BUYING UGANDANS
The manner in which Mr. Museveni has commercialised
politics and perfected the art of buying Ugandans or selling them abroad for
money needs highlighting. The NRM has built a mindset, and practice of bribing
for political power. Incidentally, if they cannot buy your loyalty, then they
will sell you to the Arabs or hoard you out of your country. Ugandans are
gullible, impoverished, exploited, deceived, repressed, deprived and
commodified.
The money culture has eroded important traditions and
social capital, the very foundation upon which citizen elected credible,
sensible and caring leaders. Before this regime, Ugandans believed in, and
practiced nationalism, integrity and accountability. Today, Uganda politicians
lack integrity, honor or a sense of patriotism and are political commodities.
Uganda is deprived of impeccable and credible leaders who could resist selling
their conscience. The better quality leaders were those elected when this money
craze was still at infancy. Back then, society had a sense of pride, relevance
and purpose about its collective visions. Today, leadership is for personal
gains; bribery is like a jackpot. We have leaders who are crooks, who sell the
country and its resources far cheaper than Judas Iscariot sold Jesus!
The social, political and economic transformation that will
buttress the NRM legacy is the monetization and militarization of politics,
ethnic stratification, commanded by strong sectarian positioning, and rent
seeking. These also herald the transformation of National Resistance to
National Robbery Movement.
Generally, the transition into the money nexus is Uganda's
undoing as it spurred inflation in costs of nearly every social aspect of life.
People want to work less, delivering lower quality for inflated labor fees; Thinkers
and planners are unable to deliver results, but demand for colossal thinking
fees. Jobs and community services that used to get done on camaraderie or on
social co-operational basis are now defunct. Villagers cannot fill a pothole
potion of the road in front of their homestead because they need bribes or pay.
People are living in isolation even within homes, and suspicious over each
other's source of fortunes.
But, the drive towards money nexus also exposes the
widespread socio-economic inequalities along ethnicity considering the manner
in which the economy is tightly controlled by the regime and its cronies. This
control has ensured that the top 20 per cent wealthy and powerful, are of
monolithic nature, and control 80 per cent of the wealth, power and privileges.
The masses are accorded very sparse unequal opportunity to share in the overall
wealth of the nation.
To ascertain these state of inequities, one needs to
examine the nature and motives of crimes in Uganda. Major crimes are
petty - associated with basic survival such as stealing food, clothing
(under-wears); grabbing or depriving others of their properties (display of
power); and rape and murders (passion). The alternate indicator of inequities
is the height of adults in a region, compared with those of same age a decade
or two ago, or of their parents. Repressed Ugandans are generally shorter,
unhappier, dehydrated, malnourished, and fearful. These are symptoms of
pathologies of power.
Mr. Museveni has prioritized his political expedience
above all aspirations of the people of Uganda. He has garrisoned the country's
resources for personal use - bribing adversaries, undermining national
institutions, and lavishing lobbyist abroad.
Since the focus of economy is to finance Mr. Museveni's
political vision and excessive lifestyle, investments in public goods and
services have suffered neglect. Public servants are poorly remunerated, making
work places precarious. Pay inequities between political cronies and frontline
public service providers are simply glaring and unacceptable.
We are a generation of deeply commodified – deprived,
undermined, impoverished, exploited, and bought. We are also sold to the Arabs.
Either way, we are either wholly or partly a commodity to be sold and bought in
the free market with the very money we produce.
End.
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