Personal Observations By Leo Odera Omolo, a Veteran Kenyan Journalist who was recently in Uganda.
The time is ripe for the ever politically squabbling Kenyan leaders to spare their valuable time and visit the neighboring Uganda to learn about what could be achieved within the shortest possible period of time under good governance.
The remarkable and highly impressive development should be emulated not only by Kenya, but all other member states of the East African Community. In fact these nations should use Uganda as the role model for their future development activities
Uganda, an East African landlocked nation, whose economy has gone through myriad of problems, and suffered from political upheavals, bloody military coups, poor management of the resources, misplaced development strategies, and political turmoil ever since it attained its political independence in 1962, is today the role model of fast and serious development in East Africa.
It is worth taking into account that Uganda’s economy was raped and ruptured under the bad governance and despotic leadership for close to two decades between 1966 and 1986. But the coming to power of the hitherto unknown and unheard of NRM movement has completely changed the political history of the country.
The NRM has put to rest and consigned to the dustbins of history, all the past dirty politics and poor leadership, which was full of political intrigues that ruined the country. The good governance and the accompanying pragmatic policy of transparency and accountability is believed by many to have transformed Uganda and contributed immensely to its achievement..
The country has undergone thorough, serious economic and infrastructural transformation, from a subsistence economy, to a booming internal trade, vibrant agro-based economy and visible advancement of its infrastructure. Those who are in the know, and privy to information about Uganda’s success story ,which is unequaled in the Eastern African region, are rightly attributing this trend of milestone achievements to the good governance by the ruling NRM.
The kind of development that is in place in the neighboring Uganda should be emulated by Kenya. Instead of having close to 146 fledgling tribally oriented political parties, they should follow Uganda’s good example and form a mass movement in the pattern of the NRM, and its workable structures. Or else cut the number of the registered parties, most of them only serving as agent of confusion, down to two or three, stronger viable ones.
It was a remarkable experience for me when I visited the Ugandan capital on August 20th for a three days stay.
This is the town in which I started my journalistic career in 1957. I worked for the defunct UGANDA ARGUS briefly as a sports writer. I also played competitive soccer at both Nakifubo and Lugogo Stadiums. The latter was next door to my house at Nagulu Estate, and only a two minutes walk.
My Luo tribesmen working in Kampala and its environs had formed a strong football league based on sub-clans. The strongest teams, which were christened “Majimbo” league were Alego Ragar, Rusinga, Uyoma, Nyakach and Karachuonyo. I turned up for my Rusinga Island home team, and I was proud to play soccer in that conquering team. The venue for the Luo league matches was Lugogo on Sundays and Saturdays.
Kampala at that time looked like an exclusive Luo colony. There were too many of us. And the league matches were full of agitation, at times ending up in violent confrontations. On one or two occasions, I turned up for the police team and played in the forward position along side one of the best forwards ever produced by Uganda, Grace Siruwagi. He was an instructor based at Sambya Police Training School, which was located within the City. This ever polite policeman was also turning as the centre-forward for the Ugandan team in the regional Gossage Cup tournament, also involving teams from Kenya,Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
The Ugandans of those days loved soccer, and even the Kabaka of Buganda, Mutesa II, used to turn up for the Mengo team at the matches played at Nakifubo. A good number of Kenyans played for Uganda team. One of the notable ones was Owiti, and the late Job Henry Onyango Omino.
There were many others who also played for other countries. One William Ong’weya, an accomplished centre-forward, turned up for the Tanganyika Gossage squad, and helped the team clinch the prestigeous Gossage Cup in 1953.
But the Uganda soccer wizard of all time was Ali Kitosa. He was a very temperamental player, always having a rough time with referees. He was arguably the equivalent of Kenya’s legendary soccer king, Shem Chimoto and Tanzania’s Abdalah King Kibadeni.
