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Museveni preaches water, drinks wine on Africa’s ills
What you need to know:
- Title: What is Africa’s Problem?
- Author: Yoweri K Museveni
- Pages: 261
- Price: Shs50,000
- Where: Most bookshops in Kampala.
On March 12, 1986, a group of Acholi elders and leaders met at the famous Acholi Inn for a high-profile address. When called to deliver his address, the addresser—a youthful leader with the aura of a man on mission to transform his country—cleared his throat after approaching the lectern, greeted his audience, and went on to make an address.
The title of his speech—The Price of Bad Leadership—perfectly suited the occasion given the turbulence many parts of the country had gone through in the years leading to that day. “I am very glad to be in Gulu,” the leader started his speech without wasting a second, “but I am sorry that I have to speak to you in English. This is because our leaders in the past did not encourage or foster a national language. I sound silly when I talk to my people in English when there are African languages that can be easily learned by all of us.”
He continued: “Owing to the bankruptcy of the leadership over the past twenty-four years, no effort has been made to develop a national language. So, when I am speaking to my people, I have to speak in English as if I were a colonial governor. Uganda has been very unfortunate in having particularly bad leaders.” The then young leader addressing the elders in Gulu was – and 36 years later still is – the president of Uganda: Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
“What’s Africa’s Problem?” is a collection of President Museveni’s writings and speeches between 1986 and 1991. The book gives readers a glimpse into the thinking of the author at the time and will leave some wondering what befell the president given the realities of Uganda today. Take the example of his statements in a national language during his Acholi Inn address. On July 5, 2022, the verified Twitter account of
Government of Uganda (@GovUganda) tweeted that the cabinet had approved a directive of the EAC summit to adopt and teach Kiswahili as a national language.
The said tweet, as per the time of this writing, was the account’s pinned tweet. Efforts at adopting Swahili as a national language have been visible for decades now. In 2005, the 1995 Constitution was amended, and the language adopted as “second official language”, however, that did not translate into much. When the president addressed the country in his new year’s address on December 31, 2022, he still spoke in English – the foreign language.
The book has speeches on a wide range of issues. On June 4, 1986 the author addressed a conference of Bishops under the topic “Religion and Politics” and warned his audience that they must “share the blame because the colonialists have been gone for over twenty years… [and we] should be able to sort things out now.”
Arranged into four different chapters, chapter one of the book mainly addresses problems of Uganda’s politics from Mr Museveni’s perspective. Key speeches under the section address issues concerning democracy, insecurity, the “cancer” of corruption, building a future for Uganda, and the public spirit in the public service.
Under chapter two, the author included his addresses on questions of a military strategy in Uganda such as their choice for a protracted people’s war, and how to fight a counterrevolutionary insurgency.
The final two chapters speak to politics generally and Africa in world politics.
This book gives one a unique access to President Museveni’s view of his country, the region, and indeed the world before 2000.
