{UAH} Another one praises Idi Amin?

It's amazingly true!

We are all aware of biting poverty. We have heard of jigger outbreaks in different parts of the country. Nodding disease in Parliament and in some districts. Landslides and floods that kill. We often hear of hunger that kills Ugandans. Armed thugs that terrorise highways, urban and rural areas.

I was born soon after independence in March 1963. So my real first understanding of government was the 1970s. It was the time Idi Amin was in power. For my home district we experienced a real revolution.

First was the start of decentralisation. Forget the claims of the current regime for having been the authors of bringing services closer to the people. It was uneducated Idi Amin that divided the colonial districts like Ankole into West and East Ankole. Kigezi was divided into North and South Kigezi. Amin did not need anyone's votes to give districts. His government decisions were based purely on administrative convenience.

Secondly he mounted an agricultural revolution in my new district of West Ankole. Agricultural Assistants in their white gum boots started village farm schools and taught us modern methods of banana plantation mantainance, mulching, rain water preservation on the farm; coffee plunning and drying and the advantages of land fencing, and tick control through dipping in cattle keeping.

I have travelled across Africa and found many areas of this continent that are yet to realise what the "terrible government" of Amin achieved in the first six years in West Ankole 40 years ago.

Next was the Public Health Revolution. A few days ago I was travelling through a village on fieldwork. I needed a bathroom break. The host was visibly embarrassed. They had no latrine! Well not so under Idi Amin's West Ankole of the mid- 1970s. A public health campaign was mounted in my sub-county in 1974. Sub - villages had to compete against each other. To win the trophy every home had to have a clean, well thatched, well covered pit latrine; a plate drying rack; a covered pot containing boiled and cooled water for drinking, a garbage disposal pit 20 metres away from the home and we'll maintained walls. There were winning homes, winning sub-villages, villages and sub - counties.

All the above were achieved without elected LCs mind you. I did not mention that all the above were achieved 40 years ago without World Bank, without NAADS, without Global Fund or GAVI and Amin never carried sacks and envelopes for poverty eradication or bona bagagaawal

Joseph Tumushabe
UAH Facebook

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