Friends, it has been very hectic here in the last couple of days with really depressing news. We lost many of our people when Kiteezi landfill caved in and more bodies are still trapped under the garbage.
The operation has now moved from the critical ‘search and rescue’ mission to one of recovering dead bodies. This too will soon be suspended and we embark on assigning blames.
How did we let that to happen? We simply have to check the way we do things here. And I will not get tired of reminding you that it is NOT President Museveni alone who must be accountable here.
While still talking about Kiteezi, this is what I would immediately do if I was President Museveni:
ORDER ALL SINO TRUCKS, TIPPERS, INCLUDING THOSE LORRIES IN THE ARMY AND POLICE, TO FERRY (FOR TWO MONTHS) THAT GARBAGE FROM KITEEZI TO NAKASONGOLA AS WE LOOK FOR A LONG TERM GARBAGE- DISPOSAL SOLUTION.
I know the government or it’s officials have been selling or commandeering it’s land but can find empty lots in NAKASONGOLA or even KARAMOJA.
What is happening with Kampala garbage calls for a state of national emergency. In an emergency, the government has power to mobilize all available resources to help solve such a catastrophy.
Or we seat unconcerned and wait for cholera then we shall wake up!
The death of Uganda’s prolific news maker- Tamale Mirundi- who breathed his last; gone never to be seen or heard again, left a huge news void here. He lived large and died small a possibility we must all guard against.
He made many mistakes like attacking the institution of the Kabaka, but there will never be another captivating individual like Tamale Mirundi.
These were horrific double tragedies only to be supplemented with the really unfortunate news of Canada sending back our Ambassador – Joy Ruth Acheng – the flamboyant red-haired street fighter.
Breaking all diplomatic decorum, the Ambassador went on the street in the Canadian capital of Ottawa and traded punches with NUP supporters. For a brief moment, she forgot that she was not in Owino but Ottawa.
As if that was not enough, another diplomatic malfunction happened when our Deputy Ambassador to the UAE, Henry Mayega, was caught in a ‘Casino Saga’ where our embassy premises were being used for gambling. He too will be heading home soon.
Knowing our president, both Ambassador Acheng and Mayega, will end up getting other appointments perhaps to snub those who deported them.
President Museveni’s greatest strength is never to forget “abamuyiirawo omubiri- those who have been there for him” not matter their crimes or weirdnesses.
Fortunately, they have the ‘minimum’ education requirement to be anything in Uganda. And this, brings us to the topic of today.
The afore mentioned sad news of death are intermingled with the foolish news of excessive indulgence.
More crucially, for how long shall the nation state of Uganda continue to be embarrassed by its citizens: those shameless folks we continue to trust with important assignments because we assume they’re ‘educated’ but them, severally showing us that are actually Not qualified to handle such mandates!
If they’re not unfairly sharing our resources among themselves (I mean ‘educated’ politicians) or pending their signatures on documents whose contents they barely understand (I mean ‘educated’ Ministers), then they go around making fools of not themselves, but out of the rest of us!
Why would a man of Henry Mayega’s stature, indeed with a flowery education background, become a victim of “primitive accumulation of wealth” As the Kagutas have been telling us?
Yes Ambassador Mayega and the Consulate team were looking to make a quick buck and return here with Range Rovers. Is that really the only meaningful measure for a successful man?
Hopefully both tainted diplomats won’t blame their woes on witchcraft or even on homosexuals!
I told you here before that those folks seating on the so-called ‘vetting committee’ of Parliament should look beyond certificates because Nasser Road makes better ‘original’ ones than even Makerere University. But they can start by looking at the character of the people before them.
The problem though is one: the people vetting others are themselves having suspect education certificates. It is a classic case of the hunted turning into the hunter!
Friends, having said all that, don’t you think it is now the time to check the relevancy of the education we rum down our children’s throats (syllabuses and curriculums) and, while at it; also scrap the ‘minimum education’ requirement for political appointments or before one is allowed to become an MP?
