Museveni goes on all fours for votes

New Vision’s February 5, 2009 picture showing the President doing push-ups, ostensibly to show the nation a) how fit he is and b) presumably how fit potential voters should think he is when they come to consider whether or not he is still physically capable of running the country for the rest of his life.

American politicians burp toddlers and kiss babies for votes; the Ugandan president goes on all fours and does physical contortions for the same. The end justifies the means, yes?

No need to show the picture to your gym instructor; anyone with the most basic knowledge of proper push-up etiquette can tell you that Museveni’s butt is too high but who cares? His audience seems totally rapt – which was the point of the entire exercise.

Abeewo, Museveni abeewo.

Is Ugandan Dual Citizenship still up for discussion?!!! Psssss!!

I have just been to a baby shower for a dear, dear lady who is about to bring a Ugandan-American citizen into the world. Hip, hip, hooray!

While we were enjoying the sumptuous dinner and drinks put on by our most lovely and gracious hosts, the subject of dual citizenship came up and, to my astonishment, I learnt that Uganda has still not yet granted dual citizenship to her citizens!! For some reason I had thought that the subject had been resolved, but I was disabused of my notions at the baby shower and advised that there are still deliberations going on somewhere between Parliament and the president’s office.

I was incredulous!!

What exactly is it going to take for those guys down there to come to their senses and wrap up this simple matter? According to H.E. the President of Uganda himself, coffee exports from Uganda earned $348 million in 2007/08 and disbursements from the Ugandan diaspora overseas brought in $476 million in the same period. And this has been the story for four years now for as the government of Uganda confirmed in 2004:

In September 2004, the government of Uganda took a bold decision and declared emigrant workers a noble trade, after disclosing it had overtaken tourism, coffee and fish as the country’s leading foreign exchange earner.

Why then do Ugandans working abroad (kyeeyos) have to continue to beg for dual citizenship when they can literally cripple Uganda Inc. by cutting off the money flows? Is the government of Uganda really serious about its priorities? Apart from supporting the social services (school fees in private schools for relatives, medical fees in private clinics and hospitals, construction of homes and businesses, daily upkeep of whole families etc) that the Uganda government has manifestly failed to provide, what more are the kyeyoos supposed to do to be granted what they deserve and have more than earned?

So here is a plea to Mr. Museveni:

Your excellency Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. The kyeeyos earned the right to dual citizenship years ago as the economic realities you yourself have cited clearly illustrate. He who pays the piper calls the tune but the kyeeyos have been more than accommodating in not simply walking up to your office and demanding that you sign the dual citizenship legislation … or else. You might recall that in 2006 you directed that school land be handed over to an investor to build a hotel, a hotel that is still not built to this day, meaning that 3000 children were banished from their school needlessly. You precipitously ordered Shimoni razed three years before there was any pressing need to simply because … you could. In fact, in your 23 years as president, you have made more directives than some Ugandans have had hot dinners.

Given that the kyeeyos are supporting the Ugandan economy to the level they are, it is way past time for you to make a directive on this matter, a matter whose benefits are not an ‘investor’ promise in the future but a reality today.

Please grab a pen and sign dual citizenship into law as soon as possible, in any case not later than end of March 2009. Or else …

Related Articles: Govt Introduces Law on Dual Citizenship

Too many unnecessary Asians employed in Uganda!

A reader opines:

“Though many Ugandans were shocked by the Amins brutal way he expelled the Indians, most of those who were old enought then were hesistant in picking a side, because they viewed the Indians as a greedy bunch of arrogant money-minded “visitors”

On the contrary, Ugandans did pick a side in that 1972 confrontation and quite emphatically at that. There was dancing in the streets and, for about a year after the Indians had been kicked out, the most popular song on radio was Ssebadduka’s kadongo-kamu hit chronicling the Indians’ abusive ways. In a word it was telling the Indians that “twabawona” (good riddance).

To a certain extent, the Indians have not learnt from that lesson if their ways these days are anything to go by. Karim Hirji remains the most hated boss in the whole of Uganda right now and his employees first pray that he stays alive long enough for them to get their paltry pay cheques, and then they pray that he dies a miserable death, preferably from a prolonged and painful disease. He is legendary for humiliating managers in public and throwing hissy tantrums as well as objects at employees. Sudhir is no better. Both these men employee at least 500,000 people in Uganda, however.

