{UAH} Why I'm NOT running for president
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Why I'm NOT running for president
By Timothy Kalyegira
- I do hereby declare that I will not be seeking the presidency in Uganda's 2021 general election.
I am an adult of sound mind (I hope) and after thinking this through, have decided not to contest in the forthcoming general election.
I will explain below why I am not throwing my hat into the presidential contest.
I have studied world history extensively. And of course I've studied Ugandan society and know most of its secrets.
I have paid particular attention to some of history's totalitarian states, chief of them Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
These were states of total control, where the ruling party was fused with the state, the state was secured by a highly sophisticated, all-pervasive secret police and every institution of state practically under the control of the dictator.
I have noted how these powerful totalitarian states eventually collapsed and vanished from view. States with much greater control of their people than the NRM government came and went.
I have also researched into secret world history and secret African history, events we thought were A turning out to be B.
Finally, I've examined what holds countries and societies together. What is it that made millions of Germans embrace Adolf Hitler's megalomaniac vision of a Third Reich?
Are dictators really dictators in the raw, absolute sense, or do they rise up from and reflect their societies?
So, to bring this down to Uganda.
The NRM government can and will go as well.
It came to power in January 1986 with all the confidence of revolutionaries who were going to achieve things nobody had ever done in East Africa.
Well all know, of course, that even after 34 years, it has settled into just another Omar Bongo Gabon, Eyadema Togo and Al-Bashir Sudan.
Just another ordinary African government heavily dependent on foreign aid and its political elites just another set of ordinary rent seekers and commission agents, from president to cabinet ministers, army generals and permanent secretaries.
The question is: Can whoever replaces this government do better?
My view is, in some areas yes a new government would do better, in some areas worse, and in most areas it would be the same as the NRM government and all that came before after 1962.
Why is this?
a) Uganda is a weak society in every structural way. This structural weakness remains in place regardless of whether it is 1984, 1923, 1945, 1958, 1962, 1980, 1990 or 2020.
It would remain so even if we were under a military dictatorship, a federo system, a federal system or a government of national unity like the UNLF, and whether we have a rigged election or a free and fair election.
It is a country that will still need World Bank and IMF help, or help from eastern powers like China, regardless of which president or political party or group is in power.
Contrary to what most of us believe, our problem is not that we have had dictatorial governments since independence.
In a paradoxical way, what makes good governance is a state that is dictatorial in enforcing rules, laws and standards in day-to-day life but is liberal in areas life freedom of expression and voter choice.
For example, during the current global COVID-19 lockdown, when the governments of South Korea, Germany, Switzerland impose a quarantine, the police really does enforce it.
It is a real "police state". Temperature takes, the requirement to weak masks, two-metre distancing rules and so on. It's not easy to evade taxes or over-speed in these countries.
The police will investigate a crime even 15 years after it was committed.
Africa's problem is the opposite: The dictatorship is felt in political and media freedom, but the state is weak in enforcement of rules and standards.
Uganda has, by all standards, done well during the corona crisis. But in observing the government's measures, it was obvious that President Museveni lacks the authority to get his army and police to enforce simple things like a 7:00 p.m. curfew, restrict boba boda bikes from carrying passengers and requiring the public to weak protective masks.
In upcountry townships and trading centres, most Ugandans lived, drank and socialised as freely as if there was no government in power.
Even in most residential quarters and slums in Kampala, right in full view of the army and police, people casually ignored the presidential and Ministry of Health guidelines and got away with it.
So, one of Uganda's problems is governments that are dictatorships when it comes to cracking down on the freedom of assembly, expression and election choice, but are incompetent when there is a need for dictatorship in enforcing the use of seat belts, cleaning up garbage and discipline by motorists.
Regardless of who is in power in 1961, 1962, 1971, 1979, 1983, 1987 or 2021, the Uganda government will fail to be a dictator in matters like road discipline that are of benefit to the public.
b) Even if we got a moral, honest, accountable government without waste or a single corruption scandal, Uganda would still be a weak country.
Every year, it is said about $500 million is stolen in corruption. Let us assume none of this is stolen and is evenly distributed to every man, woman and child in the country.
That would mean every citizen gets just $125. Now, of course this is simplistic because one could argue that it is not $500 million as a stipend for each citizen that is important, but that if well used would have a multiplier effect in the economy.
But still, it helps to see that the amount of money looted in corruption is, in nominal value, just $125 per capita.
This explains why African countries like Eritrea or Rwanda with relatively low levels of government and public sector corruption are still poor. It's that $125.
In other words, the national cake is simply small and insufficient. Corruption and waste make a bad situation worse, but it always starts off as a bad situation.
Geography partly explains this.
No matter which leader or government is in power in Uganda, Kenya will always have an advantage over Uganda by virtue of its seaport at Mombasa.
Because Uganda is landlocked, it will always be harder for Ugandan products cheaper than Kenya's.
Likewise, Rwanda no matter how efficient a government it has will always be to Uganda what Uganda is to Kenya in the disadvantages of being in the deep interior of Africa.
We are just low-productivity economies and societies.
