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Queen built a strong Uganda, but we know who undid everything
Author: Gawaya Tegulle. PHOTO/NMG
What you need to know:
- When she left, Ugandans began fighting each other to take power.
One of the glaring truths around these parts is that by the time the freshly demised Queen Elizabeth II granted independence to Uganda in 1962, she wasn’t just a tired monarch dumping a baby nation in the hands of natives. She was the quintessential mother who, having prepared her child to face the world, was letting go – since the child, against the mother’s will, was raring to go.
It was after the Queen’s departure that problems came in, which only serves to entrench the rather uncharitable notion that Africans are completely incapable of governing themselves. Why? Because whoever gets power doesn’t want to let go; they want to consolidate themselves in power, vest absolute power in themselves, control all the resources, crush their opponents with all brutality and ferocity, enslave the citizens and stay in power until death comes calling. Just look at Uganda since 1962.
The concept of creating a stable democracy that works for everyone, where power regularly changes hands in a free and fair manner; and an economy that rewards merit and innovation has for long been alien to Africa. It is only now that some few exceptions to this stupid rule are beginning to emerge: look at Ghana, Zambia, Botswana, Malawi and probably, after biting the lid of your pen for a minute, delicately add Kenya and South Africa…in faint ink.
That selfishness, that self-centredness and the complete lack of patriotism that bedevils African countries largely explains why we are always in turmoil, poverty and famine. The British are very organised people and they think strategically; which partly explains why a relatively small island was able, for ages, to dominate the world.
The Queen left us with the Owen Falls Dam, opened in 1954 and still standing today. Enter the Ugandans to have their own dams: Karuma Dam was reported to have cracks halfway the construction. Isimba Dam has been closed because poor workmanship has invited a disaster, just waiting to happen.
When the Queen reigned here, “public transport” meant government-owned conveyance. So she left us with the Uganda Transport Company and Peoples Transport Company which used to provide inter-city and inter-town transport. And these buses carried people across the country at subsidised rates! Until the National Resistance Movement (NRM) – the ‘liberators’ – showed up and sold off everything.
Has anybody asked what happened to, and where went, the Uganda Railway? That gift from the British was destroyed by NRM. The Uganda Railways Corporation was put under cronies of the powers that be and all they have done is loot everything, including the railway lines! The NRM has not added even one inch of railway to Uganda. Instead, under their watch, everything railway about Uganda has been dismantled. The Queen left serious schools and hospitals which the ‘liberators’ have run down and replaced with funny-looking schools which manufacture peasants and health centres without medicine.
The industries in Jinja were eaten by the powers that be; turning Jinja, a once bustling metropolis, into a ghost town.
The Queen bequeathed to us well-planned towns. And over the last 36 years the NRM government has presided over grabbing of public lands and houses by powerful people and trashing urban planning principles to create slums and shanty towns.
In summary, Queen Elizabeth built Uganda. When she left, Ugandans began fighting each other to take power and control resources. After many battles, the ‘liberators’ who won the war, have led the country for close to 40 years, during which everything that the Queen left to us has been undone.
They have stolen. They have spoiled. They have squandered. And here we are today with a country sharply divided along ethnic lines. The economy doesn’t work for 95 percent of the people. The government has run out of money to fund its activities or pay its workers and more critically, the rulers have absolutely no idea what to do, to turn the country around.
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If the Queen had stayed in control longer, we’d have been much better off today. Look at the likes of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand where she still reigned! We thought we were clever, now see! Fare thee well, Queen Elizabeth and God bless your soul.
Mr Gawaya Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda
