Let residents run Kampala; they already do!

SECOND FLOOR - I really must find time to blog a bit more frequently. Anyway, here is a piece of my Thursday column in the Daily Monitor. The more I wrote the angrier I got but anyway, here goes:

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The government, the opposition and Buganda Kingdom are all up in arms over the Kampala Capital City Bill 2009 tabled before Parliament last week.

The central government claims that it wants to appoint a team of professionals to run the city better and plan for its future expansion. Buganda Kingdom officials say proposals to take over two town councils currently in Wakiso District are a ruse to grab the kingdom’s land. The opposition, on the other hand, says that, having failed to win control over the city for many years, the central government is finally winning the game in a draconian fashion – by uprooting the goalposts and taking them away.

So, who’s right and who’s wrong? Buganda’s claim has historical and emotional appeal but it seems a tad unreasonable. If Mengo Municipality, the heartbeat of the kingdom, is being cut out of the city boundaries, is it not fair that compensation must be found in the form of surrounding areas? We can debate which areas to include in the new city – for instance, why take Kira Town Council which is already developed, and not, say, parts of Mpigi which are not? We can also look at the maps and see who wins and who loses but the idea sounds logical – and could raise land values in those areas even higher.

While it’s true that the new Bill, if passed into law, will end opposition control over the city with the stroke of a pen, it will only accelerate a process that is well and truly underway. The opposition might control all but one of the city’s seats in Parliament but the NRM has been making inroads as more and more people became disgruntled with Ssebaana Kizito and then Nasser Sebaggala’s kleptocratic regimes at City Hall.

Instead of using their control over the city to demonstrate their managerial abilities, the opposition ransacked and plundered Kampala, stealing whatever they could carry and selling off whatever they couldn’t. Land, markets, houses, schools, cemeteries, etc were all stolen or sold.

This was not just an opposition racket; officials from the very same central government that is allegedly riding to our rescue were involved in the relocation of schools to pave way for investors, the boarding off of public parks to set up malls and pubs, and the dubious allocation of markets to hawk-eyed, claw-fingered Merchants of Vice.

The central government had a chance to show its abilities in the run-up to CHOGM when it sank billions of our money in fixing the city’s roads, street lights and ‘beautifying’ it. Within weeks the potholes were back; traffic and street lights had ‘died’; the grass had grown back; the rubbish skips had been turned to scrap; and the potted plants down the road from State House – part of Shs4.5 billion spent by highly-placed politico-entrepreneurs on beautification – had been returned to the palaces from which they were, ostensibly, hired.

How can the same central government then claim that it will run the city better? It might be a good idea to appoint lawyers, engineers, environmentalists etc to the new Authority to run the city but do we not already have those specialists at City Hall?

Kampala does not need anyone to manage it. The city manages itself by the grace of God and the fortitude of its residents. We pay private companies to collect our garbage; build walls, hire guards for our security; replace the shock absorbers in our cars when the potholes wear them out; tarmac the roads to our residences; pay to use what’s left of the city’s only public park; produce our own electricity half of the time off generators and ‘inverters’; pay street kids not to break into our cars and generally get by despite, and not because of, the city administrators.
So you can fight all you want for what’s left of Kampala, all you bloody politicians. Just don’t claim to be doing it in the name of its residents.

In search for the winds of change

SECOND FLOOR - I gave this speech earlier today at the Afrobarometer Global Release Event at the Serena Hotel Kampala today. Here is hoping that it makes a bit of sense.


Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my honour and privilege to speak to you today about a matter that is dear to my heart and should be to all who love their country and seek progress for it and its people. First, I must apologise, on behalf of the organisers, for my selection to speak here today. They tried very hard to find someone intelligent and distinguished but they were all too busy or unavailable. So they invited me. Please forgive them.

The timing of this event could not have been more opportune. As we mark Africa Day today, we must ask ourselves the question, as we are doing today: How much progress has Africa made in regard to consolidation of democracy and fighting poverty? Robert Sentamu has given an excellent presentation on the Afrobarometer and its findings, over the last decade, of social, economic and political progress in selected African countries. In my short remarks I shall attempt to share some thoughts about the progress we’ve made in Uganda.

First the good news. Uganda has made some progress in the political arena including: enacting a fairly progressive constitution; holding elections at national, parliamentary and local council levels; lifting the legal (some would say illegal) restrictions on political pluralism and multiparty politics; and bringing some semblance of peace and stability – albeit a fragile one – to northern Uganda and other regional theatres of conflict like Burundi.

Economically, we posted year-on-year Gross Domestic Product growth for more than a decade and have consistently been higher than the Sub-Saharan Africa average. The country has continued to attract foreign direct investment that has created jobs, grown tax revenues and continued to reduce our dependence on foreign donors.

There has been some social payoff from these political/economic developments with more children going to school and more health centres built across the country. The number of Ugandans living in abject poverty – defined as less than a dollar a day – has fallen from 56% in 1992 to less than 40%.

While this progress is commendable, it begs three questions that all Ugandans ought to ask themselves. One, is this the best we could have done with the resources available to us? Two, is it sustainable? And three, what must we do as a country to improve our lot sustainably and equitably?

Our political reforms have not been deep enough or backed by the development of institutions that would engrave them in our political culture. Thus the Constitution was doctored for 30 silver coins to achieve short-term political ambitions of the Executive; armed men have raped the temple of justice; our elections have been marred by rigging and smeared with the blood of the innocents; political freedoms have been given with one hand and then taken away with another through manipulation, coercion or intimidation; and the voice of the people has been silenced to a whimper through the emasculation of Parliament and the enfeeblement of the press.

The socio-economic gains, too, have been lost in many areas. An unsustainably high population growth rate continues to put pressure on the social infrastructure and has thrown more people through the cracks back down into abject poverty. Teachers and pupils have abandoned classrooms often to eke a more rewarding living off the land; doctors have abandoned their patients for fatter paycheques abroad and a cloud of hopeless has descended over the land, giving cover to the thieves and the corrupt to loot, pillage and plunder what’s left of our national resources. Things have, indeed, fallen apart.

As the figures from the Afrobarometer show, there is a direct correlation between the way a country is governed and the quality of life its citizens enjoy or suffer. It is the politics, stupid.

The Afrobarometer shows growing demand for democracy in Uganda. It also shows that many people are unsatisfied with the quality of democracy we have. We must not clamour for democracy as an end in itself but as a means to an end. Democracy should empower the voice of ordinary citizens, not just to be heard, but to also be listened to, especially in the allocation of national resources.

Democracy, right from its origins in the Greek city states, revolves around the core assumption that ordinary people cede some of their power to elected leaders who are them supposed to act in the best interest of the people. If we pose and take a look around our country today, do our leaders act in our best interests? Are we spending our meagre resources in productive areas that will generate more opportunities or are we splashing out on primitive and predatory displays of insensitive luxury? Do our elected leaders deliver on their promises or do they shift the goalposts every time to manipulate ignorant and illiterate voters, seeking re-election with fistfuls of coins and shovels of sugar?

More than one in every two Ugandans alive today was born after 1990. They don’t want to know about the “bad old days” of Idi Amin, Milton Obote, or the bloody war that brought the current government to power in 1986. What they want to know is that there will be jobs when they graduate; that they will be able to compete for those jobs on merit, not on the basis of their surnames or facial features. That they will afford medical care and housing when they need it and that they will inherit a country that is stable and prosperous and a society that is dynamic and inclusive.

As we head towards the next election in 2011, we find ourselves at a crossroads. We can choose to continue the personality-driven winner-takes-it-all political model where we have an election and petition every five years and then let our MPs and other politicians sleep on the job as long as they wake up and vote for their parties. Alternatively, we can choose a bi-partisan approach that puts Uganda first, that allows free and open debate about our burning priorities and how to achieve them, and which puts power back in the hands of the people.

Asking the politicians to decide which model to adopt is, like an African saying goes, asking the monkey to decide whether the forest should be cut down. It is up to the people to demand this right to be heard and served. The Afrobarometer survey and others like it help provide a reality check for our countries and provide useful information that can be used by the media, civil society, and progressive political groups to empower the public.

At the end of the day, however, the responsibility falls on every individual to inform themselves and others, in order to build political awareness and a critical mass of interested and involved publics who can mobilise, organise, demand and receive what is fairly due to them.

