There's no better way to describe our natural endowment than to say that we are gifted by jiggers. The chap who coined "Gifted by Nature" should have done the needful as to say, "Gifted by Jiggers".

The common feature on billboards in Kampala during the Chogm season should have depicted jigger-infested Ugandan souls- of Sogie extract- flashing beamy smiles with rusty teeth saying: "We're ready for Chogm." And these jigger-souls should have lined-up along the airport runway to see Her Majesty the Queen off her royal plane, in the true spirit of Chogm.

We missed seeing someone dripping with jiggers shake hands with the Queen and her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at dinner at the magnificent statehouse, Entebbe. We just missed the real opportunity to show-case our jigger potential, and believe me this could have moved some heavy investor to invest in the sector- of course with the help of the Ugandan taxpayer!

Watching jiggers torment the people living on the other side of the Nile, on a local TV news bulletin, sent me thinking. Their jigger-worn-out limbs took me down memory lane to the days we rubbed our jigger-feet against the rough papyrus while sharing a room with our grandmother. We scratched our feet with such relish, while galloping heavy mounds of saliva.

It was an exercise that drew immense pleasure and sored our feet…enjoying the fingers work between the jigger toes. I could only compare it to that bottomless pleasure that lets-off when two adults of opposite gender are having an Armageddon.

The Nile jiggers, if well-tapped, could give us that comparative advantage now that the East African borders are fully opened. We have for long made noise against opening up to the Common Market on the notion that Uganda would lose out since we have nothing to sell. Common sense dictates that we look beyond the ordinary and set our eyes to what we can do best- and one of these is extracting and exporting jiggers quarter-free and duty-free!

The jigger-infested limbs and, if you like, buttocks, could ensure a steady supply of this precious commodity. The market is there, with jiggers being a very rich source of proteins second to fish. The total number of East Africans is estimated at 140 million. Sudan and DR Congo will soon be part of the EAC, giving a boon to the business.

This is on assumption that we have satisfied the domestic market because Ugandans can't miss out on this mouth-watering delicacy. I mean we have consumed jiggers at one Hajjat's eating kafunda, downtown Kampala, and subsequently drunk jiggers squashed in her juice. And we seem to grow healthy by day.

A jigger project would call for serious innovation and investment. Having identified that our brethren of "Dhamera deene" ("They grew alone") spawn jiggers just as they give birth to the Nile, government should move quickly to court investors, and the Indian investors would do good business here. (Indians have got an equal share of jiggers like their Ugandan counterparts.)

In the same way we have dolled out forests, graveyards, free housing infrastructure and a steady flow of billions from Bank of Uganda to our foreign investors, like was with Kananathan (a DJ from Sri-Lanka), we could extend the same goodies to our jigger investors. We could also accord them tax holidays and tax waivers since they would employ countless Ugandans, many of them Sogies, significantly fighting poverty and widening our revenue base.

To maintain a constant supply of jiggers, local politicians and LC Chairmen, as part of their wealth-creation drive, would encourage their subjects to produce more jigger-infested offspring because the bigger the number, the bigger the number of infested fingers and toes- and you know what that means in jigger terms.

Actually the locals could be advised to rear these jigger-offspring in farms, along the model of NAADS farms, so as to tap into the Bonna Bagaggawale cash that comes with such level of orderliness.

The jigger farms would see to it that our dear president, the champion of Bonna Bagaggawale, visits "prosperous" jigger farmers to commend them for their poverty fight and give them tips on value addition. At a colouful ceremony, the big man would remember to handover brown envelopes to successful jigger farmers and call on other investors to invest in the lucrative project.

I can't wait to see this dream turn into reality. I can't wait to see Uganda become a regional jigger-basket. I can't wait to see the big man appoint a state minister in charge of jiggers, and perhaps an advisor on jigger matters in Busoga.

We all give it to Busoga politicians, many of whom occupy juicy government portfolios. They have lived to see Busoga emerge as the country's jigger-house. Busoga commands more-than-quarter of government's appointments, right from the Minister of Internal Affairs to a host of junior ministers. At one time they had the Vice President and Chief Justice. It boggles me, and anybody reading this column, why such a region, enjoying a fair share of government aristocracy, would take the lead in jigger production and harvesting in the East African Community.

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