The News:  Former ministers and other top politicians have been implicated in stealing money meant for child immunisation and AIDS treatment programmes.

The Spin:

KAMPALA, May: A man who has been implicated in various cases of theft has pleaded for mercy, saying he is a good thief. Begging the authorities not to be arrested or punished in any other way, the man said that his acts of theft were motivated by a sense of patriotism.

“Everything I stole, I did it for the country,” said Mr. Jimmy Vision (not to be confused with his friend, Mr. Seven Visions) in his appeal to the authorities to spare him.

Mr Vision, who is accused of stealing money meant to buy drugs for people living with HIV and for immunising children, said that he took the money in order to give Ugandans a sense of pride and improve the country’s image abroad.

“As I was surfing the Internet in the course of my state duties, I noticed that Uganda was portrayed as a wretched country, with emaciated kids dying of disease and adults dying of poverty. There were all these stories of Uganda having a million people living with HIV. There was nothing positive being said about the country, so I decided to do something about it,” Mr. Vision explained.

“I decided to build palatial houses and buy luxury cars that would be the pride of Uganda, both at home and abroad. The foreign media would at least have one or two good things to write about Uganda. They would realise that not all of us are poor and sickly,” he said.
To realise his dream for the nation, Mr. Vision decided to steal funds donated by philanthropists to treat people living with HIV and to protect kids from preventable diseases.

“I chose the HIV and immunisation funds because, first of all, I happened to know the combination code of the safe where the money was kept and, secondly, because this would allow me to kill two birds with one stone.”

He explained that with the health funds, not only would he be able to buy for himself the luxury goods needed to improve the country’s image, but lack of medicines would also ensure that “all the poor and sickly people tarnishing our image die off quickly”.

With all the sick and poor people dead, he said, the foreign media could write about his nice houses and cars without any risk of being distracted by the sickly poor people.

“All this I did for the people of Uganda. Really, you could call me a modern Robin Hood, who steals from the poor to improve the life and image of the rich, and therefore the country,” said Mr. Vision.
He said that given an opportunity, he would do it all over again. It remains unclear whether the authorities will buy Mr. Vision’s argument and spare him.

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