My first visit to the Ugandan capital in the same year, I was on a mission to interview some political personalities for the defunct DRUM magazine and its then popular East Africa’s edition. But then, I found myself in love with the “Pearl of Africa”, and stayed on, after accomplishing my assignment.
This was during the famous Non-African Trade Boycott campaign, spearheaded by Buganda Kingdom, a protest in demand for the return of the Kabaka Mutesa II [King Freddie], who was then exiled in the United Kingdom by the British colonial administration. The near violent campaign was led by a flamboyant politician called Augustine Kamya.
Already in his middle age, Mr. Kamya was joined by the young technocrats, who included the youthful Indian trained lawyer, and a firebrand in the name of Abubakar Mayanja. The then Governor of Uganda, Sir Andrew Cohen, had issued a stringent order restricting the fuel stations, most of which were owned and managed by Indians, not to sell fuel to the pro-Kabaka Bagandas and their supporters. This created an artificial shortage of petrol in Kampala, sparking off a lot of smuggling rackets in fuel trade.
No Africans were supposed to purchase any shop goods from shops in Kampala, and in other towns within Buganda region,which were owned by non-Africans, mainly Indians, Goans and European, and relatively the same applied to those shops owned and run by the Arabs.
Sir Andrew Cohen was later replaced by the former Chief Secretary and long-serving colonial Education Minister in Kenya, Mr. Walter F. Coutts [later Sir Walter Coutts}. This is the man who eventually handed the insignia power to the late Dr. Apollo Milton Obote, when his UPC/Kabaka-Yekka combined forces, and defeated the late Mr Benedict Kiwanuka’s DP party. They formed the post-independence government, headed by Kabaka as the ceremonial President, and head of state, while Dr. Obote retained the the powerful office of executive Prime Minister and virtually the head of government.
I still maintain a belief that the Kabaka made a hasty decision of merging the Kabaka Yekka with the UPC. This was obviously the beginning of the turbulence that cost the Kabaka his monarchy, and death in exile. First of all, Obote was for a unitary system of government that did not recognized the tribal kingdom, and Kabaka Mutesa was very much aware of this, but his desire to have Benedict Kiwanuka, a staunch Catholic, out of the way made him form a loose alliance with Obote, an accomplished enemy of the tribal monarchy system. And the Kabaka paid the prize for this political blunder.
If the moderate Benedicto Kiwanuka’s DP had won the 1962 general election, the Kabaka and other monarchs would have retained the status quo, even after Uganda became an independent nation within the British Commonwealth. But Kiwanuka, an accomplished democrat and a moderate politician, who had served briefly as the Prime Minister of Uganda during the internal self government, was robbed of victory due to this amorphous alliance.
The Non-African Trade Boycott relatively succeeded in pressurizing the British Government to return the Kabaka.
In my research for stories for the DRUM magazine, while at the same time I worked for the Uganda ARGUS, I brushed solders with the early Ugandan nationalists who were involved in the struggle for independence, particularly the late Joseph [Jolly] William Kiwanuka, an addicted soccer lover and administrator per excellence.
Others were Mr Kamya, Mr.Mayanja, Humprey Luande, the trade unionist, Sam Odaka, another prominent lawyer Mr Binaisa, Omwanika Amos Sempa, who was later to become the first Finance Minister for the Independent Uganda, legislator David Ochieng, Kalule Settala, Sir Tito Winyi, Owiny Dollo, Adoko Nekyon, the Kingo of the Sebei, Mr. Chemonges, Katikiro of Buganda at the time, Michael Kintu, Kiyabazinga of Busoga, and many others…… I cannot mention all of them in this article
It was also during the famous Supreme Court case of the famous Kabangala Sassude, in which a tenant tricked an Asian landlord to sign a fake land transfer paper and grabbed his business premises in the heart of Kampala. He tricked the Asian owner by making him sign a paper written in Luganda vernacular, which said he had already paid for the purchase of the building located on upper market, Kamala road.
