The Two Thousand Shilling Curse

 

By Isaac Christopher Lubogo

“You were the knife. I was the hand. Together, we killed the future.”

“And Esau said to Jacob, I am at the point of death: what profit shall this birthright do to me?”

—Genesis 25:32

 

 

Prologue: The Note That Became a Nation’s God

 

There is a paper. A rectangular strip of sorrow. Brownish-red like the dried blood of betrayed dreams. It is not a sword, nor is it a sermon. It is the Two Thousand Uganda Shilling note. And yet, in these elections, it has become all three: a sword for political beheadings, a sermon for the blind faithful, and a signature on the covenant of national doom.

 

This note—so light in weight, yet heavy in consequence—has strutted arrogantly through our villages, our towns, our polling stations, like a seductive prostitute wrapped in the veil of democracy. She speaks not in policy, but in price. She campaigns not in vision, but in venom. Her slogan is simple, cruel, and non-negotiable: “Vote for the one who fed your stomach, not the one who speaks to your soul.”

 

 

Of Candidates and Judas Coins

 

Behold the candidate. His hands calloused not from tilling land or writing manifestos, but from folding note after note into sweaty palms of desperation. He arrives with a sack of paper but no sack of ideas. His speeches are like broken tambourines—empty noise made to distract from the hollow where integrity should have lived.

 

And then, there is the loser—not by lack of ideas, but by lack of change. He stood before the people like a prophet of reason, speaking the uncomfortable truths. But his words bounced off the walls of poverty and landed on deaf ears stuffed with rustling notes. He did not lose because he was wrong. He lost because he was not rich.

 

“Wulila mukwano,” an old woman says, squinting at the sky as the chopper of the vote buyer disappears beyond the hills, “he had good ideas, but good ideas do not buy salt.”

 

 

Humanizing the Note: When Money Grew Teeth

 

Imagine the Two Thousand Shilling note as a man. A short, cunning, red-eyed imp who walks into every village carrying a dagger made of hope and deceit. He laughs as he places himself into the trembling hands of the hungry. He whispers: “Eat today, and let tomorrow choke.”

 

He slaps the candidate with principles and kneels before the thief in a suit. He poisons youth with illusion, telling them politics is not a calling but a transaction. He erases dreams and rewrites destinies.

 

He is the Judas of Ugandan democracy, and every fingerprint on him is a confession of how low we have sunk.

 

 

The Voter as Esau: Selling Our Tomorrow for a Meal Today

 

Like Esau, we have sold our birthright. Our right to demand hospitals, schools, and roads. Our right to vision, to virtue, to voice. We have traded that sacred right for a sachet of waragi, a kilo of posho, and a note bearing the image of a drum whose rhythm now beats to the tune of corruption.

 

We, the people, have become like children in a burning house asking for biscuits instead of water.

 

The tragedy is not just that we took the money. The real tragedy is that we no longer feel ashamed. We call it “something small,” “transport,” “balancer,” or “chikumi bibiri.” But call a bribe by any other name, and it still stinks of death.

 

 

The Desecration of Politics

 

What is politics if not the management of our shared hope? But now, it is theatre. And the note is both actor and assassin.

 

True politics—a contest of ideas, a dialogue of destinies—has been murdered in cold daylight. The corpse is there at every polling station, bloated and stinking, buried beneath a pile of 2,000 shilling notes.

 

We no longer ask what a leader believes. We ask what he gives.

 

We no longer seek direction. We seek distribution.

 

We do not vote. We sell.

 

 

For the One Who Won: Beware the Throne of Debt

 

To the winner who bought his way, take heed: you do not sit on a throne, you sit on a loan. The electorate did not vote for you—they sold you their silence. You are now indebted to the witchdoctors, the moneylenders, the brokers, the ghosts of bribery past.

 

You will not sleep easy. You cannot govern freely. For every school you fail to build, every drug you fail to deliver, the echo will return: “He gave us 2k. What more do you want?”

 

Your legitimacy, like the note, will fade and fray.

 

 

For the One Who Lost: Your Integrity Is Your Crown

 

To the one who walked away with your soul intact, wear your loss like a badge of honour. The path of the unbought is steep, but history will one day vindicate you. While the crowd mocked you today, their children will weep tomorrow—and in their tears, they shall remember your name.

 

You are the Daniel in a den of votes.

 

The Joseph whose dreams were mocked in the pit of polling stations.

 

But keep the dream. One day, the famine of truth shall be so great that the people will return to you—not for money, but for salvation.

 

 

Can the Note Be Redeemed?

 

Is all hope lost? Not yet.

 

But we must begin by speaking truth to poverty. We must call out the culture that laughs at the honest and applauds the buyer of votes. We must teach that the note is not empowerment—it is enslavement. That leadership bought is leadership leased—to the highest briber, not the noblest mind.

 

We must hold up our mirror and confess: We, too, are the problem. And until we stop rewarding thieves with applause and punishing integrity with defeat, we will remain prisoners of a price-tagged democracy.

 

 

Final Word: When Tomorrow Asks Who Killed Uganda

 

When tomorrow comes, and hospitals still lack beds, and classrooms still echo with absence, and roads swallow the dreams of the poor, do not ask why. Instead, look at your old wallet. Find that torn 2k note, and whisper to it:

 

“You were the knife. I was the hand. Together, we killed the future.”

 

Let the sermon end where it began: with a man selling what should have been sacred—for a price far too low.

