Tag Archives: address

M7 address to NEC is a glass half full

I have followed closely Museveni’s statements at home and abroad. When he began his presidency, the focus of his statements was on ending the suffering of the people of Uganda. He stressed at international conferences and summits that his government was interested in eradicating poverty, not reducing it. Uganda would be an industrialized nation within fifteen years with middle class citizens. He had no doubts about that. He used strong sound bites like metamorphosis and fundamental change to convey his message that he was a new leader on the block. He wanted every Ugandan to eat balanced diet, dress well including shoes, get quality and relevant education and healthcare and find a remunerative job in decent working conditions. He emphasized environmental rehabilitation and sustainable management and ordered his staff into action. He underscored processing of Uganda’s raw materials to add value and increase product longevity as a strategy to economic independence. Uganda would pursue a non-aligned foreign policy, establish good neighborly relations and fight for human rights around the world. And the world applauded.

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M7 address to NEC is a glass half full

I have followed closely Museveni’s statements at home and abroad. When he began his presidency, the focus of his statements was on ending the suffering of the people of Uganda. He stressed at international conferences and summits that his government was interested in eradicating poverty, not reducing it. Uganda would be an industrialized nation within fifteen years with middle class citizens. He had no doubts about that. He used strong sound bites like metamorphosis and fundamental change to convey his message that he was a new leader on the block. He wanted every Ugandan to eat balanced diet, dress well including shoes, get quality and relevant education and healthcare and find a remunerative job in decent working conditions. He emphasized environmental rehabilitation and sustainable management and ordered his staff into action. He underscored processing of Uganda’s raw materials to add value and increase product longevity as a strategy to economic independence. Uganda would pursue a non-aligned foreign policy, establish good neighborly relations and fight for human rights around the world. And the world applauded.

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Is Uganda ready for a political revolution through civil resistance?

Political revolutions occur principally because the oppressor refuses to address the concerns of the oppressed and the latter refuses to withdraw them. Political revolutions, like revolutions in other areas of human activity, take time to occur and have virtually similar background characteristics. When people live under constant conditions characterized as “poor, nasty, brutish and short’, they eventually band together so that their voices for reform are heard by authorities. Regarding peasants, it has been demonstrated time and again that when they get hungry and believe they are being overtaxed (broadly defined), they rebel.

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How to address land fragmentation in Uganda

In chapter one of my book titled “Uganda’s Development Agenda in the 21st Century and Related Regional Issues (2008)” I wrote about the challenges connected with land tenure and land use. One of the issues I addressed is land fragmentation which is not abating. Although many Ugandans are aware of the problems connected with tiny and scattered pieces of land, they are unwilling to address them. There are many reasons for this behavior.

First, culturally and sentimentally when the head of the family passes on every son and increasingly every daughter and widow (s) wants a piece of the land. The more members in the family the smaller the piece each member gets. And given low agricultural productivity (low yielding traditional seeds and absence of organic and inorganic fertilizers and irrigation technology), the tiny pieces of land do not produce enough to maintain a family for food and cash, pushing that family into deeper poverty if there are no alternative sources of income. This problem may be overcome in the short to medium term by changing the cultural and sentimental value of land so that inheritance goes to one member or inherited land is used collectively. In the long term poverty reduction may help reduce the size of the family because poor couples produce more children than rich ones.

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Uganda needs a human rights approach to address poverty

In her article on “Using Human Rights to Reduce Poverty”, Louise Arbour stated that “Poverty is the greatest human rights scourge of our time. Human rights violations are both a cause and consequence of poverty. Human rights are increasingly accepted as part of the definition of what is to be poor, as well as offering pathways out of poverty” (Development Outreach October 2006).

Although Uganda is well endowed in human and natural resources and has received generous international financial and technical support especially since 1987, the poverty level has remained unacceptably high – over 50 percent. One of the arguments for failure to adequately address poverty is that Uganda’s development model has not paid enough attention to human rights issues provided for in various national and international instruments.

In Uganda as in many other countries, focus has since the 1980s largely been on economic growth and price stability hoping that human rights issues such as poverty, food, education, shelter, clothing and health care as well as decent employment would be realized through trickle down mechanism. Sadly, the mechanism has not worked.

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Uganda’s main challenge

Greetings fellow Ugandans and friends

Making progress in any area of human endeavor begins with a clear understanding of the challenge and how to address it.

1. Uganda’s principal problem right now is Museveni and his political economy philosophy for Uganda and the great lakes region. It has potential for instability that will adversely affect domestic and foreign investments in the region. Bwengye said in an interview in 2005 that Museveni was given a key role in the guerrilla struggle without understanding who he was and what he exactly stood for.

2. As we know Museveni became president in 1986 without legitimacy. He was acting Chairman of NRM after the passing of Yusuf Lule. Elections to replace Lule were delayed until NRM/NRA entered Kampala and Museveni who had been acting NRM chairman became president by default. So he had no legitimacy but nobody raised it.

3. Now that we know who he is we are not going to allow him to govern without legitimacy again. That is why the current negotiations being moderated by religious leaders should not lead us into a government of national unity headed by Museveni because that will legitimize his illegitimate government of, by and for foreigners. Museveni and NRM candidates were voted overwhelmingly by foreigners who were bused in from Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and DRC as well as migrants and refugees.

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Museveni’s address to journalists on eve of 2011 elections

Reading his address to journalists one gets the impression that Museveni had in mind ignorant people who have no clue what has happened in Uganda over the last 25 years. How can he transform Uganda into a second world when he has driven it into a fourth world? Uganda was a third world country when he came to power in 1986. For all intents and purposes, Uganda is now a fourth world using the yardstick of diseases of poverty that have spread to all corners of Uganda. We had some manufacturing enterprises that created jobs when he came to power. They are mostly gone. Uganda has de-industrialized and is now dominated by neglected agriculture using hand hoes and no fertilizers and services based in Kampala and dominated by foreigners.

Instead of pushing forward Museveni has been driving Uganda backward –possibly deliberately to create a marginalized and easily exploited society. Structural adjustment that was supposed to drive Uganda from third to second world failed miserably and was abandoned in 2009. Since then he has no plan to talk of, in any case, the government has been declared broke. God knows where all the donor money that was poured into the country from bilateral and multilateral sources a few months ago besides export earnings has gone. Ugandans and donors must demand a full account of what has happened.

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Museveni’s end of 2009 address suffers from obscurantism

During his first inaugural address in 1986, Yoweri Museveni denounced the philosophy of obscurantism, a situation where ideas are deliberately obscured. Because NRM and its leadership were not interested in the politics of obscurantism, they, like good doctors, would diagnose correctly the ills of Ugandan society before announcing corrective measures. He touched on Uganda’s core development challenge when he condemned Uganda leaders who travel in executive jets while 90 percent of Ugandans have no shoes.

After a careful and comprehensive analysis, NRM recommended solutions to Uganda’s economic and social ills in a ten-point program in which, inter alia, production for domestic and external markets would be balanced and Uganda would be metamorphosed into an integrated, self-sustaining and independent economy.

On January 26, 1990, President Museveni announced a major economic policy shift that abandoned the popular ten-point program in favor of the Washington Consensus based on market forces and laissez-faire capitalism. He embraced export-led growth that diversified into non-traditional exports mostly of foodstuffs traditionally grown for domestic consumption.

The president and his government did not tell the nation that the shift was dictated by donors as a condition for financial and technical assistance. The government opened the country to all stakeholders with new ideas knowing full well that many of them were experimental and may undermine Uganda’s development prospects.

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