{UAH} UGANDA, do you REMEMBER 1962? (BY TIMOTHY KALYEGIRA)
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UGANDA, do you REMEMBER 1962?
Do you remember the Uganda of yesteryear?
Do you remember the Uganda of 1968 where the lowest-paid government office workers like tea girls and office messengers earned what university graduates earn today?
Do you remember the Uganda of the 1960s where the beginning salary for university graduates was 3.5 million shillings a month in today's shilling-dollar value? (And this was the starting salary.)
Residents of Mbale, do you remember what Senior Quarters looked like -- clean, well-maintained government houses, smooth roads, no dust?
The people of Jinja, do you know that in 1957 your town was known as the "European town", with the best street and residential layout of any town in Uganda apart from Entebbe?
Have you ever heard Rwandan President Paul Kagame's story of how in 1970 he walked 13 kilometres to Buhinga Hospital in Fort Portal for treatment, was treated free by the hospital, and on his way back to the refugee camp given a new set clothes?
Do you remember Tororo town to the east, that town that was the second industrial centre after Jinja and what it looked like, traces of which you can still see today albeit in near-ruins?
Did any of you ever see Mbarara town before the chaotic trading centre it has become today? Did you see the Ntare residential area of Mbarara?
Do you remember approaching Masaka town in the 1970s during Idi Amin's time and five kilometres before arriving in town you were greeted by orange three-feet street lights on either side of the road?
Every town had street lights and at 6:00 p.m. they were switched on. Yes, once upon a long ago Ugandan towns all had working street lights!
Do any of you remember Kilembe near the Rwenzori mountains, with its beautiful golf course and the European-run Namuhuga Primary School?
White Horse Inn Hotel in Kabale in the 1960s, who recalls those days?
Gulu, the second air force base in the country in the early 1970s and its infrastructure back then?
Do you remember that all Idi Amin's wives from Sarah (or Maryam) in 1967 to Sarah in 1975 all had their babies delivered at Mulago Hospital, as it was good enough to handle the presidential family?
Why was President Obote taken to Mulago in October 1969 after the assassination attempt on him? Was that not because Mulago was a regional hospital, as in, East African regional standards?
Who remembers the clean beds with music speakers along each bed playing Radio Uganda programmes on all six floors of Mulago Hospital in 1979, a few months to the fall of Amin's government?
Teso College Aloet, who remembers Soroti in the 1960s and 1970s?
Who remembers that school fees at secondary schools in the 1970s was only 250 shillings?
Who remembers how beautiful Kampala looked in 1976 and when heads of state arrived for the 1975 OAU summit, President Amin would drive them along the Old Taxi Park, at that time looking clean and nice, so that the African dignitaries could "meet the people"?
Who remembers that when Gen. Tito Okello's government was leaving in January 1986, it left behind 40 air force helicopters?
Ugandans, who remembers all this history?
Why do you think some of us are always "disgruntled" with what we see around us?
As Olara Otunnu urged us in late 2010, "Let's take our country back!"
Uganda, do you remember 1962?
Happy independence day!
ENDS
--
-- Do you remember the Uganda of yesteryear?
Do you remember the Uganda of 1968 where the lowest-paid government office workers like tea girls and office messengers earned what university graduates earn today?
Do you remember the Uganda of the 1960s where the beginning salary for university graduates was 3.5 million shillings a month in today's shilling-dollar value? (And this was the starting salary.)
Residents of Mbale, do you remember what Senior Quarters looked like -- clean, well-maintained government houses, smooth roads, no dust?
The people of Jinja, do you know that in 1957 your town was known as the "European town", with the best street and residential layout of any town in Uganda apart from Entebbe?
Have you ever heard Rwandan President Paul Kagame's story of how in 1970 he walked 13 kilometres to Buhinga Hospital in Fort Portal for treatment, was treated free by the hospital, and on his way back to the refugee camp given a new set clothes?
Do you remember Tororo town to the east, that town that was the second industrial centre after Jinja and what it looked like, traces of which you can still see today albeit in near-ruins?
Did any of you ever see Mbarara town before the chaotic trading centre it has become today? Did you see the Ntare residential area of Mbarara?
Do you remember approaching Masaka town in the 1970s during Idi Amin's time and five kilometres before arriving in town you were greeted by orange three-feet street lights on either side of the road?
Every town had street lights and at 6:00 p.m. they were switched on. Yes, once upon a long ago Ugandan towns all had working street lights!
Do any of you remember Kilembe near the Rwenzori mountains, with its beautiful golf course and the European-run Namuhuga Primary School?
White Horse Inn Hotel in Kabale in the 1960s, who recalls those days?
Gulu, the second air force base in the country in the early 1970s and its infrastructure back then?
Do you remember that all Idi Amin's wives from Sarah (or Maryam) in 1967 to Sarah in 1975 all had their babies delivered at Mulago Hospital, as it was good enough to handle the presidential family?
Why was President Obote taken to Mulago in October 1969 after the assassination attempt on him? Was that not because Mulago was a regional hospital, as in, East African regional standards?
Who remembers the clean beds with music speakers along each bed playing Radio Uganda programmes on all six floors of Mulago Hospital in 1979, a few months to the fall of Amin's government?
Teso College Aloet, who remembers Soroti in the 1960s and 1970s?
Who remembers that school fees at secondary schools in the 1970s was only 250 shillings?
Who remembers how beautiful Kampala looked in 1976 and when heads of state arrived for the 1975 OAU summit, President Amin would drive them along the Old Taxi Park, at that time looking clean and nice, so that the African dignitaries could "meet the people"?
Who remembers that when Gen. Tito Okello's government was leaving in January 1986, it left behind 40 air force helicopters?
Ugandans, who remembers all this history?
Why do you think some of us are always "disgruntled" with what we see around us?
As Olara Otunnu urged us in late 2010, "Let's take our country back!"
Uganda, do you remember 1962?
Happy independence day!
ENDS
--
H.OGWAPITI
-----------------------------------------------------
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt
-----------------------------------------------------
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt
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