Will Uganda’s ruling party disappoint and disprove the opposition and other skeptics?

 I wish to address three key urgent events in this piece. These are independence, world food day and the international day for the eradication of poverty. Uganda marked the 51^st independence anniversary on Wednesday 9, October with fanfare in my neighbouring home district -Rukungiri. Seeing Dr Kizza Besigye and Erias Lukwago calmly seated in the tent was particularly thrilling to me. I thought at last we have had national events celebrated by all Ugandans irrespective of their partisan political inclination.

Unsurprisingly, the ruling party didn’t disappoint me. My excitement was to be short-lived as I read a facebook post that Dr Besigye and company had been arrested. I didn’t see Besigye and company walk out of the tent but for sure, the NRM missed an opportunity to disappoint the opposition – Besigye and Lukwago at that and other political skeptics. I have not talked to Dr Besigye but as a political scientist, I can authoritatively say Besigye had his last laugh. The ruling party would have scored 100 percent if it had left Dr Besigye and company to leave peacefully.

Alas, the NRM played into Dr Besigye’s hands. Besigye had attended simply to prove to the public that the ruling party is intolerant, that it treats national functions as party functions and Ofwono-Opondo’s hyping of the NRM party at a national function vindicated Besigye on the latter and his eventual arrest vindicated him on the former. If Besigye had stayed, though, I guess some papers would flash a big headline, “Besigye rejoins NRM”. It was already a handiwork of regime propagandists on social media that he had rejoined NRM.

Let me now tackle the other two issues that inform the import of this article. On October 16 and 17, the world marks the world food day and the international day for the eradication of poverty. This comes days after President Museveni bashed the International Criminal Court and said Millennium Development Goal 1, 2, 3 and four have been fully attained at the UN Genral Assembly. While I would punch holes in his attack of the ICC, I want to confine myself to Millennium Development Goal number 1 which is the eradication of hunger and extreme poverty.

My relative Fred Mucunguzi (not real name) sold his portion of land and cows to pursue a degree programme at Makerere University. He graduated with a second class upper degree with a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.03 in 2005. He was on dean’s list with very good grades. He specialised in international relations and diplomacy. He first applied for a post of protocol officer at parliament, and then severally applied for a post of Foreign Service officer in the ministry of foreign affairs to no avail. On the other hand, Robert who joined university in 2004 and studied public administration landed a fat job in the ministry of foreign affairs on patronage basis. For so long, Fred would often go hungry, and almost lost hope. Ultimately, Fred opened a printing bureau on Nasser Road and is busy printing university transcripts and certificates that his clients use to secure jobs. Other graduates have turned into conmen, fraudsters and some are iron bar hit men out of frustration. 

UN secretary General Ban Ki Moon has often remarked that employment is the surest way of fighting poverty. In Uganda, people who have no jobs are well-educated. The illiterate and school dropouts are comfortably working – as shoe shiners, wheel-barrow pushers, boda boda riders, fruit vendors, among others. Refined university graduates are very few. And I can say this with authority. The formal jobs are given to people who are unqualified – the mediocre on spoils system basis.

Poverty and hunger are concomitant bedfellows and they reinforce each other. Poverty begets hunger and hunger begets further poverty. Less than 10 percent of the population own 90 percent of the national wealth. Poverty and hunger beget frustration, hopelessness, helplessness, voicelessness, normlessness and vulnerability. Poverty and hunger are antithetical to social justice and they are socially constructed. Both poverty and hunger are indignities caused by man because of greed, insensitivity and heartlessness. Accordingly, since hunger and poverty are man-made they must be eradicated by man.

Mr Nuwagaba is a political scientist and human rights defender

vnuwagaba@gmail.com