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Happy 2024!
Author: Phillip Matogo. PHOTO/FILE
Over 103 years ago, to this day, a Colonial Annual Report on the Uganda Protectorate was released.
It covered a period of nine months, from the 1st April the December 31 1920, as the financial year of the Protectorate had been changed to correspond with the calendar year.
Under this report’s section “Administrative Divisions”, we are given the official nature of the Ugandan polity, at the time.
“The Protectorate was divided originally into six Provinces, but on the revised delimitation of the eastern boundary in 1903, these were reduced to five— Buganda, Eastern, Western, Northern, and Rudolf—of which the last named is occupied at present by a military garrison, pending the introduction of civil government,” it reads.
“Until a survey of the country has been completed, it is not possible to furnish accurate statistics. The Protectorate covers an area of approximately 110,300 square miles, including 16,169 square miles of water. The population on the December 311920 was estimated to be 3,071,608, viz., 1,269 Europeans, 5,604 Asiatics, and 3,064,735 native inhabitants,” it concludes.
The Rudolf province eventually changed hands, between Kenya and Uganda, under British rule as part of British East Africa in 1926, eventually ending up as part of the state of Kenya.
I believe it is time to bring the Rudolf Province back.
No, not from Kenya for this idea is not irredentist (advocacy for the restoration of any territory formerly belonging to Uganda).
Rather, this idea arises out of the fact that Rudolf Province in 1922 Uganda was not North, South, East nor West.
Similarly, if we had a province in Uganda today that was No-Man’s Land, thus having no ethnic or regional claims made upon it, it could serve as a melting pot where all Ugandans live as one.
True, we do have Kampala. However, most of us like to unpatriotically say that Kampala District is in Buganda.
So I am talking about something more radical: the creation of a province which is not bound by any provincialism.
This province, essentially, would belong to all tribes, all regions and all Ugandans.
Of course it would be where the capital city lies.
The other provinces---central, eastern, western, and northern---would each send delegates to the national legislature in Rudolf Province through universal adult suffrage.
Thereafter, parliament would be transformed to a Directory, akin to the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from October 261795 until November 10 1799.
This would effectively turn Uganda into a “Directorial Republic” ruled by a college of several persons who jointly exercise the powers of a head of state and/or a head of government.
Apart from helping us exercise the cancer of one-man rule in Uganda, it would considerably reduce the size and cost of government.
This lean, mean approach to governance would trickle down to the nation’s constituent provinces.
To be sure, this top-down approach would scale back implementation problems through the careful specification of procedures from the national core to its provincial peripheries.
Accordingly, a centrifugal force would ensure the conversion of national policy objectives into democratic, patriotic action.
Rudolf Province, if you like, would thus be the staging ground for policy implementation as national resources are connected to a nationalized programme of action, contingently instead of a priori, on a province-to-province basis.
If this sounds like Utopia to you, then that is good.
We have reached a fork in the road and must choose between a dystopian present and a utopian future. And, I must warn you, it is only the latter which makes any sense to Uganda’s survival.
Happy New Year!
Mr Matogo is a professional copywriter
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