On a recent visit to Robben Island, I was struck by many things, not least of all the fact that the dog houses were much bigger than the cell in which Nelson Mandela spent his time in detention. Some of the inmates like Mandela were educated professionals at the time they were jailed while others, like current President Jacob Zuma, were illiterates. The inmates developed a phrase; each one teach one, which helped those who knew to teach those who didn’t.

In many ways, our own long walk to true economic and political freedom can never be complete unless those who know can teach those who don’t. Only such political enlightenment can end the manipulation of the masses and ensure that they do not live a dog’s life.

I thank you.

It's the war of attrition

SECOND FLOOR - As it turned out, the interrogation was more farce than fierce. We presented ourselves at 10am, as requested, and were led to the Media Offences Department of the Uganda Police Force. We do not have a Child Sacrifice Department but we have one for media offences, real and imagined. Classic Uganda.

After a while, Charles Kataratambi, the head of the MOD turned up. A stocky fella with a law degree and a sharp brain, Charlie, as many of his friends call him, could have made a smart lawyer or more but he has to 'serve' and his service is to keep an eye on the media.

After a few pleasantries, the interrogation started with Angelo, one of the two authors of the story. Grace, the other author, and I, were asked to step outside and wait in the room next door. Considering that the rooms are separated by thin plywood, this was the equivalent of listening in, rather that watching proceedings.The main thrust of the interrogation, as expected, was to try and extract the source of the story.

It would have been easier to squeeze water out of a rock. An hour later, Grace was next and the routine was repeated with no more success until it was my turn. Charlie and his team of co-inquisitors, including a cameraman who captured proceedings on a small camcorder (so that we could not claim to have been tortured, according to Charlie) wanted to know who had edited the story. I told them I did not edit the story but I was the editor of the paper. Two different things that took a while to sink in before Charlie declared; we have the wrong man. We need to person who edited the story.

Three weeks later, I am a free man but both Grace and Angelo are out on police bond which has been renewed several times. (The editor of the piece was never summoned, after all). The police say they need more time to find evidence to take the duo to court and charge them with endangering national security, abetting the enemy or same such. The idea that the LRA rebels in their DR Congo hideouts are waiting for copies of the Monitor to be delivered to them every morning so as to plan their military formations in ludicrous to the extreme. And yet, as we head closer to the magic year of 2011, there is evidence that this is just the start of a different war against the media; the war of attrition.

It does not matter whether there is evidence or not to justify prosecution; the plan is to keep summoning journalists and make them jump through hoops until they are physically, mentally, emotionally and financially worn out (the lawyer's meter keeps running!). it is a nuisance and an irritation but it could be worse. Ask journalists in Somalia, Iraq, Philipines or Sri Lanka.

So we keep soldiering on, keep packing overnight bags every Friday just in case you are arrested and taken to court after the banks close (so they can't take your bail money) and have to spend the weekend in the chiller. But we shall keep speaking truth to power and keep saying things that officialdom does not want to hear. After all, we are not here to please; if we were, we would have been dressed up as clowns.

Merry Christmas; you have the right to remain silent...

THIRD FLOOR -- I got two letters from the police this week. The first was a belated Christmas card, personally signed by the Inspector General, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, bless his soul, to me and my family.

The card went to the ornamental table, next to the rest of the batch from workmates, sources, clients, etc. The second letter, copied to two workmates, was less pleasant and more direct: it was a summons to present ourselves at the Criminal Investigations Directorate to assist the police investigations that a story we published in the paper was prejudicial to national security.

To that uninitiated, that would be section 37 of the penal code act of Uganda. Maximum sentence? Seven years.

In many ways, I saw it coming. Being a journalist in Uganda is increasingly becoming unpredictable, rough and dangerous as President Museveni seeks to tighten his grip on power. Dissent and critical voices must be silenced. A department has been set up in the police force to deal with errant media. A Cabinet sub-committee was tasked to find ways of 'sorting out' pesky hacks through all means possible. The President has, on several occasions, vowed to deal with the media.

While this reference to the 'media' is wide, The Monitor, which I edit, is the 600-pound gorilla in the room, complete with a target painted on its backside. It is us that, more often than not, are foolish enough to question government actions, inactions, graft, incompetence, insolence, etc. It is us (with others) who question why political appointees, many of them school drop outs, are paid more than doctors; why public land is given away in dubious circumstances; why we spend more on the Presidency than on agriculture which employs eight out of every 10 Ugandans, etc.