In Nairobi about the same time, Dr. Obote had a nasty clash with the late CMG Argwings Kodhek, the first Kenyan African barrister at law, who headed the defunct Nairobi African District Congress. It was at the time when the colonial administration only allowed Kenyan politicians to form district political association, but not the colony-wide mass political movement, due to the then prevailing emergency regulations.
Obote was a close political associate of Mr. Mboya, though in later years, he changed sides due to changed political ideology that was geared to the scientific socialism, and became much closer to the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, a sworn political enemy of Mboya.
Obote was a founder member of the Nairobi People’s Convention Party {PCP}, which was led by the late Tom Mboya. This was in 1958, only a year after Mboya and Argwings-Kodhek had battled it out in a bruising election contest for Nairobi area African constituency seat, in the then White Settlers dominated colonial Legislative Council, which Mboya won with a majority votes of 396.
An accomplished writer, Obote and the late Elijah Omolo Agar were involved in writing and editing PCP fiercely anti-colonialists and anti-settlers weekly newsletter UHURU, and he had on several times scathingly criticized Mr. Argwings-Kodhek in one of the paper columns, and also at a meeting at Kaloleni Hall.
At this point Mr, Kodhek told Obote point blank to pack up and go back to Uganda to help his then perceived to be backward Langi tribesmen, in his native Uganda, whom the Kenyan lawyer alleged, were still walking naked in a primitive manner, and were allegedly starving to deaths, instead of engaging himself in Kenya’s internal politics.
Obote took the lawyers remarks for an insult and packed his luggage and left for Kampala. Within months, he had joined William Kiwanuka’s then Uganda African National Congress, in what was seen as a political marriage of convenience. The marriage did not last, and there was a big split in the Kiwanuka’s party with Obote slashing a large number of its members, and taking them to UPC, which he and others had formed as a splinter group, following disagreement with Kiwanuka..
I returned to Kenya and got involved in journalism and stopped frequenting Uganda, except on the Independence celebrations of October 1962 and the OAU Summit of 1976, of the Heads of State and Governments, which was chaired by President Idi Amin.
While attending this important annual conference, the bad news came from Nigeria that the military had staged a coup and removed General Yakub Gown from power. Gowon was in attendance with the Nigerian national flag flying on his table, as the head of his country’s delegation. The news was broken to him by Idi Amin and it struck him like thunderbolt. Although wearing a composed face, Gown looked dejected and distraught and immediately withdrew from the Hall.
My next visit was when I triumphantly entered into Kampala in the company of Tanzania troops that had sent Idi Amin packing. Indeed I was among the first few foreign journalists who were to arrive after Idi Amin had been sent packing and fled northward. I had traveled with the Tanzanian forces via Mutukula border post and camped briefly with them in a makeshift field military camp, located around Mpigi, for a few days before the fall of Kampala..
The other early arrival was that of Mr Tony Avigan of the BBC and other agencies.. We became so scarred when information came about that Amin had been seen in Masindi and also been spotted at Mbale Town, in eastern part of the country, and that he was busy mobilizing the remnants of his crack troops to stage counter attacks. But this particular information did not materialize. It was later established that the information about counter offensive that filtered in was a big hoax..
Thereafter, I only relied on Ugandan news through reading its dailies, such as The New Vision and Daily Mirror, which always arrived in Nairobi streets in later afternoon hours, and via Radio Uganda..
Some weeks before the fall of Kampala, I was somewhere in a hideout in Eastern Uganda, reporting to the BBC under an assumed name, and that the priest was immediately seized by Idi Amin’s notorious State Research Bureau officials and taken away for interrogation..
Uganda was a sealed off country at the time. No foreign jpurnalists were allow to work in that country. But I was free to come in and out under an assumed name, and I was filing a lot of stories on daily basis after crossing the border into Kenya, which included the progress in the war front. I was frequently in the air through the BBC’s Network Africa in the evenings, and Focus On African in morning time under the name pf Simon Peter Onyango. Truly to my journalistic prowess I remained a phantom up to-date.
