NRM regime makes us look hateful!

This posting is in response to former Ethics and Integrity Minister in the NRM regime. He lost his re-election bid at the Party's primary election level and has since become a director of some elusive institution. Recently, he wrote an article in the Daily Monitor ridiculing Ugandans that we seem to hate ourselves and our country. The article link can be found here: 
http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/-/689364/1227976/-/12s0twyz/-/index.html

Dear,

Dr. Nsaba Buturo, you nag my mind and you incessantly surprise me when you ridicule and mock Ugandans for hating ourselves. I wonder where you draw your moral authority to judge us from. But given your high moral aptitude, I would say that it is people like you who make us appear as though we hate ourselves. Look at how you have simply lost touch with everyday daunting realities of Ugandans in their pursuit of fundamentals of life.

Dr. Nsaba, Ugandans do not hate themselves. Ugandans are absolved in self-reflection. They are looking back at the deceit and false promises given to them by NRM in 1986. They cannot find a balance sheet and they feel deep sense of loss of 25 years. They now recognize that their country has been usurped and transformed in an imperial manner to serve some alien interests.

How can you judge us because our society has suffered underdevelopment and claim that we hate ourselves for it without taking blame? When I look at each and every eye of a young Ugandan today, I see traces of frustration, hopelessness, anger and deeply seated regret for a future squandered.  And the older Ugandans feel alike!

We have the poorest education delivered in heist for political purposes. Our graduates are literally not ready for job market and yet they continue to face discrimination from government, in private sector and alienation from society. Our youths, facing one of the largest unemployment rates in the region, at 60% are stared in the face with stark reality of corruption, favouritism and nepotism. They are told that they do not qualify for tax holidays like your regime’s so-called investors; they are deprived Start-up loans because they lack political patronage and they are harassed out of business with ridiculous taxes, making them broke and worthless. It is such feelings that generate the apathy. You think we hate ourselves!

Dr. Nsaba, a country where corruption is state inspired is nothing to be proud of. None of the institutions in Uganda functions well. There is public outcry each and every day on things gone berserk, from hospitals to social welfare.

You were a Minister of Ethic and Integrity for two decades. You conspired with the imperialists to sideline and malign well intentioned Ugandans from the state process. CHOGM money was stolen from under your nose; GAVI money and Global Fund money, intended for our friends, relatives and fellow citizens who endure the scathing humiliation of HIV/AIDS were stolen and abused. What was the ministry of integrity and ethics doing to make us proud? A country where it’s President announces that it is full of thieves, how can I be proud of it?

Dr. Nsaba, how can I be content with a country where elections are regularly stolen with impunity; where opposition leaders and members of civil society are disrespected and assaulted in most heinous of manners and; where civil liberties are trampled upon without shame!

Every institution and arm of government is corrupt: the Police, judiciary, Parliament and worse still a predatory executive. I just want to find one thing which should make me love Uganda and I will tell you in a minute.

I would do us so much injustice if I failed to note that in Uganda of the twenty second century, we still dole out natural vegetation for sugar investment; that our electricity companies generate more darkness than light; that our roads produce more mental unease than stress and that the child and maternal death rates continue to threaten our very sense of humanity.

In Uganda, the President buys himself luxurious jets and military hardware and donates US $300000 to neighbouring country which is richer and more organized and yet it cannot feed victims of landslide or those children who are feeding on cattle skin with tap roots of any wild trees out there.

But I have hopes. I see it in the eyes of the children who have shown resiliency to survive through the hardships and mockery of your impervious regime. I see in them, a bright prospect and abundant strength upon which a new future shall be founded. I see in those eyes, a message that they deserve to belong, respect, equity, social justice and above all a free and fair society where each one of them shall thrive without prejudice. A place that loves them with that motherly love so they can love her back!

END.