Uganda’s greatest leaders, call them presidents, if you like, including the sons of Kaguta, have had very little book education. Even our most successful military commanders (Idi Amin, Salim Saleh, Tito Okello, James Kazini, Bazilio Okello, Yusuf Gowon, etc) saw very little blackboard.
The folks owning the wealth here, the Kampala downtown moguls or square- mile owners, did not go to school beyond writing their own names.
Wealthy lawyers and doctors? No chance! They’re simply hanging on the peripheral working for the illiterate moguls helping them to get even richer.
Therefore education is overrated especially in Uganda’s unique experience. It is not only full of esoteric and alien concepts, it is damn too expensive for the ordinary mwanainchi. We simply parade certificates with no grasp of concepts behind them.
And why did the flamers of our 1995 Constitution, Mr. Museveni if you not shy to say it, wanted to use education as a quid pro quo?
After the country had been ruled by Generals Idi Amin Dada and Tito Okello Lutwa, two folks with little education and presiding over illiterate armies, the flamers of the 1995 constitution decided to ring-fence political contestation leaving the pie to the so-called ‘educated’ folks.
The military, police, prisons and other auxiliary forces, were also indicted in this scheme and only the ‘educated’ became the new recruits.
Those institutions are now well organized largely because of the education requirements before one would join. If it wasn’t for excessive politicization, our security forces would now be classified as professionalized.
Employing the educated is also fair because we have many higher institutions of learning here chunning out graduates meaning that a PLE certificate is no longer required anywhere except enrolling one in Senior One. An O’level Certificate is also no longer considered even for a lorry driver’s job. Soon one degree will not be enough to call yourself educated.
Invariably, there will always be areas where education will be a sine qua non or an absolute necessity like in schools.
But if I need frontline soldiers, those who will not question orders, I will recruit the uneducated. Even America recruits those who are 21 years old because, at that age, one is not all that educated.
As I often inform you here, I will never be shy to talk about my NRA experience. I had joined when still a Kadogo and became fearless. Death was never on my mind even when I confronted weirdly- engineered Alice Lakwena fighters.
So you know, young and often uneducated soldiers have what psychologists refer to as “a fool’s courage” which fortunately, wins battles.
But when the 42 years old Yoweri Museveni waltzed into town leading a force with an average age of 16, he played this image of an educated person.
Mr. Museveni and his Luweero team (majority of them not educated in the real sense) allowed this education thing to be let into our constitution for personal reasons. It was only Affande Saleh and Sula Semakula who tried in vain to block this minimum education thing.
Otherwise the same Yoweri Museveni wouldn’t be appointing people like Eddy Kenzo, Nasser Sebaggala, name zillions of them, to serious positions in government, of he really believed in the ‘educated’ as the only people capable of delivering.
Therefore President Museveni does not attach performance to education. Who then included the ‘minimum’ education requirement in our 1995 constitution?
It might have been Justice Odoki, Professor Ssempebwa and or Dr. George Kanyeihamba among other elites. What would you expect? Kanyeihamba was married to an English lady and Muzeyi Museveni used to refer to him as “my intellectual” in Europe.
Perhaps someone was actually borrowing a leaf from Tanzania.
Using Tanzania as a case study, those folks included in their constitution a Clause saying that: “Whoever stays out of Tanzania for 25 years continuously, shall not become a president of the country!”
I am not sure whether that was the exact wording or if the Clause was eventually included in the constitution, but the underlying meaning comes out just fine.
Tanzanians or Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, if you like, wanted to shut out from active politics a man called Oscar Kambona who had left Tanzania after falling out with the Mwalimu. These two gentlemen had sat together (as Museveni and Amama Mbabazi did) and planned the future of Tanganyika (Tanzania later).
Kambona had stayed out of Tanzania for 25 years and returned in 1991 holding a VCR (video playing machine) and received a hero’s welcome at the Dar es Salaam airport. I was in Tanzania then but not conversant with the game of politics.
