Uganda turns 44

 

By Joshua Kato
SHE is now 44 years. Life expectancy in Uganda stands at 48 years. This means that if Uganda was a woman, she would be nearing her death! Scary. Uganda has lived her life. Like most African women, she has scrambled through some of this time. She has been “defiled” and “raped” numerously, she has been bloodied and roughed up in one way or another, but she has also sailed comfortably through some of these years.

When she had just been born in 1962, she was beautiful. According to Whinston Churchill, “She was the pearl of Africa,”

According to a government State of the country publication in 1964, Uganda was one of the best positioned countries in Africa, as far as development was concerned.

 

1962: Obote receiving instruments of power

 

“Uganda is clearly going through a period of rapid progress,” the then minister of finance Kalule Ssettaala commented then. The infrastructure was developing. The agricultural sector, the backbone of the economy was buoyant.

Coffee, cotton, tea and tobbaco were all doing well. As an indicator of how the country was performing, revenue collected then was more than the budget expenditure. For example, about 27.2m pounds was projected for collection in 1964 as internally-generated revenue. This was against an expenditure of 24.4m pounds.

But just when Uganda was four years old, a fight between her sons, Milton Obote and Sir Edward Muteesa II destroyed one of the major institutions at her birth – the traditional institutions and federal. This was a conflict of egos. One of Obote, the executive prime minister and Muteesa, the king of Buganda and ceremonial president.

“The crisis of 1966 can be viewed as a definite watershed in the history of post-independence Uganda. However short the period that preceded it, some may see it as the beginning of the agonies of Uganda, when things started falling apart,” said Phares Mutibwa, authour of Uganda Since Independence, a publication that looks at the numerous unfulfilled hopes of Ugandans.

Between 1969 and 1971, Uganda was found in a tricky situation. Her leaders, decided that instead of spending time with western powers, including Britain, she had to move to the east. Indeed, Obote started visiting powerful countries in the east, including China and Russia. He even hinted on nationalising the economy, a move that would certainly have turned the country into a communist-like state. This of course did not please the powers in the west, who organised Obote’s downfall.

In her tender age, a coup detat led by several of her own children, led by Gen. Idi Amin was carried out. This was her first major defilement.

“It was generally believed that after a year or two Amin would escape through a window and return to the obscurity of the barracks from which he should never have emerged,” Mutibwa argued. However, Amin stayed for a whole eight years, plunging the country into terror.

For the first time, basic necessities like salt, sugar, tea and fuel became scarce and expensive, while life became so cheap. In his book, A State of Blood, Henry Kyemba, Amin’s sonal aide, recounts these acts of murder.

Of course Ugandans did not sit down as their mother was abused. Many decided to go into exile and fight for her. Tanzania became the main staging point for the struggle. Led by Obote, Oyite Ojok and the Okellos, plus another faction led by Yoweri Museveni, all of who were supported by Tanzania, they fought.

It was supposed to be a liberation, but it turned into another nightmare. There was so much fight for control that Uganda got three presidents in a space of only two years. Prof. Yusuf Lule, Godfrey Binaisa all had their names written in history as leaders of Uganda.

It became clear that Uganda’s leaders had not learnt from experience. Lule’s eshuffling of ministers and military chiefs was totally misadvised. His situation was analysed by celebrated historian D.A Low, in a publication, Uganda now.

“At first, Lule included in his cabinet a convincing spread of ministers from all significant parts of the country, but he then set out to assert his own primacy as president before either his own or his regime’s authority had been effectively established,” Low observed. The results were that Lule was summarily deposed and replaced by Binaisa.

Elections were planned, as the best way to bring back sanity. But when they were held, they turned out to be a sham.

“The elections were heavily rigged in favour of UPC. They were held in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Everything was in favour of UPC,” Francis Bwengye, seasoned politician and author of a publication the Agony of Uganda remembers.

Low added that, “The composed majority that Obote’s election victory should have implied was essentially spurious.”

Those unhappy with the election process decided to fight the new establishment. Among these were Museveni and the late Dr. Andrew Kayiira.

According to celebrated Constitutional Court Judge and historian Prof. George Kanyeihamba, in a publication Uganda Now, many Ugandans in the early 80s failed to understand the intricacies of the situation. He argues that among the things that they failed to understand was that war had two sides.

“The truth of the matter was that Uganda was in the middle of a civil war and for every Ugandan who claimed that the people fighting Obote’s government were bandits, there was another who claimed that it was the members of government who were bandits,” he said.

However, after five years, Museveni came to power. In 1986, a new order under the Movement system set in. This was a system that suspended the operations of political parties. Competition for political office was on individual merit.

“It is the system that fought divisions and brought unity. It is the system that introduced order,” says Dr. Crispus Kiyonga, high ranking NRM official.

However, not everybody saw it that way. According to MUK don and political analyst Dr. Oloka Onyango, the Movement was actually not what it claimed to be.

“Although in form the Movement may pretend to be something new, as a matter of fact, it meets all the criteria of a single-party state,” he said.

Oloka has written several publications about the politics of this country. The contention whether the Movement was a party stayed on, until last year when the country returned to a multi-party system. Nonetheless, this woman Uganda has seen a general reduction of blood shade in the last 20 years. The economy has fairly developed, with basic and luxury needs that were scarce, especially between 1970 and 1986, getting easily available.

Like Kanyeihamba said, one of the problems of this woman aged 44 today, has been the failure of leaders to embrace democracy.

“Ugandan leaders need to be educated in appreciating and accepting political defeat and loss of power as attributes of democracy, freedom and constitutionalism,” the judge says.