{UAH} We sold our kings to the British, our elders sell the youth into Gulf slavery
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We sold our kings to the British, our elders sell the youth into Gulf slavery
WEDNESDAY JULY 4 2018
Today, thousands of our youth are perishing in demeaning Middle Eastern servitude that they are duped into by wealthy old Ugandans purporting to help them find jobs, when in fact they have sold them to "innocent" modern slave buyers. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGAH | NMG
Treachery seems to be embedded in our national DNA, so don't be surprised at the ongoing security debates in Uganda.
Many a Ugandan soldier goes to fight Al Shabaab and after a year of dodging bullets, returns to find that his dear wife has splashed all his salary on her boyfriend. During reorientation these soldiers are officially advised to accept the treachery and move on. For this is Uganda.
The founding of modern Uganda itself was based on treachery in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
The last sovereign king of Buganda around whose kingdom the state of Uganda was constructed by the British, Mwanga II, was betrayed by his senior officials, was captured from the north of the country, and frogmarched back to Kampala while being caned like a village thief. The traitors then installed a baby king and grabbed thousands of square miles of land, claiming the baby king had given it to them!
Mwanga II was tortured with his fellow king, Kabalega of Bunyoro, until they were shipped to Nairobi en route to banishment in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, the ruthless British soldier who spearheaded the genocide in Bunyoro still has a major street named after him in Kampala – Colville Street.
The sacred grounds where Kabalega died at the end of his exile in Busoga near Jinja town have been desecrated by a treacherous population. The 20-acre plot of land where the Busoga king called Kyabazinga, descended from Banyoro, is crowned, has been sold off to private owners and today only one acre remains. Chances are high then that the next Kyabazinga will be crowned in a hired hotel venue.
And who sold off the royal grounds? Of course the treacherous Busoga kingdom officials, after the restoration of the kingdoms a couple of decades ago. For this is Uganda.
Today, thousands of our youth are perishing in demeaning Middle Eastern servitude that they are duped into by wealthy old Ugandans purporting to help them find jobs, when in fact they have sold them to "innocent" modern slave buyers.
The buyers don't understand why the objects they bought want to be treated like normal workers. When life-threatening treachery is inflicted by the old upon the young, you know you are in a bad place.
We have not even attempted to fight this bad DNA through education.
At my level of awareness for example, I have never recited Uganda's loyalty pledge. I am not even sure it exists. We are an amazing people. The things done here are unimaginable among our neighbours except Congo and South Sudan.
Kenyans can fight each other viciously internally but they don't sell out to foreigners. As for Tanzanians, Nyerere cemented a united nation in a decade or two, something Ugandans have failed to do in a century.
Rwandans slaughtered themselves by the million, but they did it over their own issues, not in service of an outsider.
Ethiopia is not the happiest democracy by any measure, but they have never allowed a foreigner to lord it over them. We need to learn a thing or two from our neighbours.
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