{UAH} Shedding tears after 29 years : absurd, hollow, and meaningless !

She has cried!  Yes, a full Minister very closely linked to State House has wept in public

at the misery of a school in her constituency. She has really shed perhaps a bowl of tears

in front of a group of Americans including a nine-year old lad who led them from USA to Kafumu

in Mpigi to help dig a latrine and repair a school block. This is indeed a great story which I discovered

first in New Vision and then in Bukedde. and I've followed it on our UAH forum presented thru touching titles:

1- Trade Minister Amelia weeps for hungry people

2- The cry of shame

3- Opposition not taking advantage of crying baby-minister

4- Kyambadde tears move Government to act

And I'm thankful to all those who have posted comments on the debate whether on our forum or in the press.

Their ideas and criticism have been very original and quite to the point!  This personally obliges me to throw in

a propeller to drive my points and observations to any attentive mind on a subject that has volumes to expose.

I have come to know Hon Mrs Amelia Kyambadde thanks to our UAH where she was one day presented to us

as the grand daughter of a late legendary statesman Oweekitiibwa S.W. Kulubya who was known for his highly

developmental action in very many spheres of our national life. If Amelia had a kulubya sentiment in her heart 

therefore her weeping in Kafumu village was genuine. But, as many forumists have put it, was that weeping correctly

serious given that Amelia is part of the regime and of the system under which decay and degradation are among the key

issues of the order of the day? Everywhere in the country poverty, mismanagement, corruption, etc are the prevalent fashions!

And no firm solutions have been initiated and applied to keep a curb on them. Now after that "sincere sorrow" in Kafumu we read

how the Kyambadde tears have moved the government to act! To act or to speak? Yes, the education minister has rightly spoken

about the plight of Uganda's school children spending a day at school on an empty stomack, but where are the directives? If any,

how wil they cope with a population that has nothing to live on? No money, no food, no water in many parts of the country, etc..

And where the concrete actions, by government of course, to help these policies concretise materially, financially, etc...

What made Amelia weep in Kafumu was what she saw on looking at those children as symbols from a deprived and an abandoned society!

Is it to this society that the government must turn and request for solutions to what mismanagement has abandoned to national failure?

What have the 29 years of rule ( mainly by NRM ) significantly brought to the country?  This is indeed what Amelia saw and wept:

1- The sight of malnourished children  ( and this is the trend almost in all parts of the country )

2- Kids with jiggers  ( now it's not only in Busoga that we hear of jiggers but also in Mpigi! )

3- Most of the classes under trees  ( even in Mpigi, just twenty miles from Kampala ! )

4- Out of 350 pupils only 50 had cleared lunch dues for the term  ( other parents don't have money, and this is Ugandawide !! )

Then Amelia faults the district leaders for negligence! This fails to give satisfaction to the public as the district authorities reply pointing

to their effort to bulid staff houses on the compound. Are the district leaders to be blamed for everything that made the Minister weep, including

jiggers, lack of food at home, money requested from parents to pay their children's school meals, etc...?

What has been the role of the Minister's NGO, The Twezimbe Development Foundation?

My quick advice to Hon Amelia Kyambadde would be to apply dynamism and courage before the most high authority and frankly show how the

citizens are living an absolute dire poverty that has caused that unbearable situation Uganda has never experienced! And please, request for

an immediate action. If your move fails, you as a well-to-do person just quit the government and come to serve the ionterests of your constituents!

there your action will bespeak the real nationalist filled with love for the people! And don't fear to mobilize others for your action! And mind you, if words

and tears continue to flow without any accompanying serious action, you will lose that Mawokota constituency in 2016  !

My advice to Ugandans, having seen all these tears on the one hand, and having witnessed the high degree of passivity from the rulers and their 

appended quasi personal institutions, on the other hand, is to work out solutions, especially political, to cater for a new political direction! These people

at the helm appear tired and worn out with power. They have been there for 29 years, that's too long! Too long to accept change! Too long to invent

and initiate something new for society! Too long to think afresh! And too long to cultivate and plant any new interest in our political soils ! 

Think of this Kafumu area, for example! My late father used to visit it often when he was a Buganda chief in that Mawokota County. He would always

get impressed with the development in the area, the rich agriculture in both cash and food crops, the neatness of the ordinary homestead, etc...

And this was the general picture of what the entire county would portray to any visitor at that time. If by any celestial means my late parent is made to

see what's going on in Kafumu, etc... he would be the one to shed real patriotic tears at such a scene!! 

We Ugandans as a nation, we've shed tears all along over many very bad things and happenings! It's high time now we got united for a peaceful but

determined political action for the good of the nation. Does decentralization alone as a policy fetch us good results from the authorities who are the key

beneficiaries of the system? Why don't we give an added energy to thye politics that will add to our political sphere any aspects on federalism?

I very strongly agree with the forumists who prone federalism as a policy for more sincere nation buliding and better service delivery to the masses!

I have always seen a lot of very great wisdom in our DP president's approach to the question.  This will be the only way to heal all political wounds in the nation. Federalism correctly proves to be a good fulcrum to decentralization to lift up policies to do with service delivery, the exploitation of the very immediate local resources, the promotion of culture as a means to foster development, the security of the masses in regard to many things.

Federalism will in no way call for secessionism nor for the Balkanization of the nation, but, on the contrary it will enforce decentralization at grassroots level. and it will promote certain national pride involving work and responsibility.  Ugandans who want to see an ideal land to live in should endorse in their mind the idea of promoting federalism as a national policy for develoment. People should do away with these archaic policies that are centred on particular minds and care less about  the welfare of the masses. In the forthcoming general elections ( 2016 ) special attention should be focussed on

pushing through only those candidates who will accept to promote political reform that will bring in aspects of federalism. Having seen how most

regions of Uganda have become a sink of iniquity, the campaigners and voters this time should not be hoodwinked and trapped in lies, cheap empty promises, and senseless propaganda!  We've seen enough of this and we are tired! If, for example, a place like Bulemeezi County ( Luweero ) which

used to be one of the richest areas in  the whole of East Africa can now move a bishop to decry the unbearable poverty levels in the area, this really shocks and calls for special concern!

Ugandans, wake up and mobilize for a new political strategy that will pull the country out of this present quagmire! Action, action and action instead of words and tears!

G.H.K.