To take an example, a simple video-conferencing app like Zoom that has been widely used during the current corona lockdown is now, at $48 billion, more valuable than the Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundi economies combined.
c) One of the main reasons I joined social media, Twitter in March 2010 and Facebook in September 2014, was to try and understand society close-up.
In 2018, I officially gave up on Ugandan society, at least as it currently thinks.
Whether Museveni or Besigye or Bobi Wine or Joseph Kabuleta or Binaisa, Amin, Obote, Mutesa or Okello is in power, this essential Ugandan character will remain in place -- the non-committal, careless, undisciplined, poor at reasoning.
The worship of authority, the admiration of official titles, the smallness of the philosophical horizons, the childish humour, the ordinary, plain ambitions, the definition of success and all that.
When I started urging Ugandans to try and be more careful about their spelling on social media, and also to try and improve on the quality of videos and photos they post on social media, it was not surprising that this was met with irritation and indifference.
The idea that small detail builds up into larger parts and these larger parts eventually form the quality of national products and services , was and remains foreign to Ugandans.
For this reason, regardless of who is elected president or into government in 2021, Uganda will not start producing the precision goods like microscopes, branded chocolate, microscopes and high-end watches that Switzerland produces.
For all the historic secondary schools dating back to the early 1900s (Gayaza, Namilyango, Kisubi, Mwiri, Budo etc.), tens of thousands of university graduates and a large Ugandan community working abroad, nearly 60 years after independence the country's main export earnings come from raw, natural products -- fish, coffee, tea, cement, flowers.
Among Uganda's top 20 exports, not one is intellectual in kind. No books, software, electronics, financial services, nothing of the intellect and intellectual property.
This, therefore, is a bird's eye view of Uganda.
It is a look at the long-term traits and features built into the soil that is Ugandan culture and economic life.
No matter which person is in State House or political party in power, they will have to operate and farm in this soil.
Amin will fail, Mutesa will fail, Museveni will fail, Obote will fail and Binaisa will fail to dig up this soil and replace it with a different kind of soil in which to grow high-yield plants.
Joseph Kabuleta, Bobi Wine, Abed Bwanika, Mugisha Muntu, Nancy Kalembe, Norbert Mao and Joseph Mabirizi will fail as well.
I too would fail if I run for president and somehow got elected.
So how can a present or future leader turn Uganda around, so that a vote for them is a real act of transformation?
How can one go about actually turning Uganda into a Singapore or Sweden?
That, I will explain some other time soon.
ENDS
--
-- By Timothy Kalyegira
- I do hereby declare that I will not be seeking the presidency in Uganda's 2021 general election.
I am an adult of sound mind (I hope) and after thinking this through, have decided not to contest in the forthcoming general election.
I will explain below why I am not throwing my hat into the presidential contest.
I have studied world history extensively. And of course I've studied Ugandan society and know most of its secrets.
I have paid particular attention to some of history's totalitarian states, chief of them Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
These were states of total control, where the ruling party was fused with the state, the state was secured by a highly sophisticated, all-pervasive secret police and every institution of state practically under the control of the dictator.
I have noted how these powerful totalitarian states eventually collapsed and vanished from view. States with much greater control of their people than the NRM government came and went.
I have also researched into secret world history and secret African history, events we thought were A turning out to be B.
Finally, I've examined what holds countries and societies together. What is it that made millions of Germans embrace Adolf Hitler's megalomaniac vision of a Third Reich?
Are dictators really dictators in the raw, absolute sense, or do they rise up from and reflect their societies?
So, to bring this down to Uganda.
The NRM government can and will go as well.
It came to power in January 1986 with all the confidence of revolutionaries who were going to achieve things nobody had ever done in East Africa.
Well all know, of course, that even after 34 years, it has settled into just another Omar Bongo Gabon, Eyadema Togo and Al-Bashir Sudan.
Just another ordinary African government heavily dependent on foreign aid and its political elites just another set of ordinary rent seekers and commission agents, from president to cabinet ministers, army generals and permanent secretaries.
The question is: Can whoever replaces this government do better?
My view is, in some areas yes a new government would do better, in some areas worse, and in most areas it would be the same as the NRM government and all that came before after 1962.
Why is this?
a) Uganda is a weak society in every structural way. This structural weakness remains in place regardless of whether it is 1984, 1923, 1945, 1958, 1962, 1980, 1990 or 2020.
It would remain so even if we were under a military dictatorship, a federo system, a federal system or a government of national unity like the UNLF, and whether we have a rigged election or a free and fair election.
It is a country that will still need World Bank and IMF help, or help from eastern powers like China, regardless of which president or political party or group is in power.
Contrary to what most of us believe, our problem is not that we have had dictatorial governments since independence.
In a paradoxical way, what makes good governance is a state that is dictatorial in enforcing rules, laws and standards in day-to-day life but is liberal in areas life freedom of expression and voter choice.
For example, during the current global COVID-19 lockdown, when the governments of South Korea, Germany, Switzerland impose a quarantine, the police really does enforce it.
