THE NRM PRIMARIES AND THE LAWS OF WEALTH

Last week after the dust had settled, a little bit, on the ruling NRM’s parliamentary primaries, rumours began to swirl about the cost incurred by individual candidates during the campaign.

Prices ranged from sh500 million on the lower side (!) to sh2.5 billion at the extreme. There were many questions that came to mind, not least of all, what a staggering waste of money this was—for the losers, obviously, but perhaps even more so for the winners. 

If these figures are anywhere close to the truth, then many of these men and women missed their true calling. With that kind of fundraising prowess, they should have been in venture capital or NGO development work.

But the more sobering realisation is how the basic laws of money and wealth creation were being not just broken, but mocked.

These are people who, at least on paper, are supposed to know better.

When I first read The Richest Man in Babylon

, it felt like having my grandfather sit me down for a fireside chat about money—complete with parables, cautionary tales, and just enough repetition to make sure the lesson stuck. That book, with its ancient wisdom wrapped in simple storytelling, hammers home one thing: money is not magic. It’s not luck. It’s law. Obey the law, and money obeys you. Disregard it, and it’ll flee faster than a Ugandan politician at a corruption inquiry.

“If you treat money well, it will look after you.” That could have been said by Arkad himself, the titular richest man in Babylon. He famously taught, “A part of all you earn is yours to keep.” Not to lend to your cousin. Not to splurge at the bar. Yours to keep. That one principle alone—saving at least 10% of your income has built more wealth than any forex signal or crypto tip ever will.

We see it here too. The mama mboga who saves a small cut of each day’s profit in her mobile wallet. The teacher who contributes faithfully to her SACCO. The boda rider who resists buying a newer bike on debt and instead builds a plot fund slowly over time. They’re practising Babylonian finance, whether they know it or not. They’re treating money with respect.

And Stuart Wilde would say that matters. In The Trick to Money Is Having Some, he insists that wealth starts in your energy field.

“Your external world is a mirror of your internal world,” he wrote. People who think poorly of money—who fear it, misuse it, or idolise it create financial instability around them. But those who relate to it calmly, with purpose, create a flow. They attract opportunities, they make better choices, and crucially—they

keep what they earn.

Wilde didn’t mean that in a mystical “wish-it-and-it-will-come” sense. He meant that your financial outcomes are shaped by your beliefs and habits. The man who believes he is always broke, who sees wealth as unattainable, will act accordingly—avoiding investment, borrowing recklessly, living for the next payday.

RichDad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki echoes this with his no-nonsense refrain: “It’s not how much money you make. It’s how much you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.” If you don’t give your money a task—to invest, to build, to earn returns—it becomes dead weight.

My favourite American Warren Buffett has never had time for dead money. “Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.” It's basic, but genius. Saving must come first, not as an afterthought but as a command. Buffett, after all, made most of his billions

after the age of 60. His wealth wasn’t about hitting the jackpot—it was about playing the game right for long enough.

Charlie Munger, his ever-curmudgeonly sidekick, was even more succinct: “The first rule of compounding: never interrupt it unnecessarily.” Once your money starts working, get out of its way. Don't cash in early, don’t panic-sell, don’t treat your investment account like an ATM.

But back to Babylon. Arkad also warns about listening to the wrong people. “Advice is one thing that is freely given away,” he says, “but watch that you take only what is worth having.” In Kampala-speak: beware the guy at the kafunda who always has a hot stock tip, a land deal in Mukono, or a shortcut to “financial freedom.” That’s not money advice. That’s how money disappears.

Here’s the kicker: all this ancient and modern wisdom agrees on one thing. You have to treat money well.

That doesn’t mean obsess over it. Wilde warns against that too: “Chasing money is like trying to catch your shadow. You must stand still and let it come to you.” In other words, focus on value. Build something. Save something. Learn something. And the money will follow.

Our economy may be informal, our incomes volatile, and inflation while a distant memory now, 

always lurking in the shadow. But the principles hold. Spend less than you earn. Save before you spend. Avoid dumb debt. Make your money earn...

At every turn of the campaigns our prospective MPs flouted these rules and will invariably pay the price.

So what does it mean to treat money well? It means paying yourself first, like Arkad said. It means thinking long-term, like Buffett. It means avoiding panic, like Munger. It means respecting the flow of energy, as Wilde puts it. And above all, it means refusing to be passive. Because money doesn’t look after those who wait for it. It looks after those who manage it.

That wisdom, applied to money, compounds like the shilling in a well-managed account. Slowly, quietly, inevitably. The lesson is the same: money is not random. It is a reflection of your relationship with it. And if you treat it with care, it will return the favour—with interest.