Some thirty years ago, around 1991, I moved out of Uganda on a mission of searching for freshness. I was a young man in my early 20s but full of bravado and yearning to learn more. I was sure we had completed the quest for “Ukombozi- liberation” in Uganda now we had to start searching for ways and means to sustain that acquired freedom.
I was burning with the desire to discover Nyerere’s Tanzania; see with my own eyes the land of Xhosas and Zulus; of Ovambos, Damalas, Namas and Hereros; the land of Tswanas and Kalangas; of Shonas, Ndebele, Tsongas and Makua. I wanted to experience and walk in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Thambo, Walter Sisulu, Sam Nujoma, Joshua Nkomo, Mishake Miyongo, Dullar Omar, Allan Boersak, Toivo ya Toivo, Desmond Tutu, Robert Mugabe, Ndabandingi Sithole, Winnie Mandela, Samora Machel, Walter Mondlane, Jonas Savimbi, Neto, Kenneth Kaunda and others.
I wanted to know what it was that black people of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique and Angola had rather chosen to die than let white people take it on a sliver platter. It was the LAND, a mystical expanse of soil, vegetation, rivers, mountains and beneath it minerals and other resources God had cleverly placed there to ease burdens of life on His creations.
When I boarded a bus headed for Mutukula border, I saw for the first time, the ravages of the 1978-79 border war between Tanzania and Uganda. I was able to understand that man if left uncontrolled, was capable of doing many bad things including inflicting damage to himself!
I had left President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni busy luring Indians back to Uganda and telling other foreigners how great Uganda was in terms of business. The country was open to whoever wanted to make plenty of money at the same time enjoying the tropical paradise.
30 years later, according to President Museveni, 500 Indians (their businesses) are paying more taxes than the rest of Ugandans!
I was surprised to find Tanzania full of Indians and people of Arab decent Idi Amin had told us long ago that they were bad to have around. I could not tell then that these ‘foreigners’ would soon become a blessing to Tanzania. Nyerere’s United Republic of Tanzania has plenty of resources but the biggest resource is it’s Indian and Arab citizens.
At independence our leaders had erroneously sought for political freedom and forgot about economic freedom. Majority of them were rushing to be “mababa wamataifa- fathers of nations” therefore paid no attention on how they were to finance economic development. They were inheriting a civil service without money to pay salaries and wages; they faced a colonial- era army and police service trained largely to deal with ‘uncooperative’ natives. They had no money to pay these armies either.
That is why, in a few years, soldiers like Joseph Mobutu, Muammar Gaddafi, Ilonsi, Idi Amin, Siadi Barre, Ankah, Gnasingibe Ayemadema, name others removed civilian leaders in order to restore sense. Idi Amin went even a step further by ‘liberating’ the economy from Indians and instead turn it over to black Ugandans. It was a mundane and clever idea but horrifically executed.
Our independence heroes and the soldiers who overthrew them rushed to chase ‘foreigners’ from our countries including rare expatriates we need to run our economies.
Countries where whites stayed longer like in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, they have far better economic prospects than those which chased them. True they perpetuated a racial segregation system but built infrastructure and set up administrative systems which have helped the black leaders to carry on with smart development agendas.
In Uganda, ‘Indians’ would become scapegoats for the economic woes facing newly independent countries. And Idi Amin was not the only African leaders to blame his country’s economic malaise on foreigners. In the end Indians were booted out and there went our economies and came in mismanagement subsequently bringing out black on black exploitation.
We are now experiencing reverse osmosis where ‘foreigners’ are being lured into Africa.
Now President Museveni and other leaders like Gen. Salim Saleh are embarking on this same quest: attracting foreigners to Uganda at the same time encouraging Ugandans to move to other countries in search of knowledge.
White people, Mwalimu Nyerere used to call “Wapererezi- spies” had already beaten us on this but with worldly things; it is never too late. They were not ‘spies’ per se but an adventurous people searching for opportunities to improve the lives of their societies.