No doubt, Indian traders have improved the economic landscape in Uganda no end. Ugandan traders used to import domestic bric-a-brac in suitcases but you can now pick out Bosche gas cookers and entire home furnishings from lolcal stores that would not have made their way to Kampala had it not been for Indian investment. But the Indians’ attitude towards the natives still remains one of suspicion and distrust, perhaps because of the fate they suffered in 1972 still haunts them even if that is not excuse enough.

In any case, most Indian traders are niggardly shopkeepers who treat all black people in their employ like their own illiterate and thieving lowlifes they left back home in India. This attitude is the same with the Indians a black person might encounter in England or the US. Indians do not trust black people with much more than sweeping floors and cleaning toilets, and they entrust those jobs to them willingly because Indians are easily the filthiest race in the whole world, after the Bangladeshis who are also Indians in all but name. So it matters not whether their boy servants do a great cleaning job or not – they won’t notice one way or the other. Indians are also among the most ungrateful employers in the world.

It is the culture of suspicion that has seen Indians import till managers and stock-takers from India to Uganda whose role is to stand over Ugandans and watch to make sure that they don’t steal. The no-trust environment of course feeds off itself and the watched ones will take any opportunity to steal from their watchers, sometimes just to spite them. And that in turn confirms the Indians’ prejudices that all black people are thieving incompetents, which in turn reinforces the resentment the black employees have for their Indian employers. A relationship that is supposed to be symbiotic ends up being parasitic because of the lack of trust.

In Uganda, Museveni’s government is to blame for fuelling this culture of distrust. There is no reason why an Indian should be given a work permit to watch over a till or do inventory when Uganda is bursting at the seams with people that can do that. So, already we have several thousand Indians too many in this country but work permits continue to be issued to plane-loads who bring no unique skills to Uganda.

Back in 1972, Indians were kicked out by Amin on the basis of a ‘dream’ as he put it. That was wrong and grossly unjust. But it took the lid off what had been simmering resentment of the “boyi” attitude Indians generally applied to their black help. Their wives had been perceived by servants as shrill, abusive and rude and the shopkeepers were seen as exploitative of their internal help and curt to their external customers. There is little evidence that the new crop of Indians is making anyeffort to be better than the strain kicked out in 1972.

The culture of mistrust has to be broken if an employer wants to get the best out of their employees. That means that you don’t give an employee token responsibility while the real work is being done by someone else because that engenders resentment, encourages sloppiness [after all, someone else will be re-checking my work] and provides little incentive for employees to use their initiative. A high trust environment encourages employees to give their level best and that in turn translates into better customer service to the external customers and, therefore, greater sales.

The Indians that have returned to Uganda don’t need to import cash register watchers. They need to take a leap of faith by empowering local workers to enforce the accounting and auditing controls that protect against wanton theft and fraud which, we must admit, is a problem in Uganda. That way, they will be encouraging the locals to be real partners in growing their businesses.

But when they bring in Indian journeymen to check off sales receipts at the shop exit, they are saying to the local labour force that ‘none of you is good enough for my shop.’ That in turn discourages those who might otherwise have been model employees. Make no mistake; there is no race that doesn’t have its share of corrupt and thieving people. But forward-looking employers put in place systems of control, use the local labour to enforce them, and regular update them to plug loopholes. The Indians on Kampala Road have again made no effort to turn the local workforce into partners and that is unfortunate because without trust you cannot get the best out of your workforce. We are seeing the same kind of testy work environment that existed prior to 1972 and that is not healthy or productive.

This culture of mistrust and exploitation (Indian companies in Uganda are notorious for skirting employment laws, under-reporting income, and paying below living wage) is being encouraged by a government that hands out work permits to people with no special skills, thereby depriving locals of real employment as well as the chance to earn the trust of their Indian bosses.

If work permits weren’t handed out to menial labourers from Asia, the Asian shopkeepers would have no choice but to use the local labour force more productively. There would of course be thefts and fraud just like there is everywhere else but, gradually, the sieve would continue to sift and equilibrium would be reached where the honest and hardworking Ugandan employees would shine. Now, one would think that that would be a win-win situation for the Indian shop-keepers as well as their Ugandan employees. But the Uganda government sadly doesn’t seem to be seeing things in the same light.

