The Indian Ocean does not speak any of the 21 modern Indian languages: Assamese, Bangla, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Kannada, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Santali, Sindhi, and Urdu.
Thus, one wonders how it became the Indian Ocean. Did somebody ask it in Luganda or Swahili if it was an ocean and it kept quiet? Thereby forcing the asker to conclude that, since it does not know Swahili or Luganda, it must be Indian? Or did its siblings, the Pacific and Atlantic, deport it in 1972 to its current location? We might never know.
But what we do know are a few facts about the Indian Ocean that are sure to blow your mind. Are you seated? Good. Because these facts are stubborn and will not change because you have stood up to admonishingly wag your index finger at them.
One: The Indian Ocean is the world’s third-largest ocean and covers around one-fifth of the Earth’s surface. It spans over 27 million square miles, which, in square miles, is the same number of guns that it took to make Obote’s government run a mile. Mzee says if these 27 miles are the preserve of Kenya, then so will the revolution be. Yet Kenya couldn’t recognise a revolution if it fell in love with it and called it ‘Boo’ and the revolution replied in the same fashion. Only to realise that ‘Boo, Kenya’ is a Muganda or a country that’s being frightened by a ghost.
Two, the ocean may have first begun to open around 140 million years ago, most of its seafloor is less than 80 million years old. That’s young in terms of earth’s geological timeline. However, this makes it old enough to vote. That’s why Kenya and Uganda want it.
Their regimes need voters. Especially Uganda. We are in our election cycle, and old voters must counteract the power of the Gen Zs. Also, old is gold. And so Mzee believes that it must be mined or whatever they do to get it. Karamoja’s gold cannot sustain the country. The ocean must be captured to keep Mzee blinged up sufficiently to have the swag that convinces Gen Zs that old is also young, if we’re to audit it in earnest.
Three, a unique fact about the Indian Ocean is that the water currents in its northern part change direction twice a year. So, part of the year, they face Mt Kenya like Mzee Kenyatta once did and the other part of the year, they turn their back on Kenya to face off with Uganda like Mzee Kenyatta’s suspected father Kabalega once did. In other words, the water currents are two-faced and this year, their two faces resemble Mzee and his counterpart, whose name rhymes with Bhutto.
The Indian Ocean is home to Tromeline Island (a French territory). It is uninhabited. In 1761, a French ship that was carrying slaves was wrecked on Tromeline Island, and while the French crew was saved quickly, around 60 enslaved people were left behind. Fifteen years later, a French rescue mission returned and amazingly found a few survivors – seven women and one baby boy. It is believed that these seven women gave birth to a single baby and these are the true Abaseveni, the women.
As for the baby, he is believed to be somewhere in Entebbe or Nakasero. Named after his seven mothers, amid cows that go Moo to provide the first syllable in his name, his whereabouts are sketchy. The seven mothers are believed to be immortal, like the baby. Bachwezi never die; they multiply. That’s how seven mothers and a baby turned into 40 years in power and counting, until you inevitably lose count.
If none of these facts have made any sense to you, then you could be the problem; set adrift on the tropical waters of your own oceanic indifference to what’s truly going on. Kenya and Uganda have not agreed on anything.
They have only agreed to disagree with whoever agrees that the Indian Ocean belongs to either country when it’s not called the Kenyan or Ugandan Ocean. It’s Indian and, therefore, must be handled Delhi-cately.