Now they are in space and ocean- floor exploration trying to widen their understanding of the universe in the process increasing the survival rate of their societies. And Africans? We are busy fighting each other hidden behind something called “politics” white people threw at us to confuse our very existence.
For them, white people, will agree to spend billions of dollars to send a man on the moon a really hopeless journey, if you ask me. In Africa, on the other hand, we will never seat together and agree on how to finance healthcare or build school classrooms for our own children. Why? Politics does not allow that! “You can’t be seen ‘talking’ or even agreeing with your political opponent!
President William Ruto is one leader who has embraced fully the idea of hunting jobs abroad for his people. He is being blamed by local politicians for spending most of his time global-trotting but he remains unapologetic. “Natafuta makazi ya wa Kenya- Iam looking for jobs for Kenyans,” he often answers back unapologetically.
Paul Kagame of Rwanda, irrespective of all the talk that Rwanda is full to the brim, he has waived all visa requirements to Africans. They can pack their bags from Egypt to Senegal or from Djibouti to Zimbabwe and move and get work in Rwanda. He understands fully the meaning of mixing local content with foreign content.
Economics taught in our schools should now be geared toward encouraging our people to move to white people’s countries because of changing demographics. This same economics should be able to teach our children to move within Africa to improve their knowledge.
Fifty years from today, most European countries, will have small white populations. They hardly give birth and now with the homosexuality bug, they will become an endangered specie. Africans therefore, should position themselves to “kukaba- takeover” those lands. The west has more money, cash money, than it can spend therefore Africans need to move over there without any delay.
I know about the visa requirements and other restrictions but eeh, they need our labour.
Take the example of Canada. It is the world’s second biggest country in landmass but having a population of some 45 million people. Alberta province for example, is bigger than Uganda three times but it has a population of 4.5million people. This is the day-time population of Kampala city. No wonder Canada is relaxing it’s immigration policies in order to attract as many foreign workers as possible.
If Canada can maintain this momentum, within a few decade it will become the most important country in the world. Some white people’s countries, perhaps because of greediness, are not copying what Canada is doing but at their own peril. Some of these countries experiencing negative population growth with no children being born while the old are dying!
Indian and now China encourages their citizens to move elsewhere in search of freshness. What these countries have achieved from their diaspora citizens cannot be quantified. Their citizens, because of migration, have become highly educated therefore sought out by major global companies. Most pharmaceutical products are now produced in India and China produces nearly a half of the products we use in our daily lives from razor blades to tractors.
I am aware that China gives it’s citizens ‘free’ money if they want to move abroad. This has a duo purpose. One it helps reduce population pressure back home and also help Chinese to acquire more knowledge from other people. They come and learn local ways including languages and soon they start negotiating how to construct local infrastructure.
Therefore we shouldn’t view the movement of our people to Europe, Canada, America and now the Middle East as something to be fought against.
On the contrary. Such migrations have a net effect of technological transfers and of course cash inflow. Uganda is minting billions of dollars from it’s diaspora workers surpassing revenues from other traditional economic activities like coffee! Ugandan maids in Saudi Arabia are changing the country’s landscape through building homes for themselves and their siblings.
Instead of having a small office like one occupied by ambassador Walusimbi taking care of Ugandans abroad, Uganda needs to have a fully-fledged ministry of the diaspora. You cannot have a ministry in charge of fish where we earn about $200m per annum and you don’t have one where you earn nearly $1.6bn!
Countries like Philippine and Lesotho already mint billions in revenues remitted from their citizens working abroad. This is the future of global Economics and Africa, with a young population, should be spearheading this movement.
Africa has a young population, 75% under 35 years old. It means that as the rest of the world’s population is shrinking, Africa is growing. Currently we are 1.4bn people or 1/5 of the world population. Coupled with our vast resources, without any thread of doubt, we are the future of humanity.