So to work with the Monitor is to expect these kinds of things. If anything, it is surprising that it is the first summons in the six months I have been back at the paper. Yet, to be honest, when they come, as they did this week, they still send a chill down the spine, however momentarily. Friday is a dreaded day; if you don't have the time or money or sureties to arrange bail, a weekend in custody is on the books. But even if you do get bail, the incessant visits to court or to the CID are as schedule-disrupting as they are energy-sapping.

And yet, these trials -- and the fortitude with which other editors and journalists have faced them -- have a way of strengthening the resolve, of helping you see the posturing of power for the regime weakness and insecurity that it really is. I have been there before; once beaten, second time dragged to court, twice, to gag me.

I will be there again on Friday to take the latest installment from the state. If you don't hear from me for the next seven years, I will be doing my PhD by correspondence in the calm and quiet of the lakeside resort of Luzira (or, God-forbid, Kyenjojo!), all expenses paid by the state. Considering the dearth of social services, that might be the only time I benefit from my taxes, no?

Whatever happens to me, Happy New 2009 to you.

Daniel

Navigating the Great Lakes

KIGALI - I had a kodak moment at the hotel this morning when Fred Opolot, the executive director of the Uganda Media Centre came over to say hi to Monica Chibita, my former lecturer and now colleague at Makerere University.

We were all on the same flight from Entebbe to Kigali, shared cars and are also staying in the same hotel (the spankling new Top Tower hotel about which I ought to say a bit more later). Fred did not recognise me despite us having met at State House in Kampala a year or more ago, and speaking on the phone once in a while.

Of course there was that public spat a few weeks ago when Fred called a press conference to rubbish the findings of an opinion poll we'd run in the Daily Monitor on the basis that they'd asked for a copy and we'd not given it to them. We carried the story from his press conference and, asked for a comment about our position, I quipped that all the information about the poll was in the newspaper and that Fred ought to buy a copy.

So you can imagine how interesting it was this morning when Fred walked up to me and said, "Sorry, I am not sure we've met; what's your name?"

"Kalinaki," I said.

Cue a very shocked Fred almost jumping out of his skin before composing himself and reminding me that he actually buys a copy of the paper everyday. Classic.

We are in Kigali for the Conference of the Media in the Great Lakes region, another talking shop (why do I never learn?) I will say more about this. I just listened to a presentation by Dr Mvungi Edmund Sengondo of Tanzania about "a comparative analysis of the legislative framework for media and freedom of expression in the Great Lakes region". I regret to say that I was underwhelmed.

More later.

McCain and Abel

SECOND FLOOR - It was supposed to be a ground-breaking campaign; one that would discard with Washington's dirty and dark politics-as-usual and redraw the lines (and rules of engagement).

It was historic, all right, in the sense that we had the first woman with a realistic chance of becoming the first female President of the United States, only for her to be upstaged by the first black man with a realistic chance of being the first Black occupant of the White House, only for him, albeit temporarily, to be upstaged by the first pig with lipstick to have a realistic chance of being No2 at 1600 Penn Ave.

As Senators Barack Obama and John McCain head to the last stretch of their campaign, it looks as though, to borrow a European cliche, America has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from its political past.

Far from the issues-based campaign it was meant to be, the race has been a business-as-usual affair of mudslinging, smearing and scaremongering. Obama has been cast as a Muslim (like that's a bad thing!), a terrorist supporter, a flipper headed for a flop, and all sorts of nasty names. The Democrats have not been entirely clean either, labelling McCain's policies as a continuation of those of the ill-fated G.W. Bush, ignoring the several issues on which the Senator voted against the President.

Even the few issues that emerged have changed faster than you can say Capitol Hill. First the campaign was supposed to revolve around foreign policy and the war in Iraq. Then, as the first signs of the credit crunch appeared, it turned to local economic issues, only for it to swing back to foreign policy when Russia and Georgia went to war. Now, at the final bend, it is the economy, stupid, and it has left McCain looking, ah, stupid.