Related Articles: Uganda faces influx of foreigners

Uganda already has a national language: Luganda!

I am puzzled about why this discussion keeps recurring. Uganda already has a national language; Luganda. And an official one: English. There are attempts to impose a second official language, Swahilli, and that is the debate worth having; whether or not we need a second official language.

But to argue about what the national language is seems silly to me because the realities on the ground have already dictated that it is Luganda. Ask Nsaba-Buturo (and Miria Matembe before him) the native language he commonly uses to harangue the nation about its morals. Or Museveni when he talks to the Basoga, Bagisu, and the Itesot. Or Dr. Mallinga, when he talks to the nation about its health or lack thereof. They all use Luganda. Even Idi Amin never attempted to speak to the nation in any other local dialect other than Luganda. Game, set and match surely.

Everyone in Uganda speaks Luganda. In fact, it should be taught in every school as well as an additional dialect in the respective regions because Luganda is the cheapest language to learn in Uganda; you just have to let the children loose in the playground and half of them will returnto class speaking the language. So, the Banyankore should be taught in their own dialects as well as Luganda in the formative school years and then they can start on English and Swahili around primary four or five.

Since Buganda has already given Uganda a national language, it makes sense to have them learn the rudiments of Luganda and then have them pick up English and Swahilli in P4. In fact, it makes sense to teach the Banyarwanda Luganda as well since there is more trade between Rwanda and Uganda than with any other nation in the area, and all indications are that it is set to grow. The Rwandese have wisely decided to discard French for English as the official language. Now all they need to do is to add Luganda to the local languages taught (think of the jobs that will be created for Luganda teachers) and before you know it, Luganda will be the national language of East Africa and, of course, Uganda will be the main beneficiary.

In Kenya, the Kikuyus have superior numbers around the Kenya Highland region, yes, but, perhaps Kenya already has Kiswahili as the national language, their language is not as widely spoken as Luganda is in Uganda. In fact outside of the Nairobi and Kenya Highlands region, the Kikuyu language is hardly spoken, with Swahili and the local dialects dominating. But the commonest language in Buganda, Busoga, Bunyoro, Busia and Mbarara combined is Luganda. Don’t get me wrong; if our history was different and Ugandans spoke Lugbara to the extent they do Luganda, I would argue for Lugbara being the national language. Some on here might think that I am beating a tribal drum whereas in reality I am only pointing out what is obvious and, therefore, the most common sense solution to the issue of Uganda’s national/official language discussion.

It is worth noting that there is a difference between a national and official language. Take the USA: it is now accepted that some states (California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, etc) in the US have two official languages especially in the provision of state services, namely Spanish and English. But the national language is English and that is the language everyone must learn to speak if they want to leave their house and survive in America. In Rwanda the official language is French and the national one is Kinyarwanda. Recently our Nyaru brothers decided to opt for English as the official language and are exploring ways of teaching English rather than French as a matter of course. In Wales, the official language was English for the longest time, but they steadfastly held on to Welsh as the national language there and their resilience eventually paid off when they got their own parliament and could decree that Welsh be taught in schools alongside English as a matter of course. Kenya’s official language is English and its national language is Swahili.

As you can see, a national language is determined by preponderance of usage whereas the official language is the one you must switch to when you go to conduct official business in the bank, at the ariport or hospital. While not knowing the official language is not the end of the world, you fail to speak the national language at the risk of being relegated to the backwaters of wherever those who, in Uganda’s case, don’t speak the national language live out their existence.

There are many countries where the official and national language is the same: England, France, Italy, Australia, Russia, Ethiopia (Amharic). That said, Ethiopia is aggressively teaching English in schools. Also, we all know that Tanzania adopted Kiswahili as the national and official language during the Nyerere years with disastrous consequences for the enlightenment and versatility of their labor force, who couldn’t use their skills even across the border in Uganda. That should be a salient lesson to anyone who wants to foist Kiswahili on us as the official language at the expense of English.

To put it in context, all Europeans are now learning English so if that block ever becomes the super state that Jacques Delors envisaged, it stands to reason that English will be the official language of Europe. Then the respective countries can retain their national twangs or, as some of the American states have done, have two official languages.