The rest of the world may hide their heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, like denying Africa a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, it doesn’t really matter. Soon they will beg Africa to save them. We have the people numbers and minerals to run their factories, including the rainforests to cool the global temperatures and regulate carbon use. Surely, we don’t have to ‘beg’ people who will soon be knocking on our doorsteps looking for food!
Racism and other forms of discrimination won’t work this time around because the rest of the world will need Africa than we need them. Those who will be here 50 years from today, they will seat back and admire the cleverness of God. He prepared everything!
That is why I have this long held view that most African countries should continue to issue passports, free passports, to their citizens and encourage them to move elsewhere in search of freshness. Of course they, or their siblings, will always return home. Look at Ghana and Nigeria including many French-speaking West African countries and how they’re benefiting from their citizens who left for Europe.
One footballer like Sadio Mane can build entire villages back home as was basketballer Dikembe Mutombo and what he did back home in DRCongo. Lol Deng is even more famous than his country South Sudan! How about singer Akon and how he is helping transform Senegal?
Therefore we should look beyond our people who perish crossing the Mediterranean Sea and concentrate instead on those who survives those horrendous journeys. Besides, if they don’t attempt to enter Europe by any means available, they will still be suffocated to death back home by diseases, hunger and bad politics.
I have always wondered why our politicians don’t enter Europe and enter labour deals like we are doing with Middle East countries? How come we can send over 250,000 maids to Saudi Arabia but have none to England, our former colonial masters?
This is a mistake both Britain and Uganda should look into. It is not fair for Ugandans to go to Britain as visitors and they are turned into asylum seekers where they spend years without meaningful growth.
Yes we are the future but our gardens are still full of weed. This, we shall solve soon and take our place on the dinning table.
You cannot therefore be a serious leader of men if all you know is within your village. The best education a man get is through travelling nothing else.
HOW TUTSI PEOPLE USED MIGRATION TO CHANGE THEIR LOT:
You may agree or dismiss this as ‘nonsense’ but the Banyarwanda (Rwandese) are fast-becoming a ‘super’ group of people because they learnt, early on, the purpose of moving in search of freshness.
The ancestors of the current Rwandan populations, especially the Tutsis, are believed to have migrated from Ethiopian Islands. It is probable that Ethiopians and now Rwandese and Burundian Tutsis share the same blood with biblical children of Israel. They are in all intentions and purposes ‘black’ Jews.
These people originate from small enclaves (Rwanda and Burundi) but occupy vast lands in Tanzania, Uganda, DRCongo and moving up north to South Sudan. Their cousins called ‘Hereros’ are already in Namibia and the Owambo (Ovambo) people occupying northern Namibia also have similar cultures to those of Tutsis. Somalia and Ethiopian tribes including Eritreans are blood cousins of Tutsis, a super tribe of fighters who will, in not so distant a future, occupy most of black Africa.
They came and we treated them as “empunzi- refugees” and they learnt our cultures and languages. They learnt everything about us while we shunned everything of theirs. Slowly and purposely they mixed their blood with ours. They were created by God to infest!
Uganda today has a big and rapidly growing population of Ethiopians and Eritreans. These people are taking over most posh areas in Kampala and busy setting up own schools and churches. Somalis are already here running serious businesses especially money- changing and in fuels.
Unlike the Tutsis, the Somalis, Eritreans and Ethiopians don’t encourage intermarriages. Like Indians and most Asians, they stick to their kind. Fortunately they know how to increase their numbers through high birth rates.
The Tutsis own our lands and our sons have married their daughters. They are inherently a curious people who never attach themselves to anything. They can build a beautiful house and tomorrow wake up and move away. Their strength is in this nomadism where they acquire new friends and new techniques of survival. Now we are all mixed up with them almost like Jews before they got Israel as their own land.
We have to teach our people to emulate this.
Take Uganda or Buganda as the case study of the effects of migration.