It is a real "police state". Temperature takes, the requirement to weak masks, two-metre distancing rules and so on. It's not easy to evade taxes or over-speed in these countries.
The police will investigate a crime even 15 years after it was committed.
Africa's problem is the opposite: The dictatorship is felt in political and media freedom, but the state is weak in enforcement of rules and standards.
Uganda has, by all standards, done well during the corona crisis. But in observing the government's measures, it was obvious that President Museveni lacks the authority to get his army and police to enforce simple things like a 7:00 p.m. curfew, restrict boba boda bikes from carrying passengers and requiring the public to weak protective masks.
In upcountry townships and trading centres, most Ugandans lived, drank and socialised as freely as if there was no government in power.
Even in most residential quarters and slums in Kampala, right in full view of the army and police, people casually ignored the presidential and Ministry of Health guidelines and got away with it.
So, one of Uganda's problems is governments that are dictatorships when it comes to cracking down on the freedom of assembly, expression and election choice, but are incompetent when there is a need for dictatorship in enforcing the use of seat belts, cleaning up garbage and discipline by motorists.
Regardless of who is in power in 1961, 1962, 1971, 1979, 1983, 1987 or 2021, the Uganda government will fail to be a dictator in matters like road discipline that are of benefit to the public.
b) Even if we got a moral, honest, accountable government without waste or a single corruption scandal, Uganda would still be a weak country.
Every year, it is said about $500 million is stolen in corruption. Let us assume none of this is stolen and is evenly distributed to every man, woman and child in the country.
That would mean every citizen gets just $125. Now, of course this is simplistic because one could argue that it is not $500 million as a stipend for each citizen that is important, but that if well used would have a multiplier effect in the economy.
But still, it helps to see that the amount of money looted in corruption is, in nominal value, just $125 per capita.
This explains why African countries like Eritrea or Rwanda with relatively low levels of government and public sector corruption are still poor. It's that $125.
In other words, the national cake is simply small and insufficient. Corruption and waste make a bad situation worse, but it always starts off as a bad situation.
Geography partly explains this.
No matter which leader or government is in power in Uganda, Kenya will always have an advantage over Uganda by virtue of its seaport at Mombasa.
Because Uganda is landlocked, it will always be harder for Ugandan products cheaper than Kenya's.
Likewise, Rwanda no matter how efficient a government it has will always be to Uganda what Uganda is to Kenya in the disadvantages of being in the deep interior of Africa.
We are just low-productivity economies and societies.
To take an example, a simple video-conferencing app like Zoom that has been widely used during the current corona lockdown is now, at $48 billion, more valuable than the Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundi economies combined.
c) One of the main reasons I joined social media, Twitter in March 2010 and Facebook in September 2014, was to try and understand society close-up.
In 2018, I officially gave up on Ugandan society, at least as it currently thinks.
Whether Museveni or Besigye or Bobi Wine or Joseph Kabuleta or Binaisa, Amin, Obote, Mutesa or Okello is in power, this essential Ugandan character will remain in place -- the non-committal, careless, undisciplined, poor at reasoning.
The worship of authority, the admiration of official titles, the smallness of the philosophical horizons, the childish humour, the ordinary, plain ambitions, the definition of success and all that.
When I started urging Ugandans to try and be more careful about their spelling on social media, and also to try and improve on the quality of videos and photos they post on social media, it was not surprising that this was met with irritation and indifference.
The idea that small detail builds up into larger parts and these larger parts eventually form the quality of national products and services , was and remains foreign to Ugandans.
For this reason, regardless of who is elected president or into government in 2021, Uganda will not start producing the precision goods like microscopes, branded chocolate, microscopes and high-end watches that Switzerland produces.
For all the historic secondary schools dating back to the early 1900s (Gayaza, Namilyango, Kisubi, Mwiri, Budo etc.), tens of thousands of university graduates and a large Ugandan community working abroad, nearly 60 years after independence the country's main export earnings come from raw, natural products -- fish, coffee, tea, cement, flowers.
Among Uganda's top 20 exports, not one is intellectual in kind. No books, software, electronics, financial services, nothing of the intellect and intellectual property.
This, therefore, is a bird's eye view of Uganda.
It is a look at the long-term traits and features built into the soil that is Ugandan culture and economic life.
No matter which person is in State House or political party in power, they will have to operate and farm in this soil.
Amin will fail, Mutesa will fail, Museveni will fail, Obote will fail and Binaisa will fail to dig up this soil and replace it with a different kind of soil in which to grow high-yield plants.
Joseph Kabuleta, Bobi Wine, Abed Bwanika, Mugisha Muntu, Nancy Kalembe, Norbert Mao and Joseph Mabirizi will fail as well.
I too would fail if I run for president and somehow got elected.
So how can a present or future leader turn Uganda around, so that a vote for them is a real act of transformation?
How can one go about actually turning Uganda into a Singapore or Sweden?
That, I will explain some other time soon.
ENDS
Rehema
Patriot in Kampala,East Africa:Assalamu Alaikum
Patriot in Kampala,East Africa:Assalamu Alaikum
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