Of course our own elections in Uganda are rarely about issues and more about primitive symbols of power (Essanja, cotter pin, hammer, olubengo, etc) so we are not any better than the Americans. The only difference is that we never claim to have an issues-based campaign; whoever breaks more skulls and stuffs more ballot boxes wins. Our system is simple, shallow, and stupid -- but so is America's!

Are Ugandans really kind and hospitable?

THE TOWER - There is this stereotype that's been around for as long as I can remember, about how kind, hospitable and welcoming we Ugandans are. Over time, I have come to have my very strong doubts to a point where I think it is all bollocks, honestly.

Mind, I have seen some Ugandans whose welcomes and kindness appear genuine and these, for the most part, I have encountered in the village; they scream, ululate and envelop you in unwashed and unwanted hugs when you arrive, while admonishing the younger family members to make haste, detain one of the ubiquitous chickens and bring its life to a screeching, bubbling halt in a stewing pot.

The more distant relatives hold out organic dirt-stained hands, grubby with the ardours of ekeing a living out of the land in handshakes and greetings that, in good old Busoga can go on for minutes, punctuated by endless 'uuuums', 'aaahs' and inquiries about the health of the clan, the livestock, the village, etc.

In my younger days when my visits to the village were more regular -- if not always made on my own volition -- I was always amazed at the generosity of these village folk who showed not a moment's hesitation in ordering the slaughter of a chicken for a city-dwelling relative who, in most cases, had more regular access to chicken. On departure, they would offer groundnuts, peas, maize -- anything that was in season -- and with a genuine, infectious smile to boot! A few even offered their own children to come along to the city to help out with household chores!

This generosity wasn't always one-sided; we, the city-dwellers, usually gave cash (a rare commodity in these lands of livin' hand-to-mouth and which we take for granted in the urban lands of livin'-la vida-loca), sugar, salt, soap, kerosene, medicine or simply gave advice and wise counsel (which, come to think of it, made us the equivalent of modern-day technical advisers sent by western donors!) But I digress.

This generous, kind and welcoming side of Ugandans does not exist in the Uganda I know today, and certainly not in the cities. How many times do you walk into a bank or a restaurant and feel like an unwanted intruder? Or spend 10 minutes waiting for service while the waiting staff go about their business gossiping and texting? What happened to people greeting you, asking how they can help, listening patiently, doing it with a smile and getting a genuine 'thank you' at the end?

Far from a welcoming oasis of warmth and kindness, we are a country with our finger on the trigger, always a twitch away from a rapid-fire outburst of bile, recoilless and remorseless fulmination over the most mundane things, and a gritty determination to win all arguments and at all costs, even where we are hopelessly and incontrovertibly wrong.

Have you been on our narrow roads and seen the selfish and self-centred way we drive? Hardly anyone allows you to join the main road or indicates their intention to allow other road users a chance to react in time. One moment you are driving behind a car, the next you are stuck behind the same car while a passenger alights and, for the next 20 seconds, continues their conversation with the driver through the car window. When overtaking and encounter on-coming traffic, the driver in the left lane is more likely to pick up speed and try to have you slam into the on-coming car than let you get out of harm's way. We are not just impolite and impatient; years of war, deprivation and disease have left us with a mean, ruthless streak, a dog-eat-dog mentality where survival is for the fittest, the loudest, the harshest and those whose airbag-laden cars are more likely to survive a head-on collision.

We are not kind, generous and welcoming people on the whole. We just pretend to be. We have this superiority complex that we confer upon visitors, especially white visitors, falling all over ourselves to impress anyone with a white skin (and hopefully green bucks). Everytime I have walked into a restaurant or a pub with a white friend, I have been served faster and with more warmth. And the bill has always been put infront of my white friends, even when I'd done the ordering.

It's not just at the personal level; have you seen the fixation we have with 'foreign investors' offering generous incentives to all sorts of briefcase-type investors while our own entrepreneurs (save, of course, for those with access to the corridors of power) struggle to raise capital?

It is subtle reverse racism; where slave owners in the American south used to lash their black slaves, we kneel upon the floor, disrobe and flog ourselves while apologising for not being worthy!

We are not just gifted by nature, we Ugandans; we are listed by nature as double edged swords; kind, welcoming and generous to foreigners, harsh and unforgiving to our own. It's about time we cracked open the oyster shell to reveal what really lies within the Pearl of Africa.