I contend that NRM has outlived its purpose

 POLITICS

There seems to be a general and yet not-so subtle consensus that the NRM regime has completely outlived its usefulness. At least events in the last week illustrate so.

The arrest and subsequent extra-judicial detention of a little known author, Vincent Nzaramba over his publication “People Power: Battle the Mighty General” was one event that put the NRM regime on the global slide over its human rights record. This arrest became a historical landmark and signature of the NRM on its record of repressing intellectual rights. This is not the first time they have harassed an author who is critical of the tyranny. In October of 2010, Dr Kobusingye’s Book, “The Correct Line”, was also impounded and copies confiscated. Other notable authors and intellectuals like Editor Andrew Mwenda and others have been occasionally detained and harassed by state agencies for being openly critical of the excesses of the regime.

President Museveni was also on the spotlight, albeit, with his trademark mockery of Ugandans. The DM reported three interesting stories; two on September 21 (See: Museveni, Mbabazi join Entebbe by-elections and, Oil becoming diversionary - Museveni) and the other on 22 (see: Museveni says NRM firm to supply sugar).

While at Entebbe for the campaign in a by-election pitting DP’s Muhammed Kawuma against NRM flag bearer, Patience Tusimire Mubangizi, Museveni was quoted to have blamed the opposition groups for the chronic power outages that have plagued the nation. In the second article, Museveni was in Hoima commissioning a school laboratory at Canon Njagali High School. It was reported that Museveni persuaded the Banyoro to desist from the allure of investing in the oil industry. He advised them to continue investing in their traditional subsistence forms of agriculture.

In the third article,  Museveni issued statement to the press prior to his departure to India, in which he seemed to have switched position on the sugar deficiency in Uganda by blaming “greedy traders” for the short supply of sugar and threatened that only NRM firms would be contracted to supply sugar to Uganda.

These three stories illustrate the perils of political dishonesty of this NRM regime. It is obvious that Museveni has long pursued objectives outside NRM ideology. If Mueveni remorselessly blames the opposition for the power outages and persuades indigenous Ugandans not to invest in oil industry, then we are inclined to conclude that his agenda is mutually exclusive and suspect. The opposition groups are so small and have been largely ineffective in shaping policies and its implementation at every level of government in Uganda in the last three decades.

Further, electricity crisis in Uganda is historically situated in privatization policies of NRM and their IMF/WB mentors. When Museveni doled out Uganda Electricity Board to his croonies, his assumptions were that a private sector player would provide better services to Ugandans. What is also obvious is that mostly NRM leaning investors and agencies are the ones who have been central in brokering most raw deals that Ugandans have ended up with. In the case of Umeme, there are no competitors.

In Museveni’s Uganda of today, most business transaction are conducted by NRM insiders and they influence quite a bit of decisions as to who takes what. Any opposition leaning or independent minded individuals are practically excluded or detained. In that case, NRM agents and firms are the sole producers and perpetuators of corruption. They brood, reproduce and sustain corruption in the pretext of pursuing NRM agenda.

Given the above, one would wonders how the opposition have interfered with power generation and whether there would be any difference in who imports sugar or not because Museveni or NRM have no control over its corrupt machinations. What this translates to me is that, the so-called NRM leaning firms are those that will be fronted by Museveni’s children, relatives and obviously, the regular notables who are already webbed in the corruption chains.

Museveni should accept his failures and permit the proliferation of new ideas and mindsets that will salvage Uganda from its current predicament. Museveni and NRM have proven that their time is up!

END. 

Biomedical Models of Healthcare has let Uganda down

 Health,

The subject of maternal mortality and rising fistula cases in Uganda truly underpins the failures of biomedical healthcare model. Although there is an elaborate healthcare structure in Uganda, most of the priorities of government when it comes to funding and policy enforcement are not focused on ensuring a robust healthcare system. In this article, I will argue that Uganda needs to adopt a paradigmatic shift in its practices from biomedical model of healthcare delivery to a psychosocial model that caters to people’s real lived health experiences.

The overarching assumptions here are that a healthy population is a formidable engine to a robust economic growth and that underneath the pervasive failures of Uganda’s healthcare system resides a deliberate effort that ignores the centrality of social determinants of health. The key objective of this discourse therefore is to explicate the myth embedded prevailing biomedical model as overly authoritative, rigid, assumptuous, inefficient, expensive and wasteful of taxpayer’s money.

