I
wish to add my voice to those that have responded to the President’s
countrywide tours in which he has been preaching patriotism to the
teachers. The secondary school teachers are already patriotic enough
that they don’t merit any patriotism lectures.
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| Museveni; President of Uganda Photo:Courtesy |
The Ugandan teachers fall into the category of the
working poor; they are the wretched of the earth to borrow Franz Fanon’s
phrase. Most secondary school teachers who work in private schools work
for as little as 150,000 shillings. But also, there are those in
government aided schools and have never been on the payroll. I wonder
why we have teachers in government-aided schools that for quite long
cannot access the payroll yet state funds are pilfered by unscrupulous
politicians and civil servants day in day out.
One wonders then why the President who lives in
glamour and has a high propensity to profligate spending should spend
extra taxpayers’ money preaching patriotism to these innocent yet
unfortunate patriotic Ugandans. I am sure if teachers were not patriotic
most of them would have run away to Iraq or elsewhere.
I also wonder whether the President is the most
qualified to preach patriotism. In my view, the President is only
patriotic in words and not in action. That is but ostentation. That
explains why he abhors those who talk about sectarianism. Consolidation
of national unity and elimination of all forms of sectarianism was
ironically the third point on the ten point programme. The practice
however, has shown that the president detests talk about sectarianism
and not the practice of the same. I shudder at the level at which
sectarianism has been perfected during President Museveni’s tenure and I
believe it is inimical to patriotism.
Patriotism is not confined to saying you love your
country. You should not only love your country but you should be seen in
action. To be the best teacher of patriotism, you should be a firm
believer in patriotism and you should not do the antithesis of
patriotism.
The government should equip our health centres with
drugs and pay our medical practitioners handsomely so that we cease
witnessing the doctors migrating to look for greener pastures. The
government should improve the standards of our schools and remunerate
teachers well for like the former Russian President Nikita Krushchev
said; incentives are what get people working harder.
We should see an end to harassment of political
opponents; criticism should not be regarded as sabotage and opposition
as treason. There should be more efforts to ensure that thousands of
graduates churned out by our universities get jobs on the basis of merit
and not nepotism.
The president needs to revisit the NRM Ten Point
Programme and stop tinkering with our sacrosanct provisions in the
constitution to perpetuate himself in power. There are so many flaws in
our society that our president should concentrate on rectifying. In fact
on 21st March, when the Ekimezza programme of Radio One debated
patriotism, one participant in the audience asked why waste people’s
time discussing such a subject. That was a pointer to me that the
president has wasted taxpayers' money preaching patriotism.
Patriotism lectures in my opinion are intended to
conscript teachers into the recruitment drive for the NRM which is
unfortunate because teachers are not supposed to be involved in partisan
politics. No wonder, it has been reported before that the NRM intends
to recruit even children into the party.
At the end of the day there will be no difference
between patriotism lectures and Mchaka Mchaka which many political
pundits say were meant to indoctrinate and brainwash the masses by
hoodwinking them that the ugly past is solely attributable to political
parties. Mr. President, please don’t preach water and drink wine at the
same time.
Vincent Nuwagaba
The author is a human rights activist.
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