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who was long retired, was alarmed with Kambona’s return and immediately called then President Ali Hassan Mwinyi and a clause was quickly inserted into the constitution barring specifically Oscar Kambona from elective politics.
Now President Museveni: why did you include in our constitution the minimum education clause? Whom were you shutting out? I know that Affande Salim Saleh and other senior commanders had not even completed their O’level!
Leaving that aside, as a nation, we have to go back to the drawing board and rectify many things. They made sense then (like the now archaic requirement to recruit tall men and women in police, prisons and the military) but irrelevant now.
The scrapping of ‘term- limits’ and ‘age-limit’ is no longer a necessary requirement. It was meant to ease the life of President Museveni but not necessary anymore. Future presidents of this country will have to be subjected to term- limits.
Soldiers as MPs? Completely an unwarranted concept. 40 years is enough experience trying to calm down the tempers of soldiers. They should rather concentrate on military matters or disseminating Muzeyi’s message of wealth creation.
Soldiers don’t speak in Parliament and their presence scares off many MPs from speaking out their minds.
They were even included in Parliament to give President Museveni 10 ‘free’ MPs before even an election. We don’t need them there. But the President can appoint them Ministers and or State Ministers because their training is very useful.
Age limit may not be necessary now with the advancement in healthy care because an 80 years old person may not appear old. Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda lost the presidency of Malawi aged 96 years. He still had the command of most of his faculties except common sense.
The Canadian city of Mississauga (pronounced Misisaga), had a mayor called Hazel McCallion who retired aged 92 years old. At 78 years, Donald Trump is still considered NOT an old man to rule America!
Therefore, we need to seat down and soberly debate whether we need all this junk in our constitution like the need for minimum education requirement which was aimed at barring some people from political contestation.
Education level for a Ugandan MP? Not a necessary condition though we require educated folks in some areas.
Look, these ‘educated’ fellows are jam-packed in a room, nearly 600 of them, and they don’t see a problem with that? They represent villages which have no clinics or healthy centers but they drive expensive land cruisers which can construct three or four healthy centers and they don’t see a problem with that?
They seat in Parliament and okays everything the executive brings and they don’t even see a problem with that?
This has gone on for far too long and now we need an honest debate whether we even need that Parliament going forward. Of course we can reopen it after Mr. Museveni leaves office. We just fine when Idi Amin locked it
Our ‘educated’ folks will convince us that “it is Museveni who killed the systems” therefore Uganda can’t function.
I beg to differ folks.
Where is Mr. Museveni’s hand when billions meant for cooperatives are swindled by MPs? Is Museveni allowing the fleecing of the state through a scam called ‘per diem’ where MPs claim money for being abroad benchmarking while are quietly hiding in some “buloogi- guest house” here in Kampala?
I am still failing to find evidence where President Museveni is the architect behind Uganda’ simmering tribalism!
I was very elated, indeed absolved, when President Museveni came out to express his feelings on the minimum education requirement as embedded in our constitution.
The President feels that it was a mistake to include that in the constitution though, as I have alluded to above, that idea was included to shut out some people or even a ‘person’ from having access to an MP seat or a ministerial posting.
He is the best person to judge indeed understand the performance of people he employs or assigns to carry out duties, and how successful they accomplish those duties, based on their level of education. He has worked with them educated or not, for over 40 years.
When he comes and explicitly complains about that, then you have to understand that he has a valid point. That is why he can appoint fellows like Catherine Kusasira and Eddy Kenzo to be his special advisors!
Besides, Mr. Museveni is a president of peasants majority of whom have never completed Primary Seven. It makes sense if people like Eddy Kenzo are deployed to explain to them government programs.
Who makes more sense between a semi-literate PM Robinah Nabanja and the educated lawyer now presiding over our Parliament?
