KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The young men on the motorbikes looked dazed in the morning heat. But when they spotted a potential passenger, they fired up their machines angrily and tried to outsmart each other for the cause.
For tens of thousands of men in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, it’s a way to make money. For others, the racing motorbikes embody the chaos of the city as an essential but threatening means of transportation.
The motorcycle taxis, known locally as boda-bodas, are ubiquitous in East African capitals such as Nairobi and Kigali. But nowhere in the region have boda-boda numbers increased more dramatically than in Kampala, a city of 3 million people with no public transport system and sky-high unemployment.
There are an estimated 350,000 boda-bodas operating in Kampala. They are men who come from all parts of Uganda and say there is no other work for them.
“We are just doing this because we have nothing to do,” said a driver, Zubairi Idi Nyakuni. “All of us here, even other people, have their degrees, they have their master’s degrees, but they are just here. They have nothing to do.”
The boda-boda men, who operate largely unregulated, have resisted recent attempts to evict them from the narrow streets of Kampala’s central business district, frustrating city authorities and underscoring the government’s fears of the consequences of angering a horde of unemployed men.
“We need to understand where boda-boda came from, how this whole phenomenon has grown,” said Charles M. Mpagi, spokesman for Tugende, a Kampala-based company that specializes in financing boda-boda purchases. “You have quite a large number of young people who cannot find work, whether it is in the public sector or the private sector, and they do not have significant alternative income to go into other ventures.”
About 76% of Uganda’s 43 million people are under 35, according to government figures. Jobs are scarce in an economy where just 1% of the 22.8 million workers earn $270 or more a month, according to central bank figures released earlier this year.
Uganda’s unemployment rate — as a percentage of unemployed people relative to the total labor force — grew from 9% in 2019 to 12% in 2021, according to the latest survey by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. The unemployment rate for people between the ages of 18 and 30 was even higher, at 17%. For young people in urban areas, it was 19%.
President Yoweri Museveni, an authoritarian in power since 1986, has long embraced boda-boda men as mobilizers of political support. Political rallies come alive with the honking of their motorbikes, the commotion of which can bring communities to a standstill.
Motorcycles first appeared as a means of transport on the Uganda-Kenya border during the political instability of the 1970s. The term ‘boda-boda’ was derived from drivers shouting ‘border, border’ at potential customers.
At that time they were also a fast way to transport smugglers and their merchandise.
Today they are everywhere in Uganda, taking children to school, people to the office, the sick to clinics and even the dead to their graves.
When Uganda’s transport minister was wounded by gunmen who killed his daughter in 2021, a boda-boda man rushed him to hospital. But the attackers were also on motorbikes and fled.
Motorcycle taxis are named as accomplices in violent crimes, according to annual police reports. In addition, the number of fatal accidents involving motorcycles in Uganda has increased from 621 in 2014 to 1,404 in 2021, according to the Ministry of Works and Transport.
“We are struggling with these motorcycles,” said Winstone Katushabe, a government commissioner responsible for transport regulation. “It is not a good situation.”
According to him, a culture of non-compliance with traffic and road safety rules has developed among boda-boda men. Also, establishing official stands for motorcycle taxis in Kampala would help restore order.
Motorcycle safety regulations, first approved in 2004, are difficult to enforce due to the overwhelming number of boda-bodas. Traffic police watch as boda-boda men race through traffic lights and overtake dangerously. They are often unable to make arrests due to the risk to public order, as drivers quickly move in front of each other, causing crowds.
The boda-boda phenomenon has grown as Uganda’s president has remained in power. In recent years, in an attempt to weaken support for his opponents among the unemployed, Museveni has given boda-bodas to supporters and promised to reduce the license fee from nearly $100 for three years.
The fee will drop to about $35 under new rules announced earlier this month, according to the Transport Licensing Board, making it even easier to become a boda-boda man.
The other entry level price is around $1,500 for a new motorcycle, often the Indian-made Bajaj.
Many boda-boda men buy equipment on credit through companies like Tugende. Others work for businessmen who buy motorcycles in bulk and distribute them to drivers, but can repossess them if drivers are behind on their payments.
Boda-boda men who do not have a license and helmet risk having their motorcycles impounded by police. Some drivers told the AP that their aggressive behavior on the road is driven by that fear of arrest or confiscation.
Innocent Awita, a boda-boda man who left school in 2008, said there was “too much pressure” to keep his motorbike. He has to pay his employer the equivalent of $4 a day, in addition to fuel and maintenance. A disagreement with his employer could leave him jobless.
Some days are better than others, but Awita says sometimes he doesn’t earn enough to make the daily payment.
“I can work for three days without getting anything. But if I get something the next day, it could save my life,” he said.
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