By Moses Ariong (MP Aspirant Amuria County)
While growing up, independence day meant everything to us. That was the day to bring out the new clothes, shoes and new hairstyles for the women to celebrate the day Ugandans took hold of their own destiny from the white colonisers.
In 1962, President Milton Obote received the tools of power as the national anthem was beautifully sang by Ugandans. He then made his maiden speech and declared a fight against; hunger, poverty and disease.
Before the white man left, they had established a system of leadership by creating various administrative units, a civil service arm and the political leadership (mostly appointees at the time). They also built infrastructure like the railways, roads, hospitals, schools and many others. We were heading In the right direction when it comes to development, but we were obviously unhappy with being governed by foreigners. I will not go deeper to define those strides since that is for another day.
Now that we are celebrating 63 years of self rule, with 40 of those years under the NRM government RULE, let’s reflect on the mission to fight poverty, ignorance and disease. I will specifically focus on Teso, my homeland.
The poverty fight:
Uganda is currently ranked globally as the 8th poorest nation on planet earth with a proportion of about 60% living below the poverty line (those that can’t spend $3 per day). This is particularly worse in areas like Teso and Karamoja that have largely been left behind, especially in the last 40 years.
Food insecurity in Teso is at 73% according to the census report, just in case some will argue that we don’t need much money because we produce our own food, a tired argument peddled by some analysts.
The regression in Teso in the last 40 years was not by accident. Some argue that governing a once rich and well educated population required that the NRM government led by President Museveni had to strip us naked, of all our dignity, our wealth and our dreams too.
We lost our cows during this period. We faced several wars and lived in IDPs during this period. We faced periods of very severe hunger and ate all kinds of wild fruits and vegetables during this period. We produced children and raised them in IDPs during this period. We lost most of our loved ones, some that we did not get the opportunity to bury. We were completely palpated and outdone in the last 40 years.
Celebrating independence today in Teso is nothing but a mockery, a failure to appreciate the situation we find ourselves in. The new clothes are gone, the shoes are gone, we can no longer afford these celebratory items with the focus shifting towards fighting to survive today and tomorrow.
Ignorance – Educating the population.
Uganda was once ranked as having the best Education system in Africa, with the most literate people coming from here. That was back in the 70s and 80s.
In Uganda, the Iteso as an ethnic group were the most educated, something that earned them the title of the “wise men and women from the east”.
We occupied most of the civil service jobs, the military services, dorminated the livestock industry as well as being the leading producers of cash crops (Cotton). That was before the NRM came in to the picture, and these income sources helped us educate our children.
Today, we celebrate 63 years of Independence during an ongoing Teachers strike that has paralysed learning for the last 3 weeks. The effects will soon be felt has rising teenage pregnancies, early marriages, school dropouts or very poor performance by candidates.
If we lived during serious times, or in other parts of the world with more active citizens, there would be a new government today due to the negligence of the cries of the teachers. It’s unfortunate that at 63 years, all we talk about as an achievement is increased enrollment brought by UPE, forgetting that over 73% of students are dropping out of school before reaching P7, or completing basic education without any employable skills, some even illiterate.
Disease – managing our health.
Apart from the immunisation, malaria and HIV programs largely funded by the white man (the same colonisers we loothed and demanded to leave us alone), health care in Uganda has deteriorated to the extent that many describe the health units as more sick than the patients they receive.
Teso has a regional referal hospital that is now the worst performing in the entire country, with falling roofs, beds as old as the times of Iddi Amin and soaked in blood mixed with rust, and with patients covering the floors and every corridor of the “hospital”. With low staffing, frequent drug shortages and the lack of equipment, we can not expect our medical personnel to perform magic to heal the sick.
The disease burden continues to rise as the leaders speak about the number of health centres they’ve built, some literally serving as places people go to die.
Its even shocking that things were a little better during the first 23 years after the white man left us, when medics were valued as life savers, hospitals were fully equipped and stocked to handle patients, and that the sick were dignified during sickness and even in death afterwards. We don’t even have functional mortuaries today to keep our loved ones. Something must give way for us to realise a truly free and forward looking Uganda.
Protecting the gains Or Making the gains?
For those of you who are protecting the gains, I wish you well as you celebrate whatever it is you are celebrating today.
However, we must be aware of the actions of the black men and women who replaced the colonisers across Africa, albeit with the affinity to do even worse than what our forefathers faced from the colonisers.
If you have no gains to protect, get to work and pick up the attitude of termites – Unity, perseverance, ambition and relentlessness.
Uganda at 63 offers us another opportunity to truly be independent and set sail towards a new Uganda that values it’s teachers, it’s medical workers, it’s civil servants, it’s farmers, it’s children and everyone that calls this country home.
MOSES ARIONG
MP AMURIA COUNTY (12th Parliament)
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