In Uganda the official language is English. Parliament wants us to adopt another one; Kiswahilli which I suppose is worth debating, even though one wonders where the teachers of this language are going to come from when we can no longer teach our masses of UPE and USE pupils proper English owing to lack of good teachers. In that respect, it makes practical sense to make Uganda’s second official language Luganda rather than Swahili because it will be much cheaper to teach (you can learn Luganda simply by walking down any street in Uganda) and there are already countless bodies who speak Luganda as far away as Nimule so that it would be relatively easy to find people you can train to teach the language and launch them into schools. Then Uganda would have two official languages: English and Luganda with Luganda also doubling as the national language it already is.

The debate about official languages in Uganda is a worthwhile one. But the one about Uganda’s national language has, to my mind, already been settled by the realities on the ground; in Kamuli, Arua, Gulu, Masindi, Mbarara, Kumi, Katakwi etc. It is quite simple common sense to me and I don’t understand why our politicians don’t want to accept it.

The embarrassment that is Mary Karooro-Okurut!!

What really makes people like Mary Karooro Okurut sink to the sycophantic levels that this erstwhile thoughtful and intelligent woman has allowed to become the hallmark of her New Vision columns for so many years?

Mary Karooro Okurut reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a painting of a man that takes on lifelike qualities and leads to the subject in the picture, Dorian Gray, going to ridiculous lengths in order to try not to age. Influenced by a titled peer, he sells his soul to the devil to stay youthful, all the time convincing himself that the picture is ageing while he himself remains young. At the end of it all, Dorian has done everything he can to stay young but he eventually dies in front of the picture and they unwrap it to find that the picture never aged at all and it was all along a figment of Dorian’s imagination. But Dorian Gray lies there old and ugly; something he has been fighting since it was first revealed that he was the subject in the picture.

Just as MU7 can be compared to Dorian Gray, Mary Karooro Okurut is also a Dorian Gray of sorts. She has been made important by MU7 and will say anything to remain important and relevant because the alternative is to be a non-entity. But, like Dorian, she is doing (in this case, saying) things that are preposterous but which she feels she must say “on message.” The things she says constantly show that she has no personal integrity left but she is too obsessed with saying something, anything, flatrering that she no longer cares about her conscience. No doubt, when MU7 eventually departs, poor Mary will have to face the sell-out she allowed herself to become, and might finally allow herself to cringe at the sycophantic (and startlingly elementary) articles that she has written in praise of MU7 over the years.

Take this example of Ms. Okurut’s October 2008 wisdom to the poor as to how they can get out of poverty:

“Museveni is therefore spot-on in going around the country teaching people that if they would just believe in themselves, and embrace the available solutions, poverty can become history before long.”

This is the same person who, a year before, approved spending $48m of public money on a luxury jet because, the presidential jet was a national asset.

The chutzpah is breathtaking.

For an academic with notable publications to her name, Okurut also writes embarrassingly shallow paeans to MU7’s glory and it is impossible to believe that such an intelligent woman can reason in such a rudimentary manner. In July 2005 she wrote in the Sunday Vision that MU7 was/is still very popular because he asked “the people” to muzzle political parties (he didn’t ask the people – he banned parties for years while his own party, the NRM, was allowed unfettered political privileges) and they agreed with him. She then claimed that MU7 was freeing the political parties becaue he had gone and told “the people” to let the parties free and they again agreed with him, proving that he was very popular with the masses.

It is worth noting, however, that in 2005, both the NRM and the other parties were already in agreement that political space should be liberalised. What then was the point of the referendum on allowing parties to be revived when all parties were already agreed about it? And who exactly was campaigning actively against the opening up of political space? Kakooza Mutale, a MU7 acolyte! Shortly before the moot plebiscite, MU7 promoted Mutale and then pretended to castigate him for running the NO campaign. In other words, State House led the YES and NO campaigns to free up political space. And all these contradictions escaped Mary Okurut?

There is nothing more of the serious lecturer that she once was left and what you see is a MU7 poodle. The poor woman is a hostage to MU7 and has likely totally lost her own bearings completely. Can this woman really have been totally de-intellectualised by the time she has spent around Uganda’s president?