There is a contradiction between modern healthcare delivery systems and the old approaches in delivering healthcare. Truly, our contemporary society has become more diverse, sophisticated and complex. These attributes reflect that our needs for a healthy society have also become diverse, sophisticated and complex.

To contain these emerging needs, the healthcare system must respond congruently. The Ugandan system has clearly not been able to expand in that direction to accommodate the new realities of our health needs. The healthcare system is entrenched in its biomedical model where health and illnesses are defined by signs and symptoms of diseases or absence thereof.

The problem with biomedical model is that it is so linear and rigid. It does not strive to address underlying causes of ill-health in order to eliminate them. Healthcare professionals will prescribe and dispense anti-malarial drugs without providing a hint as to the means of preventing malaria; orthopedics will cater to broken bones without tackling causes of trauma and assault. This paradigm of care is clearly outdated, costly, ineffective and frustrating to modern society.

In contrast, a more robust and contemporary healthcare system is the psychosocial model, which views individuals as composites of their bigger communities. This model locates the individual within a holistic environmental and recognizes a multiplicity of environmental factors as being primal in determining the health of that individual or the community.

The psychosocial model pursues upstream thinking that permits healthcare providers to work collaboratively with other stakeholders in the community to identify environmental factors that potentiates health including community capacity to maintain their own health.

Road safety, architecture and legislation are some of the areas that the inputs of healthcare professionals become very crucial. Many people have lost lives and limbs in road accidents; many buildings lack safety measures and access to persons with physical challenges and; some legislations are insensitive to social determinants of health. Inter-sectoral collaboration therefore would enable the enactment of healthy public policies effective enough to minimize or eliminate some of these negative impacts on community’s health.

Psychosocial model of care support communities to stay on their feet - it wouldn’t wait until someone is immobilized with symptoms of disease.

One of the failures of our healthcare system is in procurement of tones of drugs and yet most of that money could be diverted to funding community outreach through inter-sectoral collaboration to address causes of ill-health from the onset. This approach would provide evidence based health information to the locals; provide the rural folks with life-skills to avoid illness so they can remain healthy, strong and productive.

In establishing a causal triumph of primary healthcare and community based healthcare, I recommend that Uganda’s education system must embrace a paradigmatic change through curricular overhaul to enhance healthcare professionals’ transition from the overly rigid biomedical model to psychosocial practices of healthcare. Unless we get our priorities and realities harmonized, we shall continue to provide health services that are mutually exclusive and diabolically opposed to the health needs of our society.

The site of dilapidating healthcare facilities; rotten mattresses, congested wards, dehumanized patients and demoralized healthcare workers in the hospitals epitomizes biomedical practices.

END.

It is time for President Museveni to retire!

Most theatrical performers and artists know the value of charming their audiences with quality. They also know when their audiences are no longer captivated by their performances. Usually, the signs such as disengagement become so apparent.

Genuine and talented performers would not accept to depreciate on stage to the point of being heckled out. They know well when to exit from that stage gracefully to leave a legacy and urge for more. Shakespeare once advised performers to know when the curtain should fall. Most importantly, how these performers respond to agitation of their audiences reveals much about their professionalism.

African leaders do not care about the audience or critiques. They continue to perform shamelessly even when their performances hypnotize their audiences. They even flog their audiences to cheer, to endure the agony of their contemptible performances.

I only wish President Yoweri Museveni could know that it’s past his time to leave the stage. His performance from the last twenty six years peaked a decade ago and now is declining at a horrifying speed and it hypnotizes Ugandans. The evidences are all over the walls.

Museveni has developed chronic insensitivity to the common aspirations of Ugandans. Like Alexander the Great, our people will say what they want, and Museveni will do what he wants. Museveni listens only to himself and has mutated, as Nagenda observed, into unbearable autocrat. Museveni now prefers opportunistic economic programs over policies and repression over consensus. The Museveni regime is one that has run out of ideas but has truly become predatory on the state itself for its own survival.

