Africa-Press – Uganda. If things get better with age, Uganda and other countries at 60 today would be joining upper middle income economies with Gross National Income (GNI) per capital between $4,046 (Shs15m) and $12,535 (Shs48m).
For some Ugandans, the diamond jubilee celebration is meaningless. It is a conundrum for our leaders. The hungry cluster of the population has accused the Executive, Parliament and Judiciary of indifference, egotism and greed.
In the mystery of our blame games, maintained for years, one possible downside of getting sober at 60 is breaking a grandstanding habit reinforced over decades. However, this does not in anyway suggest that our leaders simply sit back, relax, enjoy the office perks and do nothing about the current situation.
We are asking our leaders to bury the hatchet and deal with the country’s endemic challenges head-on. It is critical that leaders break the bad habits; own up faults and start afresh. This way, we can reunite the country, heal internal wounds, forgive and pursue the middle income dream that has eluded our country for years.
While remarkable progress has been made over the years, a lot remains undone. Economy is struggling, poverty and unemployment situation requires urgent attention as well as the crises in other spheres of governance, constitutionalism and rule of law.
Others are struggling to educate their children, and some people have no access to decent healthcare services. Urban crime is another persistent problem. Some families have lost relatives in circumstances akin to Idi Amin’s reign of terror.
In the early years of independence, some toxic leaders had created tribal alliances and would kill those with whom they disagreed with. Today, Ugandans are contending with unexplained abductions and torture of suspects and other human rights abuses, land grabbing through illegal evictions, police brutality, environmental degradation, and high cost of living.
It is, however, the responsibility of governments to protect peoples’ lives and property, safeguard freedoms and create an enabling environment for citizens to prosper. This is what invigorated our freedom fighters in the pre-independence episodes.
Direct British rule of Uganda ended on October 9, 1962. From that day, our country became a sovereign state, admitted to the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the present day African Union (AU).
Recalling the wretchedness of colonialisation and the perpetual failures of post-colonial regimes, it is important that our leaders use today’s diamond jubilee and embrace a bipartisan struggle against endemic glitches that have for years impeded socio-economic transformation of our country.
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