Rowdy and unruly: The muddle caused by Uganda’s goons on motorbikes

By Jurgen Nambeka

You would think it’s a scene in the popular Netflix series ‘Squid Game’ as boda boda riders struggle through a chaotic swarm of other fellow riders, pedestrians, taxis, buses and heavy vehicles.

One moment a boda boda flashes full lights right in front of you, another one brushes you as it speeds to drop a customer, five more are riding in the opposite direction and bewilderment hits you, unable to distinguish whether the country drives on the left or right.

At one designated area in Kampala where they park waiting for customers, you wonder if these riders care about their safety. Worn out wheels, torn seats, no helmets and just a few with reflector jackets.

Along Bombo Road, one rider has inverted his bike just at the road side. Why? He has run out of fuel, and with little cash to afford petrol, he inverts it then reverts, and now, using his mouth, pumps air through the petrol tank. After a minute, he kickstarts the bike and vanishes out of sight.

Such is the scenario in several busy junctions of Kampala, Gulu and Lira, where every rider is in a hurry to help someone trying to beat the gridlock on their way to a destination.

But in this haste lies great lethality. Every individual using a boda boda in Uganda risks being among 10 people who lose their lives to boda boda accidents every day, according to a 2018 United Nations report.

Boda bodas, which are reported to have increased by 58.7 per cent since 2007, are believed to have emanated in the late 90s when business people used them to cross the Kenya - Uganda border to smuggle goods while evading tax levies.

The cross border movement led to the use of the word ‘boda’. Then ‘boda boda’ when many bikes increasingly crossed the border.

The form of transport was embraced because of the fast low-capacity transportation they provide for both the urban and rural people.

The speed, which many embraced the bi-wheelers for, is now crucial for Ugandans entering and leaving the cities of Kampala and Entebbe, who hugely depend on boda bodas for transportation.

There are slightly over a million boda bodas in Uganda, according to the UN, and they continue to grow because of their low initial cost from China. But many boda boda riders here acquire them through creditors and have to toil extra hard to service the loans.

With the boda bodas causing congestion and most of the road accidents, the Ugandan government put in place a mandatory law in 2004 that warrants every rider to wear a helmet while riding.

However, the number of boda bodas who do not use the helmets meant to protect them is still high and the police do little to enforce the law. Despite having law enforcement officers on most of the roads in Uganda’s urban centres, boda boda riders still form a major part of road users disregarding road traffic rules.

The Global Road Safety Partnership report of 2021 shows that road safety in Uganda has rapidly deteriorated in recent years, with boda bodas leading in the number of road accidents caused in major urban areas.

Riders who want to satisfy their customers’ quest for punctuality ride their motorcycles haphazardly as long as they ‘secure the bag’ .

The bikes they ride are not insured despite the Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda, Uganda Revenue Authority and Ministry of Works and Transport working together to attempt to improve the management of third party insurance operations by introducing a mobile payment platform.

Supposing the riders are involved in a mild accident, fleeing the scene of incidence not to be caught is their main way out.

Many times the riders flee to avoid attacks by bystanders, who in some cases may even steal the motorcycles. Whenever the police are involved, it is chaotic since the riders may be charged with failing to register the motorcycle, wearing a torn helmet, reckless driving, lacking a third party insurance cover and riding unroadworthy bikes.

According to the Ugandan law, anyone caught for reckless driving is fined between Sh39,000 and Sh60,000, which the boda boda riders who live from hand to mouth cannot afford. The alternative is a three-year imprisonment.

According to the 2021 World Bank’s Road Safety Country Profile report, Uganda has the highest number of mortalities on the roads in Africa. For every 100,000 people, 29 die in road accidents. There is a high probability of finding boda boda riders in Uganda without third party insurance cover.

A third party cover offers the boda boda operator whose motorcycle is insured protection against damage to the motorcycle, the rider and their personal belongings in case of an accident.

Without the insurance cover, any rider involved in a grisly road accident in Uganda has very low chances of recovering completely; with police reports saying that they record up to 300 serious accidents, 500 minor ones and 100 fatalities every month.