Museveni does not realize that the current economic crisis has been exacerbated by his extremely huge administration and irresponsible spending. The amount of tax payers’ money required to sustain the huge executive and the countless Presidential assistants and advisors, bleeds the economy mercilessly depriving other sectors of resources.

He no longer realizes that investors are increasingly becoming tense due to uncertain political future of Uganda and the shaky economic environment characterized by depreciating currency and corruption.

Certainly, donors have long lost trust in the regime’s veracity with public funds. What remains is a caricature of efforts assembled by donors to maintain a flimsy working relationship with the hope that the money channelled through the regime will reach the common man.

Museveni by all means, is not one who cherishes democracy. If anyone expects him to reform the current electoral commission, then they are wasting time. The real problem is that members in the opposition have failed to trust each other and to unite against this regime.

A lot of people may think that NRM is very strong politically. The grassroots strength of the NRM is questionable as it pries on uncritical masses. Its dependency on the personalization of the army lies on tenure of President Museveni. I contend that if the army where to be purged from participating in coercive politics; and the Police or any other armed groups where to be restrained within reasonable boundaries, the NRM regime would not win election despite their bribery.

The revelation of both NRM insiders, John Nagenda, a long time NRM spin doctor and Hon Capt Mike Mukula, the NRM V/C from Eastern Uganda, are a telling tales of the discontent that lurches beneath the ethnic hegemony that the NRM is. A lot of people feel that they have been excluded from the state processes. Majority of Ugandans have been deprived of their citizenship rights.

What is also true is that only the Musevenis feel that they are the bona fide citizens of Uganda and their personal, lavish lifestyle in the face of a crumbling economy is justified. These are disillusioned lot who have used the military to personalize Uganda, its natural resources and economic structures. You can tell how real Ugandans are humiliated from their market places and chased down the streets where they eke a living or those who feed on animal skins.

 I contend that it is time for President Museveni to leave now!

END! 

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.

“Big Men” are getting away with rape easily

The word “rape” is one that never gets thrown about that easily as we have learned recently. For African women in some societies, being raped carries long lasting negative implications on the reputation of the raped woman. No matter how humiliated and undignified rape victims are always unfairly ostracized by society for their daunting fate. It is so sad how big men are getting away with rape offences so easily in our society today.

Women basically carry the burden of moderating morality in our society. Our social scrutiny on morality has been defined by the conduct of women and girls, generally. Being raped therefore implies moral deficit on the part of the victims and bad reputation for the woman and her family. The perpetuators of this horrendous crime usually are accorded hero status and lauded for s job well done.

Sadly, in most societies, women do not report rape not that they do not want to, but mostly because they have no voice and fear further reprimand that may lead to social isolation. Often, after they have been raped, their abysmal social position becomes a barrier that discourages them from reporting rape to the authorities.

The sad fate of the woman’s powerlessness is even made worse when men in position of power are the ones implicated in the rape. Two comparative cases involving high profile “rape” allegation this year will help to explain this and space wouldn’t let me add in a rejoinder, that of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski.

When the 32 years old Guinean Nafissatou Diallo first reported to the authorities that former IMF Executive Director and French Presidential hopeful, Dominque Strauss-Kahn had raped her on May 14, 2011, the New York City authority responded swiftly and humiliatingly arrested and detained Dominque. With all the brouhaha that followed the high profile case, it eventually collapsed entirely on the “questionable” character and reputation of the accuser.

 Just as DSK’s case was winding down, in Uganda, Vice Chancellor of Makerere University, Prof Venansius Baryamureeba was in the news for rape, impregnation and abundonement. This follows a Uganda Human Rights Commission’s investigation into the case of unnamed 26 years old female student who claimed that the Professor intoxicated her and then raped her. She was therefore carrying an illegitimate fetus resulting from rape. Like Ms Diallo’s case, the allegation against the VC also collapsed under very eccentric circumstance.

The two set pieces cited above compares quite well because of their similar characteristic, plot and ending. Both DSK and Prof Barya are distinguished member of the society and in very influential positions. The two victims are simple women in no position of power and influence. Both women were subsumed by the very tide of their absurd experiences – rape.

The manner in which these cases dissolved only reveals the consistency in the pattern of how rape as a criminal act is very difficult to prove or prosecuted when big men are involved. Most men in position of power have been able to emerge unscathed from allegations of rape and that leaves the woman/victim in worse off position.

