Ronald Leonard Egesa

As we draw closer to the 2011 elections, Dr. Kizza Besigye and his IPC colleagues continue to charge that there will not be any elections until the Electoral Commission is reconstituted. In order to achieve this objective, they are preparing and staging demonstrations.
While Besigye and his IPC leadership will mobilise and rally poor market vendors and unemployed youth to go for the demonstrations, after the day’s demonstrations and run-ins with the Police and Kiboko squad, Besigye and the IPC top brass will receive their share of NGO funds. The poor market vendors and unemployed youth will go home on empty stomachs, as their hatred for the ruling regime multiplies.
Critically looking at this situation, it tilts the playing field in Besigye’s favour as his initial game plan is to create hatred for the regime and prepare the local population for war.
I think Besigye and his IPC top brass need to respect these low income earners and their families and stop using them as cannon fodder!
Also, Dr. Besigye, Dr. Olara Otunnu and the IPC have taken it upon themselves to speak for Ugandans by demanding a changed Electoral Commission. This too is unfair to Ugandans, since the voice of democratic Ugandans is through Parliament which vetted and approved the Electoral Commissioners. For Besigye and his group to purport to be speaking for Ugandans is to undermine the principles of democracy that they claim to be fighting for!
Ronald Leonard Egesa,
Kampala.

Published in The Weekly Observer of 01/07/2010

Since its introduction, the Land (Amendment) Bill 2007 has met stiff resistance from the Mengo establishment. The government, as proponents of the Bill, has always made their case that it seeks to fight illegal evictions and when one reads the Bill, this seems to make sense.

On the other hand, Mengo and a number of MPs from Buganda have only been telling us that the Bill is “targeting” Buganda Kingdom where the Kabaka is the main landlord.

The interesting bit here is that the Bill’s opponents have not for once told us how the Bill is targeting Buganda. I have listened to many opponents of the Bill and none is answering the ‘how’ question.

Since the Bill is only hostile to landlords who seek to forcefully evict tenants, save for failure to pay ground rent, is Mengo then trying to tell us that the ‘Ssabattaka’ has plans of evicting some tenants in future for reasons other than failure to pay rent?

Are Mengo and its supporters telling us that the major landlord may in the future want to sell off his land without giving tenants the first option of buying? Or is Mengo merely playing the political hate card against President Museveni and his regime?

It is also on record that the same Mengo establishment once passionately opposed the 1998 Land Act whereas it is now turning around to say that the 1998 Land Act is sufficient and only needs rigorous implementation!

Ronald Leonard Egesa,
Kampala.

Published in the The Daily Monitor of Monday 30/Nov/2009 and the Weekly Observer of 03/Nov/2009

Why western democracy cannot work in Africa?

I have said this over and over and I still continue to get mixed responses –as if I have killed a person. The western world knows it very well that there are stages of social and infrastructural development that a country must undergo prior to achieving democracy, but they will not stop to demand mature democratic practices from the third world countries of Africa. It is the only way the western world will maintain its superiority!
Whoever claims to love Africa cannot fail to see this. Africans as opposed to Europeans have strong ethnic ties that are yet to be broken and the accountability is not one of the high values in many of the traditional African tribes. On the other hand, the western model of democracy places accountability at the top of the values that must be upheld. In simple terms, it is not possible to claim a working democracy without accountability to the stakeholders. Accountability is expected of the President, the Electoral Commission, the Parliament, the local leaders and all other people in the positions of responsibility. In traditional Africa, there was a king/chief who was keenly advised by a council of elders/wise men in society and he did whatever he felt was good for his subjects! The aspect of Patriotism in African societies was inherent. People were born patriots and there was no need to preach it outside the fireplace or mealtimes.

Times have changed. Communication channels have gone global, Africans have travelled around the world, the pressure to be like the ‘developed world’ is more than ever before! This has resulted in Africans themselves demanding more from the leaders than the ground can hold. The leaders are in charge of leading and being accountable to groups of people of diverse ethnic and cultural heritage who were forced to live and work together as nations by the white man! The diversity in cultural identity puts the individual above society – the bad one –corruption is then born naturally out of selfishness. The largest group that people can be patriotic about is the extended family and beyond that, it fades away just like that. It is now very common to see African leaders heaping riches for their Children and their grand children.
As if demanding mature democracy from us is not harmful enough, the western world goes an extra mile and extends donor aid with rosy reasons like reducing mortality rates, supply of clean water among others while in the darkness they sit and connive with the selfish leaders of our countries to rob our natural resources such as oil and other minerals, not forgetting the ‘English tea’ that was grown in Kenya and Zimbabwe! I strongly maintain that the only way Africa will ever get to catch up with the western world is by first prospering in beneficial trade from its natural resource without western exploitation, and then democracy shall set in naturally. One only needs to study the political history of Japan in the last 100 years to appreciate the natural evolution of working democracy when the necessary social and infrastructural development has taken place.
There is simply no way someone will govern or rig elections with impunity and go unpunished when the levels of literacy in a country are over 90%. The same cannot happen when more than 90% of the population is in gainful employment. Until the social and physical infrastructural transformation takes place, western democracy will never be perfected in the land of our ancestors!

Just like many other countrymen and women, including Prof. Joe Oloka-Onyango, I have been following the on-going IGG- Parliament contest with keen interest.

What I find interesting is that the argument of the IGG is crystal clear and shows that she is a true patriot and not just after retaining the job. Even at a time when the President ignored her report on the Nakawa-Naguru estates, she has stood her position.

Despite all the mess caused by our public servants and politicians, there are Ugandans like us who see the truth and cannot succumb to corruption just because everyone says it is the order of the day or “business-as-usual” and it is this lot of Ugandans that Lady Justice Faith Mwondha has done proud!

My prayer is that the almighty God clearly guides President Museveni to look at Article 223(7) of the supreme law of the land like the rest of us and save this “Iron Lady” from politicians who want to spoil the fight against corruption.

Ronald Leonard Egesa
Kampala
leo@ronaldegesa.com

Published in the Letters Section of Daily Monitor of 3rd April 2009