Mr Nicholas Sengoba
After waiting in vain for about two days for the enumerators of the Census 2024 to come to our house, I decided to take matters in my own hands. I waylaid a young lady who had a jacket indicating she was one of them, and asked her to start at our place because ‘we were going away.’
She declined because they were following a pattern so we would have to wait. She then curiously asked me if I worked for the government. The question was prompted by her experience in most homes where respondents were cold, unenthusiastic and uncooperative about the whole exercise.Many people looked at the enumerator as the state or government and were very cantankerous and negative wherever she went. They vented their anger and frustration at her; complained about the roads, corruption, dictatorship, nepotism, etc. ‘But I am not the government. I am also here suffering in the sun but they are quarrelling,’ she said.
It was obvious the experience had traumatised her. So recently when the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) released the figures of the 2024 National Housing and Population Census with contradictions and errors one could smell what would follow. While bragging that he was the best statistician in the country, a rather boisterous Dr Chris Mukiza, the executive director, said it was human to make errors and that those calling for his resignation where part of the group that had been fighting him all along.He acknowledged that population figures for the Langi were given to the Acholi while those of the Acholi came out as for the Bakiga.
Meanwhile the numbers for the Bakiga fell under the Bagisu pushing theirs to the Langi. In another table figures from 2014 were interchanged with those of 2024 showing that some people had reduced drastically. Some tribes were miffed that their numbers were bundled together as ‘others’ without actual figures.The cartoonists had a field day depicting what is now termed as ‘guess work.’ UBOS pulled down the report from its website for correction, but the horse had already bolted.For me the whole problem is in the loaded question the young lady asked me about working for the government.
Since Uganda was granted self-rule by the British 62 years ago, a perception, which is not entirely baseless has grown and now determines how the citizen behaves and reacts to situations.Government is looked at as a collective body of selfish, blood-sucking people who take good care of themselves, leaving the rest in the cold. It is majorly composed of people who often are not the most competent but they enjoy the largesse at the expense of everyone else.
They have the plump jobs, get the succulent government tenders, projects and scholarships. Their medical, housing and travel bills are well taken care of by the taxpayer.When they hold office, they appoint; under the guise of sacrificing, their wives, brothers, sons, in-laws and cousins to high offices, where the big money flows. They are not punished for incompetence and inefficiency.They even cynically become the leading philosophers of our times preaching about wealth creation, patriotism and sacrifice.Relatives and friends join the frenzy and at every opportunity steal money with impunity to take good care of themselves. So, government projects just never get properly done.
They accumulate a lot of wealth, power and privilege that no one can touch them. If anyone outside these circles seeks to survive, they join them at whatever level as bag carriers or boot lickers. They turn a blind eye and deaf ear to wrong doing. They posture as good boys; accepting humiliation and acting as sycophants to have access to the crumbs that fall off the high table.As this happens public assets, social services and all the things that ensure that a society comes together with a common purpose and destiny like roads, schools, hospitals, the environment etc fall apart. This leaves many hanging on shoe strings; living on less than a dollar a day -one illness, accident, or misfortune away from abject poverty.
This creates a divide where on the one hand you have the fat cats called the government and its supporters. On the other are the common people many of who exist in the realm of chronic poverty. In between are the instruments of coercion the violent security agents mainly positioned to protect the interest of the government and its acolytes. These include a big chunk of the ethnically influenced public service, compromised and intimidated judiciary plus legislature. It is this group which also enjoys most of the public finances of the country which take care of their privileges.
These are the people generally looked at as government whose perpetuation serves their interests; existential and otherwise. They are the ones who are assumed to be most interested in a successful census, election and the like. They are the apparent owners of the country whose matters concern them more than anyone else.The others at the bottom of the tree then become angry and detached. They just don’t care because they almost get nothing out of the government. Most times when the latter visits, it is to tax them, oppress them, grab their land ‘for the good of the country.’
Protecting the environment means they are thrown out of the wetlands where the rich are allowed to stay with all manner of justifications.It is this phenomenon that Social Scientist Jan Kerkhofs observed when he said that “when people are negative about the state, they are negative about everything to do with society.”This in Uganda is what accounts for all the skepticism when it comes to government programmes. People will not apply for government jobs because there is a belief that they have already selected ‘their people.’ Won’t take their children for vaccination because government never gives anything free of charge so there must be something sinister when anything is on the house.That is why things like the census are always going to encounter challenges. People look at it as a scheme for ‘the people in government’ to make money by pretending to engage in a civic exercise.
It is a tall order for a government to say that it is counting people with the intention of planning for them. Yet in many places does not provide sensible education, leaving pupils to study under trees and in dilapidated buildings. Or healthcare where hospitals have no doctors or drugs yet there is impunity and corruption everywhere. Uganda is a very divided country. As a project, it is failing and so are most of the things that are geared towards making it work.
Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political
and social issues. X: @nsengoba