The woman is ripped off credibility and decency and she appears like a shameless liar and scoundrel. Often, everyone begins to think or speculate that such women resort to rape allegation to blackmail for money. The perpetuators walk away with swagger of a hero and brags to you that “you see, didn’t I tell you she was tripping?”

Our lesson could as well be well laid down for us, that rape is a crime for the poor committed against poor women and not the powerful. Accusing a powerful person of rape can only embarrass them momentarily. It can temporarily erode their reputation as we saw with DSK, but at the end of it all, the fact that the woman was sexually assaulted remains largely ignored or downgraded. In unprincipled and unprofessional environment like Uganda, they whole story lingers a bit in the corridors of power and dies a natural death in few days.

I pity the woman in our villages and peri-urban slum dwellings that are exposed to the current economic hardships. Lots of reports are indicating that some parents do actually pray for their daughters to get raped by a rich person so they can initiate negotiation for settlement “out of court”.

The Guardian Newspaper recently reported that in Uganda, trend of rape reporting have been changing with more women attempting to report rape or sexual violence incidences. For instance, according to the Guardian, in 2007, there were 599 rape cases reported to Uganda Police and 1,536 cases of sexual violence related cases were registered. In 2010 the Police in Eastern Uganda recorded 5, 515 cases of sexual violence of which 2,564 were under investigation. Another 1,745 culprits had appeared in court, and 1,721 suspects have been charged with at least 388 convictions secured. These are encouraging figures, but considering the constraints experienced by the Ugandan authorities, women have continued to experience delayed justice.

Rest assured, those who face the wrath of the justice system are peasants, the poor and the desolate petty criminals. The real rapists in suits and shinny shoes never seem to commit rape.

END

There is a difference between white privilege, racism and prejudice

Events unravelling in the Mormon Church and its splitter groups in the US and Canada in the last couple of years, can provide us with great opportunity to appraise the dominance of cultures, traditions and values in our societies. I will use these events to explicate the differences between the so-called “white privilege”, “racism” and “prejudice”.

In the US a prominent polygamist, Tom Green from the state of Utah, was sentenced to five years in prison recently for fathering 25 kids with 5 different women.

Last week, another controversial figure, Warren Jeff (55), the leader of Texas based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was sentenced to life imprisonment for defilement and fathering children with underage girls that his church claimed, he was lawfully married to.

In Canada, Winston Blackmore and James Oler of Bountiful, British Columbia were arrested in 2009 and charged with marrying 20 and 2 women, respectively. The Crime of polygamy in Canada carries up to five years in jail once convicted. Cases against both Winston and James were dismissed on technical grounds by a Judge on the premise of gross professional misconduct on the part of the prosecutor involved with the matter. Tom, Warren, Winston and James are all members a break away Mormon Church.

Both US and Canada have outlawed polygamy. This has deep roots in the evolution of these societies from pre-industrial stage to its contemporary capitalist tendencies and relentless struggle by women. Here, most relations are purely economic relations. People only relate to the other in as far as there are foreseeable opportunities for benefit or advantage. Money and only money tie families and friends together or separates them, bitterly - thus defining social relations.

Such tradition definitely contrasts with our own African setting, where our societies are more intimate, socially and quite egalitarian in many realms. People relate and support each other purely on principles of reciprocity and respect for posterity. Polygamy was socially sanctioned and valued in many ways; it was the measure of success; multiple marriages served the purpose of linking discrete groups. Marriages served the purpose of reconciliation or social construction between societies that have had long standing enmity. In that essence, multiple marriages by a man served security interests in many ways; the more sons one has, the more guarantee he has for his family and property; the more girls, the more wealth accruing from dowry. Many wives, children and grandchildren also implied ready labour source, wealth and satisfaction.

Given the above, US and Canadian polygamists could flee to Africa to claim for protection from persecution, in the same way same sex (gay) individuals and political refugees have fled Africa and are accepted in these places. Our problem is that we have been dispossessed by dominant discourses to condemn polygamy in the same manner as we see here in US and in Canada.

