
He added: “The Member of Parliament is supposed to raise such issues and [the Kampala City Lord Mayor Erias] Lukwago, what is their role? And it is you who voted for them. But that is going to change, we are going to change the fees. You said we should reduce the charges to at least Shs100,000. I’m going to work on that.”
A month later, the Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety asked riders whose motorcycles had been impounded and parked at the police stations for “no cases”, to pick them up.
On August 1, 2024, the Works and Transport ministry reduced the riding licence fees from Shs135,000 to Shs100,000. The rider learner’s licence fees were also reduced from Shs60,000 to Shs40,000 as per the boda boda riders’ request to President Museveni. The reductions speak to how boda boda riders are in Mr Museveni’s good graces. Whenever the local government and law enforcement agencies attempt to regulate the boda boda industry, they find resistance from the President and his team.
Failed attempts
Mr Saidi Kirumira, a former chairperson of boda boda riders in Kampala Central Division, says the struggle to regulate the boda boda industry has been going on for more than 25 years without success.
“The former Traffic Commander for Kampala Extra, Gabriel Tebayungwa, and Kampala City Council (now Kampala Capital City Authority) attempted to regulate the boda boda industry, but it only worked for a few months and collapsed because of politics,” Mr Kirumira says.
In September 2002, KCC and the police carried out an exercise in which they registered boda bodas in the city to regulate their operations. The authority wanted to test all riders and also train them on how to operate on the road before establishing stages for them. The riders were to operate from the divisions they were registered from. Each rider was to have a unique number for easy tracing.
“We had green and yellow numbers. They could be given to riders who had all requirements and qualified to operate on the road. The resident district commissioners (representatives of the President) opposed giving each rider a number. They wondered why a motorcycle should have a second number plate,” Mr Kirumira says.
After a few months, the success of the exercise went up in the air. Illegal stages were established, prompting intervention by the police. Mr Kirumira remembers politicians bitterly protesting the police crackdown. The authorities were left with little choice but to involve the riders in the enforcement of the regulations. This was akin to the arrangement they had with commuter taxi vans under Uganda Taxi Operators and Drivers Association (Utoda).
In 2004, registered riders elected their own leaders in the city and they would enforce regulations and standards among boda boda operators. Mr Kirumira was among the elected boda boda leaders.
“I served for five years, but in hardship. I was detained three times because we were fighting rogue riders on the road. I was embarrassed and lost control of the members,” Mr Kirumira recalls, adding that they were unable to punish rogue riders because they were not mandated to do so by law.
Enter Kuboca
The boda boda riders established Kampala Union Boda Boda Cyclists Association (Kuboca) led by Mr Abdu Masokoyi to help police as traffic wardens in May 2006. Dressed in pink shirts and black trousers, Kuboca teams targeted riders committing traffic offences.
Sanity was brought back on the road. Riders respected traffic lights. They couldn’t use the opposite way on the road and wearing reflector jackets was strictly adhered to.
Despite joining Kuboca as volunteers, some traffic wardens turned their roles into permanent jobs. Since they were not paid by any institution, they turned to errant riders whom they would arrest and extort money from. 
In 2006, Tom Jjulunga—a former Forum for Democratic Change supporter who would go to be claimed by a police bullet on June 6, 2009—alongside his boda boda riders staged a protest. The group blocked President Museveni’s convoy on Bombo Road and demanded his intervention to put an end to harassment of what they termed as corruption engendered by the police in tandem with Kuboca.
After giving the Jjulunga group audience, President Museveni immediately engaged Gen Kale Kayihura, the police chief then, on phone. Gen Kayihura not only denied conniving with any riders’ group to solicit bribes but also said he wasn’t aware of the existence of Kuboca wardens. President Museveni instantly relayed the message to the boda boda riders, who were watching him. He said Kuboca wardens were illegal.
The jubilant riders went on rampage hunting Kuboca’s wardens on the road. Many of Kuboca’s leaders would later be charged with different offences. These ranged from embezzlement to illegal possession of firearms and they were jailed.
Life after Kuboca
The vacuum left by Kuboca was occupied by more chaos, especially in the city centre. In September 2008, city authorities were fed up with the chaos of boda boda. They agreed with the police to ban boda bodas in the central business district. September 21, 2008 was the D-day when the ban was to be effected. The police, however, halted enforcement of the ban on grounds that some stakeholders had not been consulted, which annoyed the then KCC Town Clerk, Ms Ruth Kijjambu, who accused Gen Kayihura of betrayal since he had attended the planning meeting and even backed the ban.
On the eve of the implementation of the ban, Gen Kayihura received instructions from the State House to enforce the order. President Museveni would later say that the KCC ban was going to deprive the poor boda boda riders from earning a living. The boda boda riders celebrated the President’s action and promised to canvas for him votes during the general elections.
