Tag Archives: consider

Is today’s Uganda better or worse-off?

Before Ugandans head for the polls on February 18, 2011 to elect a president, members of parliament, district councilors and mayors, it might be helpful to consider the following developments.

1. The general standard of living of Ugandans has not reached the level attained in 1970.

2. Fifty two percent of Ugandans live below the poverty line of $1.25 a day (HDR 2010).

3. Some twenty percent of Ugandans in the lowest income bracket have become poorer.

4. Economic growth has fallen short of 7 or 8 percent required as a minimum to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

5. Seventy percent of Uganda’s GDP is generated in Kampala and its vicinity with a population of some two million. The remaining 31 million Ugandans contribute a mere 30 percent of GDP.

6. Household income distribution is highly skewed with 20 percent in the highest income bracket taking over 50 percent while 40 percent in the lowest income bracket taking 15 percent. Urban areas have performed relatively better than rural areas and southern has performed relatively better than northern Uganda.

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The cost of having Museveni as Uganda’s president

As campaigning for February 2011 presidential elections enters the last phase, Ugandans need to consider the following illustrative events before deciding whether or not to re-elect Museveni for another five-year term.

1. There are increasing allegations that Museveni and/or his collaborators murdered key Ugandans to discredit Amin and have him overthrown.

2. There are increasing allegations that human, physical and institutional destruction in the Luwero Triangle was committed by Museveni and his guerrilla fighters to discredit Obote and have him overthrown.

3. There are reports that Museveni prolonged the northern and eastern war causing much destruction in human, physical and institutional terms. He was forced by the international community to end the war. Museveni should not earn credit for ending the war and be re-elected by northern and eastern voters.

4. A few months after he formed the government, Museveni introduced new Uganda currency and charged 30 percent conversion tax against the advice of IMF as such a tax hike would significantly reduce household incomes and cause untold suffering which it did in many families. It is not clear where that revenue went.

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What happened to Uganda historians?

In many countries, history or civics is a compulsory subject in schools. The idea is that students should know where their ancestors came from, how they have interacted with others over time and how they are governed.

Because Africa was considered a “Dark Continent” at the time of colonization, Europeans assumed it had no history and darkness was not a subject of history. Thus during colonial days, we were taught the history of European explorers and missionaries in Africa. The little Uganda history we were taught was about kings and their royal courts because first colonial and missionary officials came from aristocratic families in Europe and were not interested in peasant or commoners history. The first batch of Uganda historians was either from royal families or connected with the royal court. So for some years after independence, Ugandans continued to be taught the history of royal courts and British work in Uganda.

A new breed of historians emerged after independence led by Prof. B. A. Ogot, Kenyan mathematician turned historian who taught me in Nairobi. They began research into the history of Africans which led “to abandon certain formerly accepted terms and to introduce others”. Uganda historians began to write a new history of Uganda about who Ugandans are, where they came from and where they live and how they have interacted with one another.

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