The imperative of this story is to understand what has been presented in Critical Social Perspective as the “white privilege” but at times misconstrued to mean racism or prejudice. I think as a scholar, it is very important to discern these terms so as to delineate our social discourses from stereotypical perspectives.

The constant denouncing of our cultures and social values for me fits with the purview of the “White Privilege”.  Theories of white privilege, posits that the dominant white culture view their social, cultural, and economic experiences as a norm that everyone should experience. This is different from racism and/or prejudice which advances that the advantaged position of the dominant group must be maintained at the expense of others. This explains to the most, why most of our cultural, social and even political experiences have always been condemned and downgraded for many years at our own complaisance.

In my view, understanding the white privilege as that which belies all forms of bigotry and global inequities, including the calibration of “acceptable” international standards of export, justice, mannerism, education, religion and so forth, would help us enormously in rebranding our cultural, social and religious values without relinquishing them.

END.

Sugar is a very crucial working class fetish!

 I don’t know what happened in the 80s that at some point, the Dr Obote’s regime was blamed for widespread scarcity of basic commodities like sugar and salt. In fact, I recall Museveni lambasting Dr Obote for not having had prudent economic policies to enable Ugandans access sugar, salt, soap and other basic household supplies. To him, neo-liberal economic policy of open market could have answered all the challenges of basic human needs. What I saw in Museveni’s denigrating speeches against Obote have returned to haunt him. In Acholi, we mock the monkey that laughs at the other for having a tail, forgetting that it also has one!

Sugar is very important commodity and it forms primal part of everyday life of typical working class Ugandan irrespective of the job or social status. Sugar has become a fetish of some form. Ugandans are avid consumers of tea and coffee and no matter what daily temperature they may endure, they must have tea or coffee in the morning and in the evening.. Majority of sugar users have some form of addiction to it. Sugar defines the taste of the day for them and gives them hope and inspiration. Sugar even defines breakfast and sets a man’s day.

In Uganda, you got to understand how sugar is very crucial in a man’s daily life before you just hike the taxes or the price on it. In fact, Ugandans cherish two things; sugar and their beers. The reason is that despite the adversities that they endure on their daily endeavors, the prospect of having tea or breakfast with sugar in it, and few bottles of beers at the end of the day, really consoles them. I mean, sugar occupies a special role in our society in a way that salt does not. No one can imagine not having salt for a day, but to not have sugar is the litmus test of one’s absolute poverty level. And when they say some Ugandans live below poverty line, try to understand it that they already forgot about sugar, but they still always have salt.

Having sugar or being able to provide sugar for the family is also a measure of class. One would rather not have lunch, but spare money to buy a few kilograms of sugar for breakfast and evening tea. And a lot of men know for a fact that for those who cannot buy sugar, their marriages and relationships can seriously get threatened. When an ordinary Ugandan wakes up, they will not think of different and creative ways of eating breakfast, but tea. That poor woman, who stays home and does all the unpaid chores; she strives to make breakfast for her family, if she has no sugar, she feels powerless and a persistent sense of failure.

So, here comes President Museveni with his so-called “robust” economic success story but the one who cannot provide sugar to Ugandans. Even when he should, he does so at an astronomical price. I was personally amazed that while at Kakira sugar works, Museveni blamed Acholi elders for having caused the sugar scarcity by refusing to give Madhvani land to farm for more sugar.

Museveni can be comical at times, but the pity is on those who take his jokes a little too far. The Madhvani land grab attempts were in a period not exceeding three years ago. Sugar canes take more than three years to mature. This implies that even if Madhvani or Mehta were to acquire that land and had they planted their sugar canes, most probably, they would not have started harvesting it or producing sugar from it by now.

But the twist of the matter is here; how come in the last twenty five years of NRM rule, Sugar has not been this expensive? I contend that the scarcity of sugar and its high market price signifies the beginning of the collapse of the Museveni era bubble economy. First, it was the inflation and then high gas prices and these things have capacity to spiral and reverberate to impact on all commodity costs. Petrol and Diesel (gas) are the key determinants of availability of goods and services on the market to the masses. If a nation has poor policy on management of gas, every service becomes unstable since for a landlocked country like Uganda, we have to move commodities from far.

Must I remind you, Mr. President, that the boda boda man and the students cannot have Butunda lager which has no sugar? Wala!!!

END