Today the people called ‘Baganda’ from whom the country got a name, are fast-disappearing long mixed by other tribes. They have a kingdom which will soon have no ‘real’ royal subjects and no land to govern. I cannot tell you for sure whether Baganda tribes mate have benefitted from this internal migration than the tribes which came!
But reality shows that the ‘other’ tribes are relishing their stay in Buganda and slowly eating away it’s cultures and taboos. Even the Kabaka- king of Buganda, has his first son, Prince Jjunju, mothered by a Rwandan Tutsi.
Please, if you haven’t traveled, get yourself a passport and move out of your comfort zone. White people are exploring space while we are busy fighting, indeed grabbing our neighbor’s small tracts of lands.
There is plenty of free land in countries like Zambia, Namibia and Botswana. These countries have small populations, huge tracts of land and plenty of mineral resources. Surely God, in His infinite wisdom, did not will it that Botswana will be a country of only 2.3m people seating on trillions of dollars worth of diamonds!
Batswana women, perhaps because of education and good life styles, generally give birth to one child. Botswana has a population of 2.3m people occupying a land area bigger than that of Uganda three times. This is the same numbers in Namibia. Huge tracts of land which are almost empty.
Africans need to pack up and go fill Namibia and Botswana without delay. Those two countries need the numbers in order to guarantee their own survivals. Who will live in the new cities they are building and who will buy the products they’re busy producing? They need more people man!
Uganda might be somehow overpopulated, it looks like, but there is plenty of land outside Kampala indeed Buganda. We have to stop attaching ourselves to “buswa- anthills” or “feene- jackfruit” trees which were planted by our ancestors. Like Indians, once they move to another country, it is total movement. They don’t become nostalgic about ‘little’ trees they left back in India. And this, is their greatness as a people.
When white people moved away from their ‘comfort zones’ in Europe and found new lands in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, they never looked back. They started from the scratch and now have built these ‘newfound lands’ into great countries. The present generation of white people in Canada, America and Australia, have zero attachment to France, England, Ireland or Scotland from whence they came.
I am not proposing that we should go over there and displace them as they did to populations they found owning those lands. Everything is already done for us so we need to exploit resources. Whites have brought everything to the surface we simply have to pick it up. And they have no choice because they have failed to ‘produce’ their own children!
The other day images of a crying Kim Jong Un of North Korea were beamed to the entire world. The ‘rocket man’ was crying because his people, women, are not producing enough babies! Japan is also in a similar quagmire so is Italy, Germany and Russia.
Hope indeed, “lies across the border” as one clever person once said. So we should pack up our bags and ‘follow’ the direction our ‘resources’ took!
Have you ever wondered why “wazungu- white people” left their land in Europe and moved to colonize others? They took America and Canada for free. They commandeered South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The same settlers had taken the best land in Kenya and in Uganda, they gave this job to Indians who up to today still own tea and sugar plantations.
As a highly thinking and curious people, ‘wazungu’ knew that what they had was not enough. They sent their people to search for more as they still do up to this day. We go to their countries and admire the level of development they have attained forgetting that they actually acquired most of that knowledge or resources from us.
President Museveni, an historian buff, talks of how ‘wazungu’ set sail using boats driven by wind meaning that they had no control over their final destinations. “But Africans were already using canoes- boats one would steer to a certain destination!” He often laughs at our short-sightedness.
The Baganda have a fitting saying that, “Olutanayitayita lwelutenda nyina okufumba- only those who haven’t travelled will praise their mothers for being good cooks!”
By way of Conclusion:
Travelling indeed visiting other people’s countries or lands, is the greatest lesson one can add to his or her knowledge of things. Wazungu are ‘intelligent’ people because they are inherently adventurous. They want to look inside a pipe and see what it contains. Black people on the other hand, don’t want to know what the hell happens inside the pipe. They are comfortable seating on it!
Last word is a quote from Sir Richard Burton who said that: “The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.”
Adam Kamulegeya
0779 104 336
adamkam2003@gmail.com
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