MU7 on the other hand feeds off Okurut’s adoration and is likely unconcerned about its sincerity. Like typical megalomaniacs who stay in power too long, he is too consumed with himself and his imperial design to care about that. Museveni has made some classic puppets in the likes of Okurut, Byaruhanga, Ofwono-Opondo and John Nnaggenda. Obote II did exactly the same thing and the so-called advisers he surrounded himself with got totally blinded by fear of letting him into the reality he was presiding over because it would also tear their importance to shreds. Obote thus didn’t realize that he was going to be toppled – two days before it happened.

One is left wondering when MU7 and his acolytes will eventually wake up to the reality that, like Dorian Gray, they are old, tired, devoid of new ideas, unwanted and recognize that the country has been all along silently mocking them.

But, of course, this is Ugandan politics at its worst and Karooro-Okurut can be forgiven for throwing sincerity to the wind and riding the gravy train via State House. She has no credibility whatever as a voice of integrity and/or common sense. In fact, she is just another loud-mouth/empty mind yellow canary who will spin any news to suit the man she has to thank for reaching the giddy heights of politics that she has. And if she has to parrot and preen to prove her sincerity, so be it.

Mary Karooro Okurut’s Solution to Uganda’s Road Carnage: Exorcism! 1

Mary Karooro-Okurut

Following another predictable spate of fatal road accidents, the right honorable Mary Karooro Okurut waxes indignant:

The parliamentary committee on physical infrastructure noted that the causes of road accidents are reckless driving, careless pedestrians, overloading, drivers’ error (we really ought to improve our driving!), use of mobile telephones as people drive and poor road signs. Other causes include conditions of the vehicles, weather and political interference. …the Police pointed out one other cardinal problem: most of the highways and city roads are in shambles and that the works ministry must refurbish– and widen–all the roads countrywide. Uganda seriously needs to embark on making her trunk roads … dual carriage ways. … when you compare with the loss of life that is being occasioned at present, all the money invested in would be a small price to pay for saving lives.

You are absolutely right Ms. Okurut. Human volition is as much to blame for the road carnage in Uganda as lack of investment in infrastructural improvements. But that is stating the obvious. What you seem to have missed is that it has been a tough 22 years on Uganda’s roads, not just a tough “few days.” And in those 22 years, the country has spent at least $80m (160,000,000,000/=) on private luxury jets for the president, $48m of which were approved in 2007 by a committee you chaired. Not to want to seem pessimistic, Ms. Okurut suggests that we exorcise spirits from “black spots” with prayers. Form your opinion on Okurut’s submission:

That tells you we should not close our eyes to the spirit world and activities therein. We need to mount prayer altars everywhere, lifting up the country to God to reverse the status quo.

The Boda Boda and Twebaka Otulo Brigade have to be led

A contributor posed a challenge to my assertion that the Ugandan masses are not ready to be involved in a high-brow discussion of political systems:

Mmh!! Mwami Sebas, isn’t this sort of thinking – elitism that the Federo camp
out in London were struggling to come to terms with ? Check out the following
statement by one of them: “………the indigenous communities of Uganda have never actually been consulted on how they wish to be governed.” Akena P’Ojok

I am aware of this, yes.

The ideal is that the boda boda brigade and ‘twebaka otulo’ (at least we now get some sleep at night) majority should be consulted all the way. But I don’t see how this can be done to any meaningful level when the politics on the hustings boils down to bars of soap and cans of cooking oil. Akena P’Ojok is absolutely right, but I think he hints at the root of the problem; the expectation that a people that have never been consulted about systems of governance will now contribute constructively when 60% of them are illiterate and most of them measure progress in terms of cooking oil and slumber-filled nights.

Buganda has recently shown how it can be done during the mobilzation of the opposition to Mu7′s land bill. Weddings, nyimbes, kwanjulas, busikis were all used to remind the Baganda that “ettaka ligenda” with notable success as MU7′s panic arrest of the Mengo three illustrated. And the reason that the tactic worked is that those being mobilised could literally touch and taste what they were told they were about to lose (the veracity or lack thereof of the facts is for another discussion) and so the matter was sold on emotion.

But how would discussion of systems of governance be packaged in a way that would hold the interest of the masses? That I don’t know, but something tells me it would be nigh on impossible because of the lack of emotional capital that one could squeeze out of discussing the difference between Federo, a benevolent dictatorship and a family kleptocracy.

So, yes, my suggestion seems elitist but I am not sure that there is any other constructive way to move things along.

Any alternative suggestions?