Uganda: A nation dead in a dream

DREAMDEAD

As a pre-teenager, I overheard the utopia of Mr. Museveni rattled to us through our then black and white Tactic television set, courtesy of UTV (Uganda Television). In the 90s, Museveni had a dream. Like every revolutionary theorist, the President dreamt of an industrialized Uganda, moving the economy from a “backward feudal stage” (as he eloquently stated it), to a modern industrialized stage. The 90s paled through a major paradigm shift –i.e. the structural adjustment program (SAP), a neo-liberal agenda that arm-twisted Mr. Museveni into privatizing the economy, devaluing the currency and retrenching workers.  He shelved the Ten-Point program; his agenda of modernizing the country was shelved; politics of survival came to the fore. The most difficult, and yet memorable years of the Museveni’s era were the period 1992 – 1996. The year 1996 was the year that a brilliant vision of modernizing Uganda suffered a natural death – our nation died in a dream.

There is a need for a book, titled: “The Ten Commandments of Failure”. That book will provide a correlation of empirical evidences, to demonstrate how the NRM’s so-called socio-economic transformations blueprint - the Ten-Point Program- became the commandments of failure. Respectfully, Dr. Frederick Golooba Mutebi a former don at Makerere University has already done a substantial amount of work in this field. However, I feel it is inconclusive, and this is where I will work to complete the presentation of this oddity.

A few days ago, I was prompted via my social media accounts about a strong presence of the Special Forces Command (SFC) - a unit mandated with the protection of the president - on Binaisa Road in downtown Kampala. Apparently, the President was there for a full eight hours to officiate at the opening ceremony of a Shs 1.8million (US$534) car washing bay.  Was it really 1.8 millions, billions, or trillions? I went through a deep reflection, and my mind shuddered. This is not the level of “industrialization” that was dreamt of in the late 80s and 90s.

The presence of the President in this neighborhood meant that businesses closed in favor of his personal security. And, such a persistent presence of the dictator in an area can be a real pain the behind. These days, the distance between the President and the people of Uganda is so wide. His security now closes the entire length of Entebbe Road (34kms) when Mr.Museveni isenroute. Imagine what could have happened to the businesses located on the entire length of Binaisa Road and neighboring areas that day. Certainly, one can imagine losing more than Shs 2 million per trader along that lane, and the adjacent lanes.

Such, are the costs of sustaining an illegitimate regime in place.

A washing bay is not an “industry” worth glorifying. Modern washing bays are self-serve and reduce employment, the critical Achilles heel of this struggling economy. The sight of the President of Uganda officiating at a Car-Washing bay in the heart of the City hurts the eyes. In Kenyan, their President was signing a deal with Volkswagen to establish an Assembly plant. Already, Kenya’s industrial prospects are promising. Many bus companies now fabricate their buses in Kenya on an imported chassis. That is tangible industrial progress.

Thirty years after the pseudo-revolution and we are still an economically backward country with traditional plantation industries surviving. I have referred to the NRM so-called 1980-revolution as a “pseudo-revolution” because, it was atypical. Most revolutions have emerged over land related inequalities with associated economic and political repressions or, not a mere excuse of electoral frauds. After all, the Museveni-era electoral frauds records since 1996 are unrivalled in Africa’s history of botched elections.  The regime is founded on obscurantist, false premises and all it can offer is the very opposite of what it promises.  Such inherent contradictions and obscurantism that pervades our politics and development discourses; - that nothing works in our society, and yet the government forcefully says it works.

It is, therefore, comprehensible that the most legitimate era of the NRM milieu ended in the period preceding 1996. After 1996 it was and shall remain a trial and era period that has caused Uganda and Ugandans enormous social, economic, and political nightmares. The professional life has died, hard and legitimate work ceased to exist; the rule of law is perverted, chaos is everywhere, pervading every junction of society; life is a mess and pain, inequalities in income, and health are widely distributed; unemployment among the young people, and lack of employable skills have subdued the youth. Nothing is in its proper order in this country.

The Private sector craze has already subordinated the Uganda economy to foreign investors. The indigenous Ugandans are back to the pre-Idi Amin Dada where the Indians monopolized commerce and trade and pitifully enslaved Ugandans. Such a trend of incremental socio-economic decline is what this article will systematically unveil.

End.