Figures indicate that of the 24,352 motorcyclists, passengers and pedestrians seriously injured in such accidents in three years, 16,000 were in Kampala.

The police argue that the accidents,  which in 2020 claimed the lives of 3,600 Ugandans, are as a result of reckless driving and congestion in the cities.

“I was riding my bicycle on the Northern Bypass in Kampala when a boda boda cyclist rammed into me from behind. I fell down and I don’t know how I was brought to the hospital. I don’t know what caused the accident because I was on the right side of the road,” one Helly Ebega, a security guard admitted at Rubaga Hospital, said.

A survey done by the New Vision newspaper indicates that Mulago Hospital’ s casualty ward, which has an official bed occupancy capacity of 52 beds, now admits about 150 patients every day.

“The hospital receives about 300 to 500 accident victims every day.  Half of these are victims of motorcycle accidents,” the report discloses. The hospital, the study says, is forced to leave many of the victims lying on verandahs and in the corridors unattended.

Nsambya and Rubaga hospitals also have a high number of motorcycle accident victims compared to other road accident victims.

At Rubaga Hospital, five of every six accident patients admitted are victims of motorcycle accidents, according to the research.

“At Nsambya hospital, most of the accident victims either fell off or were knocked by motorcycle.”

In many scenarios, a rider who makes between Sh900 and Sh1,300 a day cannot afford to be treated in a private hospital.

The few who can afford to get treatment at a public hospital suffer since some of the hospitals are not well equipped to handle fatal injuries. According to the UN, Uganda has inadequate rehabilitation services in health facilities. The few that have the service are under-resourced with a low number of workers, equipment, supplies and funding.

Many of the boda boda casualties end up staying at home for the fear of going to hospital and accumulating bills, which they cannot pay.

The pre-hospital care, which should guarantee them care as soon as they are involved in an accident, was not functional as per UN’s 2018 report. The service is, however, important since it determines whether the boda boda driver involved in the accident ends up disabled or dead in situations that could be managed.

It is astonishing that to save time, boda boda accident casualties are rushed to hospital by another boda boda, which may cause more injury. While the boda bodas have had traffic related disciplinary issues, the introduction of the SafeBoda solution has played a huge role in trying to clean up the industry.

The company, which was launched in 2015, uses a mobile application that allows a customer to book a boda boda and travel comfortably to their preferred destination.

Disparate from the normal boda bodas, once a motorist registers to be a rider with the company, they are trained on how to maintain their motorcycles, road safety and how to take care of a customer.

As soon as they are ready to start work, they are equipped with hairnets and spare helmets, which ensure that even their customers are protected and they feel safe during the ride. With increasing menace on the part of the normal boda boda rider, the SafeBoda cyclers are trackable and hence less likely to misbehave.

Before travelling, a customer enters the details of their destinations on the safe boda app. Within no time they are connected to a safe boda rider, who picks them at their pick up points and ensures they are comfortable and safe from when they board up to when their trip ends. They then pay the amount, which is generated by the app without interference from the rider.

SafeBoda offers a totally different experience compared to the normal motorcycle ride. “I have used both the normal boda boda and SafeBoda and can testify that the latter is better. They are less rowdy and more careful and will ensure you feel safe while traveling,” says Nobert Atukunda, an NTV Uganda journalist residing in Kampala.

Despite the dreamy subtle and less chaotic experience that the solution offers, several riders have complained of the service. Most of the riders who were once happy when the company topped up for customers paying less are now dispirited. An anonymous source from SafeBoda told Healthy Nation that half of the 25,000 registered users on the platform are not actively using it since the company has reduced the bonuses that attracted them at first.

Previously, the company was giving a 50- 100 per cent bonuses on every trip only for SafeBoda to drop its bonuses to 15 per cent and charge the riders a 5 per cent commission on every trip.

While all stakeholders in Uganda are considerate of how important the boda bodas are, an urgent need to completely regulate the sector remains.

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