There have been two recent events far from the borders of Uganda, which should be instructive to Ugandans. The first one is a series of demonstrations in Budapest and other cities of Hungary against the Prime Minister for having lied to the people during the previous elections, which he won on the basis of the lies he told.

Having won the elections, the Prime Minister openly admitted that he lied about the state of the economy. As a consequence his party has fared very badly in the just concluded local government elections and the demonstrations calling for his resignation are still continuing.

It is a very serious matter for a leader to tell lies.

Does this remind Ugandans of President Museveni who lied in 2001, in writing and verbally in his speeches that he was asking to be elected for the last time in accordance with the constitution? I have seen the same lies reported in the press, this time through an assurance to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels by his representative in Juba, that Museveni will not cling to power.

I am not sure why these people should continue lying when arrangements and mechanisms are already in place for clinging to power. In fact more authoritative close people have already forecast his winning margin in 2011.

The people in Hungary take lying by a leader seriously. In Uganda, lying by the top leadership is routine and the people seem to have a high tolerance level for lying leaders.

The second event was the coup in Thailand against a Prime Minister, who had won elections three times and would have won again and again if the tanks had not cut short his populist rule. His support was mainly by the rural poor and ill-educated. The coup, perhaps precipitated by large demonstrations in Bangkok, was eventually supported by the king and the rebels in the south against whom the armed forces, which seized power, were fighting.

Surprisingly even members of parliament, now defunct, seem to think that the coup was justified. The international community also generally blessed it with mute silence. There has been no adverse impact to the economy. As a sign of normalcy the new ultra modern airport in Bangkok was opened on schedule just after the coup.

The Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra was considered a crook and a liar and was believed to be involved in grand corruption. He was not ashamed of using his position to advance his business interests. Thus, even the sale of his own telecommunications company to a foreign buyer just before the coup, was considered suspect. He used his wealth to advance his political ambitions and the elections he won were considered to have been bought with his money.

These are the types of things Ugandans have got used to for quite some time now. The lesson to be learned is that these things are no good for anyone, not even the current beneficiaries. Taking advantage of current positions of power may in the long run haunt the beneficiaries and lead to unexpected consequences. For a man who recently wanted to buy Liverpool Football Club, Thaksin obviously never expected to find himself a fugitive in London.

These developments elsewhere should serve as lessons to our rulers so that perhaps their arrogance could be moderated somewhat. There is always an unknown tomorrow.

Who knew that Museveni would be threatening to go and negotiate with Joseph Kony personally. He started with the usual arrogant stance setting the September 12 deadline.

Now we are in October and the sun has not stopped for him to finish his battle as it did for Joshua in the Bible. He moved the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue indictments against Kony and four of his senior commanders contrary to the advice of virtually everybody and now they have become the single most difficult hurdle to overcome for the peace process to be successfully concluded.

In addition to the north becoming accessible, more atrocities committed by his troops may be discovered and pressure will build for some of his commanders to be indicted also. Incidentally, these would not be his problems anymore if he had not embarked on his life presidency project. And it does not need a genius to see more problems on the horizon.

Perhaps I should have started by accounting for the absence of this column. Three weeks ago I was in Freetown, Sierra Leone, the one known for blood diamonds and another International Criminal Tribunal like the one in Arusha.

The airport at Freetown is on an island and the only means to the mainland is a helicopter shuttle. This is a unique hair-raising (even African hair) experience. Fortunately on the same flight there was the Honourable Justice Julia Sebutinde who had taken these chopper flights many times. She assured me that it would be okay to go by the chopper at night.

The chopper was very old and it was a dark night with rain pouring down. It took close to an hour to get on the chopper and it was overloaded with luggage and people. Eventually the Russian pilot started the engine and it groaned and creaked for sometime before it lifted off. The seven minutes it took to land on the mainland was like eternity.

Everyone in that chopper seemed not to breathe until it landed. On my return I had to take a ride by the chopper again but this time it was during the day and it did not seem to be so bad. I will return to Freetown with its freedom tree, Fourah Bay University, its many hills and extreme poverty, more rain and more green than anywhere in Uganda.