Have you ever listened to the Tanzanian Parliament in session? Those people who are building a great nation at our southern border deliberate in Kiswahili. Even a Muwanganza “mushamba- villager” can understand and follow what is being said in Parliament.
In Uganda? We can’t even sing our national anthem because it is in a language majority of us don’t even understand!
Don’t get me wrong here. I am not saying that the ‘Form Six’ requirement is a bar set too high therefore out of reach by many Ugandans. I am simply saying that let the field become level without shutting out anyone.
When we’re recruiting police, we need people who can read permits or even write statements. When recruiting soldiers, we need people who are physically fit and also able to read some simple pamphlets. They use this reading part to interpret directions and also to communicate with each other given the diversity of our society.
But educated MPs? Not necessarily a requirement.
The cardinal role of an MP is to provide oversight and to legislate. There is nothing like preparing schemes of work; come up with schedule; calibrate syllabuses or mark exams. It is simply to dress your best; have your phone charged and go seat in that House and start charting to friends.
Essentially, Parliamentary business is the business of lawyers and accountants. If we can have about 20 lawyers and 20 accountants in the mix, any one with no Form Six can comfortably seat in that house and help to contribute to national building.
If the Form Six or diploma requirement has failed to get us responsible leaders, why don’t we lower the bar and see what is down there?
BY WAY OF CONCLUSION:
Gen. Salim Saleh made his greatest contribution to this country with a very small knowledge of book education. Later, his senior brother encouraged him to go back to ‘school’ so that he can appoint him a minister. He finished Form 6 and was appointed Minister for Micro finance.
Compared to his successes when commanding the NRA with little education, Gen. Saleh was a mediocre Minister and he literally threw in the towel and left to live the rest of his life in a Luweero bush called Kapeeka. He is still semi- literate but with a brain of Prophet Suleiman (Solomon).
Affande Salim Saleh who is the de facto number two in Uganda’s hierarchy, daily sees Professors and doctors crawling to him to seek for guidance. They don’t go to him because he is the President’s young brother, this retired soldier, like I said above, has a brain of King Solomon.
Why do you think President Museveni appointed Hon. Haruna Kasolo as a Minister? This man has very little book education but a powerful reasoning capacity.
Therefore, I don’t believe that ‘education’ is simply the attainment of a degree or even a diploma. I also failed to find any significant correlation between performance and one’s level of education.
That is why I know it as a fact that the most important leaders of men, be they in politics or other human endeavors, are people of minimum education. If Nelson Mandela was a professor, he wouldn’t have risen to such levels. If tycoon Godfrey Kirumira had a degree, he wouldn’t have owned a single arcade in Kampala.
What is the education level of Bill Gates?
But a man called Robert Gabriel Mugabe, with 7 University degrees, drove to garbage one of Africa’s most resourceful country. And Sam Nujoma, a man of no book education at all, helped turn Namibia into one of Africa’s successful stories.
Visualize a certain ‘Professor’ Yoweri Museveni surviving the hash elements in Luweero triangle. If he was a professor, Museveni wouldn’t have gotten the idea to go to the bush in the first place. But other professors like Yusuf Lule and Binaisa QC, including John Patrick Amama Mbabazi and Dr. Samson Kissekka stayed in Nairobi!
Instead of pretending that we’re sending educated folks to Parliament (making us look like idiots), we should instead pluck up courage and scrap that damn article.
So you know (repeat this in a whisper): our greatest ever president, Yoweri Museveni, has a suspect education but according to Namisango Betty Kamya: “Mr. Museveni is smarter than all Cabinet Ministers put together!”
When I called a friend and told him that I was writing this article, he told me to include this:
“Uganda has one of the highest educated workforce in Africa but can’t employ smart people to lower the water tariffs; in a country which has a very huge water source called L. Victoria!”
LAST WORD: “The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one!”
-Malcolm S. Forbes
Adam Kamulegeya
adamkam2003@gmail.com
0779 104 335
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