Two years later, Kampala City authorities and the police went back to the drawing board and regurgitated the same plan to reduce boda boda stages in the city centre to only 100 and also block any riders without traffic requirements.
Gen Kayihura halted the operation days after it had commenced after he met Mr Moses Byaruhanga, a special presidential aide on politics, and National Resistance Movement Party leaders. The politicians pleaded with Gen Kayihura to give riders more time to prepare their exit. They never left the city centre.
Looking back, Gen Kayihura has few good words for Kampala Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) whom he accused of conniving with some boda boda leaders to extort money from cyclists.
“There are some leaders in government who have been extorting money from boda boda cyclists. When I stopped them, they sent reports to the State House that I was extorting money from boda boda cyclists,” Gen Kayihura told Daily Monitor in a recent interview.
The former police chief accused city RDCs of imposing illegal fines as high as Shs30,000 on a cyclist. Fred Bamwine, who was then the RDC for Nakawa Division, confirmed to have authored a dossier about boda boda and sent it to the State House. He, however, denied it containing any attacks against Gen Kayihura.
“I wrote to the government to reduce the fines they charge boda boda cyclists because they are too high and keep cycles out of work. As the chairman of security, my work is to reduce crime and not to create it,” Mr Bamwine said.
Museveni intervenes, again
Round about the same time, with electioneering gaining traction ahead of the 2011 poll, the police brought in tough traffic regulations to reduce fatalities and injuries. One of the regulations was to enforce use of helmets by both the rider and passenger. The regulation was strictly enforced for more than a week. The boda boda riders ran to President Museveni, who stopped the arrest of passengers wearing no helmets, saying sharing helmets would lead to spread of skin diseases.
The enforcement of passengers wearing helmets hasn’t been enforced since.
Months later, the police grew impatient with the existing boda boda leadership and created another group called Boda Boda 2010 led by Mr Abdullah Kitatta. The Boda Boda 2010 group, who were aligned to the National Resistance Movement party, turned themselves into traffic wardens and investigators.
Mr Kanyike Kiviiri, a boda boda rider, said members of Boda Boda 2010 used to impound motorcycles from the riders on allegations that they were not registered with their association.
“The Boda Boda 2010 group, which was allied to the police, would hold their victims in their cells where they would be tortured before extorting money from them,” Mr Kiviiri says.
Some riders and local authorities didn’t continue to resist the new boda boda leadership, which was aligned to the police.
Fall of Boda Boda 2010
Boda boda 2010 didn’t solve the problem. The group continued its violence until it ran out of the favour of the ruling party. Mr Kitatta and some of his colleagues in Boda Boda 2010 were arrested in 2018 and charged with illegal possession of firearm in a military court, where they were convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Sanity was not brought back, but riders established more illegal stages and normalised breaking traffic regulations.
Ms Jennifer Musisi, the first KCCA executive director, also came with nearly the same plan to regulate riders. This was after she entered office in 2011. Ms Musisi’s ideas, however, didn’t see the light of the day.
KCCA created its own traffic unit and sent wardens on the roads to enforce traffic rules against boda boda riders. Martins Okoth Ochola, Gen Kayihura’s successor as Inspector General of Police, directed them to cease. Mr Ochola reasoned that it is only police officers allowed to enforce traffic-related law. His directive still stands.
In June 2022, Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja directed the Ministry of Kampala and Metropolitan Affairs to register all boda bodas and regulate them by September 2022. 
Both the implementation of the registration and regulations would, if successful, see only 7,000 boda boda riders operate in the city. The project has since collapsed.
What next?
Mr Michael Kananura, the spokesman of the Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety and Superintendent of Police, believes that boda boda riders can adhere to the regulations if the passengers insist on boarding only those that meet them. 
“If a passenger rides on only boda bodas that have requirements and abide by the standards, the riders also respect the law. Unfortunately, many passengers don’t care, and so do the riders,” Mr Kananura says. 
Mr Tom Courtright, a postgraduate student at the University of Cape Town whose doctoral research revolves around the political economy of the two wheelers, partly agrees with Mr Kananura, saying it would take real power if the regulations are to be implemented. 
“But unfortunately the political side is unwilling to do that.” With several stakeholders failing to act, the ball is now back in the police’s yard. Mr Kananura says the Traffic and Road Safety Director, Mr Lawrence Nuwabiine, has been supportive to their troops on ground when politicians call him to halt operations against errant motorists, especially boda boda riders. 
He says the only need is to sustain the operations against riders that have no requirements and “when we sustain the operations, we see good results.” Traffic officers are, however, so thin on the ground to the extent that they cannot enforce the regulation. It has not helped matters that the digital number plate project that the police hoped to be a force multiplier in enforcing the law is mired in controversy