 

Let Esau weep. For we are him.

And our stomachs have grown full,

But our destiny,

Empty.

 

 

Signed,

Isaac Christopher Lubogo

Voice of a broken ballot. Watcher of Uganda’s political soul.

 

# Suigeneris

 

 

PART TWO THE COURT

 

 

THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA

IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUBLIC CONSCIENCE

AT KAMPALA

 

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 2025/UG-CONSCIENCE-002

 

 

THE PEOPLE OF UGANDA

Versus

THE TWO THOUSAND SHILLING NOTE

 

 

BEFORE: THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE MORALITY

WITH: LADY JUSTICE JUSTICE (Concurring Bench)

 

 

 

COURTROOM DRAMA TITLE: “The Price of a People: Uganda vs. the 2K Note”

 

 

SCENE OPENS

 

The courtroom is packed. The air is heavy. Children peep through the broken windows of justice. Elders murmur from the gallery. The two-thousand-shilling note sits solemnly in the dock, folded, frayed, blood-stained. Its ink slightly faded from being passed hand-to-hand like gossip at a funeral. The national flag drapes above the bench, barely waving—as though it, too, is tired of waving for the wrong reasons.

 

 

Clerk of Court (with heavy voice):

All rise! This Honourable Court of Public Conscience is now in session. Presiding: The Honourable Justice Morality, assisted by Lady Justice.

 

Judge Morality (sternly):

Call the accused.

 

Clerk:

Your Honour, the Republic of Uganda versus The Two Thousand Shilling Note, hereinafter referred to as “the Accused” or “Chikumi Bibiri.”

 

 

Judge Morality:

Accused, rise. State your name and occupation.

 

2K Note (clears throat, voice torn like its edges):

Your Lordships, I am the Two Thousand Shilling Note. Official legal tender of the Republic. My occupation? Transactional manipulation and democratic erosion.

 

(Gasps in the gallery.)

 

 

Judge Morality:

You are hereby charged with the following:

 

1. Bribery in the first degree

 

 

2. Undermining electoral integrity

 

 

3. Causing moral decay and intellectual bankruptcy

 

 

4. Conspiring with poverty to distort the will of the people

How do you plead?

 

 

 

2K Note:

Your Honour, I plead Not Guilty… but I do plead lonely. I am but paper. The real crime lies in the hands that passed me, and the stomachs that accepted me.

 

 

PROSECUTION: THE PEOPLE OF UGANDA

 

Prosecutor (a tattered Constitution, wearing a wig stitched from pages of the National Vision 2040):

My Lords, we present Exhibit A—the voting register, bloodstained with thumbprints bought at the price of porridge and betrayal.

 

Exhibit B—A mother who sold her vote for 2,000 shillings but cries daily at the locked gate of a government hospital where there are no medicines.

 

Exhibit C—A youth who danced for 2k and now walks to his grave, jobless, dreamless, and full of regrets.

 

We summon the first witness—The People of Uganda.

 

 

WITNESS BOX: THE PEOPLE OF UGANDA (as One Voice)

 

People (sobbing and shouting at once):

We were hungry. We were desperate. We were lied to. The note did not speak—but the hands behind it whispered sweet ruin.

 

We used to vote with dreams. Now we vote with stomachs. The 2K note told us, “Eat now. Die later.”

 

 

DEFENSE COUNSEL: LADY CORRUPTION (Slick, perfumed, dressed in a gold suit):

Objection, My Lords! The 2K note is an inanimate object. If the people are fools enough to sell their future, should we blame the coin or the conscience?

 

My client didn’t walk to their homes; they called for it. They kissed it. They danced for it. Even named their babies after it—“Kakumi Bibiri Lwanga.”

 

 

 

JUDGE JUSTICE (interrupting):

So what you’re saying is—because the people are gullible, it is permissible to exploit them?

 

 

Defense (smirking):

I’m saying poverty is the real criminal, and my client is simply its currency.

 

 

JUDGE MORALITY (stern, passionate):

 

Then let poverty be tried next! But today, this note is in the dock. And every stolen vote, every unbuilt hospital, every girl who dropped out because her MP built a mansion instead of a school—that blood is on your folds.

 

 

2K Note (softly, almost crying):

I was meant to buy sugar… not souls.

 

 

FINAL SUBMISSIONS

 

Prosecution (quietly):

Your Lordships, we do not ask for the destruction of the 2K note, but for the restoration of its purpose. Money is not evil—but when it becomes the medium for electoral prostitution, then it must be called to order.

Let this courtroom declare today that votes are not for sale, and leaders are not products.

 

 

JUDGMENT

 

Judge Morality (standing):

Having heard both sides, this Court rules:

 

The Two Thousand Shilling Note is guilty—not of its own volition, but as a weapon willingly wielded by both the oppressor and the oppressed.

 

Sentence:

Let it be printed no longer in shame. Let every voter be taught that democracy cannot be eaten.

Let this case be the last funeral of reason and the first resurrection of integrity.

 

Court is adjourned.

 

 

(As the gavel falls, the 2K note silently folds itself, a tear of ink dropping onto the cold courtroom floor. Outside, the winds whisper: “Never again. Never again.”)

 

 

 

Script and transcript prepared by:

Isaac Christopher Lubogo

Legal Philosopher. Witness to a Nation’s Trial of Conscience.

 

# SUIGENERIS