This year, I came to Uganda for this year’s 3rd EAC Media Summit, and I was very much impressed by the tempo of development activities in the countryside and also in the capital City, Kampala.
During my brief stay, I received heartening news that the tea production in Western Uganda has also gone up three fold after years of neglect, during which time the tea bushes had overgrown. The tea crop had became unproductive and uneconomic during the reign of Idi Amin Dada’s murderous regime [1971-1979].
I have always been concerned about the of tea industry in Uganda. This is because between 1965 and 1969, I worked for the Brooke Bond Tea Company in Kenya as their public relations manager, based at the Kenya Tea Company Ltd, at Kericho. During this time I was a frequent visitor to Kabaale, Port-Portal and Hoima-regions ,where the tea is grown in abundance. Brooke Bond Tea of the UK had some economic interests in Uganda grown tea.
What impressed me most is the fact that tea crops are no longer the exclusive rights of the multinational foreign companies, but even small scale rural farmers in the tea growing zones have became out growers. They are minting million in foreign exchange, accrued from tea exports, which they have ploughed back on the land and wisely invested in other fields of development activities.
This is reflecting in the true picture of the NRM government, which has been in office ever since 1986.
It is a concerted effort to ensure that the national cake is distributed equitably to all the regions. The government, has also facilitated the local peasant farmers and armed them with incentive agricultural policies that has enabled them to venture into tea growing. This is a clear evidence of equitable and distribution and sharing of the national cake .
Traveling west and south west of Kampala reveals a lot. Enormous developments have taken place along the Kampala –Masaka-Mbarara roads, a testimony that Uganda has moved further ahead of its neighboring countries, particularly its traditional trading partners of Kenya and Tanzania..
But the latest discovery of huge deposits of oil and natural gas in Lake Albert, and in other part of the Bunyoro kingdom, will definitely push Uganda ahead of many countries in the region.
It is also shameful that foreign journalists visiting Uganda have always fallen into foul traps of the of destructive elements and political demagogues which fed them with only concocted stories of the seemingly politically insignificant LR A rebellion, and war in the north. But these scribes either deliberately or with ulterior motive designs, and totally ignored writing about anything that Ugandan people have achieved through years hard work and sweat in their beautiful country, in terms of development of the economic infrastructure and other social aspect.
As the English saying goes, “Give vredit where it is due”, the international media owe Uganda a lot. They should write to portray the true picture of what is in place. The current political leadership in that country, particularly President Yoweri Museveni and the team of his hard-working Ministers, top officials involve in policy and decision making government all deserves a pat on the back.
But let me not loose sight and forget to thank the Ugandan electorate for their wise choice of legislators and policy makers, who have contributed enormously and made the country a fast developing economy. Many thanks also to the rural peasant folks, who through their sweat, have turned Uganda to be the new hub of food security in his region.
Transport mode is the cheapest and most affordable, one need only a short ride into the countryside on a motor bike taxi to witness what has been achieved. I challenge my fellow scribes to visit Uganda’s countryside and witness for themselves what has been done, and what kind of development are on the pipeline, envisaged to take place in the near future.
Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
About the author.
Leo Odera Omolo is a veteran Kenyan journalist-cum-author who is operating in Western Kenyan lakeside City of Kisumu. He writes on various topics, features and news to several publications at home and abroad, and at times operating in both Tanzania and Uganda. He can be reached by phone through Nos –0722 486181,0734 509215 and 0572500827 [landline]. Correspondences should be addressed to P.O.BOX 833, KISUMU-Kenya….
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From: Leo Odera Omolo
Date: Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 10:12 AM
subject: THE IMPRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT, PEACE AND TRANQUILITY ACHIEVED IN UGANDA SHOULD SERVE AS THE ROLE MODEL FOR OTHER SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN NATIONS.
