Let’s all demand social justice in Uganda

By Vincent Nuwagaba


First published by Daily Monitor on Friday, September 2 2011

Two media stories have compelled me to make an input. The first is President Museveni’s war against anybody who is opposed to the give-away of part of Mabira Forest to Mehta for sugarcane growing and the second is the report launched by UWEZO on August 18, titled, “Are our children learning?”.

On Museveni’s ‘sugar war’, I find statements attributed to him worrying, annoying and unconstitutional. To begin with, the President has no right to donate public land. The government holds public property, including land, in public trust. Any attempt to give away public property without the consent of Ugandans is tantamount to abuse of the trusteeship. Sadly, the abuse of trusteeship has gone on in the past for so long that the President now thinks he has a customary right to do whatever he wants. In my considered view, the war that the President has declared against environmentalists and all save Mabira crusaders is a war against himself.

While the President has a history of winning many wars, I think he will surely lose this one. While the President reportedly said he is ready for war on sugar, he seems to have given up on other meaningful wars such as grand corruption, poor quality education, inaccessibility to higher education by the poor; lack of health facilities and graduate unemployment, among others. We would also need to know whether or not the President intends to use guns to fight his war. If he is talking of an ideological war, then well-meaning Ugandans should be ready for the battle of brains.

The President was quoted as having said, “I am not ready to listen to anybody who is saying that I save Mabira”. Does he then still maintain that he derives his legitimacy from the people of Uganda? Is that not abrogation of Article 1 of our Constitution which says power belongs to the people? At the Pan-African club meeting at Seascallop Restaurant in Kamwokya recently, some NRM activists were saying Mabira is already gone, can someone in the know throw light on this?

At the press conference addressed by Hon John Ken Lukyamuzi and Hon Beatrice Anywar, they alleged that Mehta has not paid taxes for the past 26 years, why then does he have to be given free land? Is he an investor worth the name if he doesn’t pay taxes? I know pretty well the working conditions of Scoul employees and the meagre salaries they earn.

I would be comfortable if Mr Museveni waged his war against theft that is now synonymous with the NRM (remember while in Rwanda recently the President said Ugandans are thieves), I would be happy if Mr Museveni funded education. It’s amazing that the government remits less than Shs2,000 for each pupil under UPE and a paltry Shs41,000 for each student under USE yet schools spend around Shs120,000 on each student. And this is why the UWEZO report shows that Ugandan primary school children suffer from literacy and numeracy capabilities.

Museveni should also fulfill his promise of introducing university student loans and prevail on universities to cut tuition fees. It is ironic that in Museveni’s Uganda, public educational institutions are financed by poor parents and students as though they have ceased being state institutions. Recently, teachers made a modest--considering what they are earning--100 per cent pay raise but their demand was rejected by the government. If I were one of them, I would have asked for 400 per cent salary increment. Don’t Ugandan teachers, policemen, prison warders, and indeed all civil servants want their children to attain university education?

As other well-meaning Ugandans join environmentalists to save Mabira, I also call upon the rest to join me in demanding the right to education which is enshrined in Article 30 of the 1995 Constitution and the international human rights instruments that Uganda has ratified, which stress that higher education shall be accessible on the basis of merit.

These include inter alia Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948), Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966), Articles 28 and 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989), Article 10 of the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979), Articles 1, 2 and 5 of the International Covenant on Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination, 1969) and Unesco Convention Against Discrimination in Education.

Accordingly, education is a fundamental human right but also that it is a critical tool for social transformation is obvious. Let’s all demand social justice in Uganda for we are citizens, not subjects.
Mr Nuwagaba is a human rights defender.

mpvessynuwagaba@gmail.com