Lifting age limit is voting for continued economic regression

Mark 8:36 reads as follows: “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” This is an apt description of President Museveni who has gained the whole of Uganda, but lost his political views which endeared many to him.
NTV frequently airs footage of President Museveni saying in 2012 that he would not seek re-election beyond 75 years, yet the same Museveni, now 73, is unclear when it comes to the question of whether or not he will contest in 2021.
Similarly, whenever Mr Museveni is reminded of his observation in his 1992 book What is Africa’s Problem that the problem of Africa are leaders who cling to power, he responds that he meant leaders who remain in power without being elected.
The truth is that Mr Museveni never believed in elections at all. He used the 1980 elections to inflame the Baganda into fighting his war. Between 1992 and 1995 when the donors demanded their pound of flesh in terms of accepting elections, Museveni opposed introduction of multiparty politics, claiming that in a backward society elections propel sectarianism.

‘Propel backward elements’
In his 87-page booklet published in 1984 titled Selected Articles on Uganda War of Resistance, Museveni on Page 19 wrote: “Backwardness tend to propel backward elements in positions of leadership,” yet as the most beneficiary of the economic backwardness in Uganda, Museveni does not seem to note that the backwardness in Uganda keep propelling backward elements in positions of leadership, leading to economic decline and democracy aberration.
And that is not all. In his first public rally held at the City Square in Kampala in March 1986, Museveni told the audience that people who have no mission to modernise their countries have no business seeking leadership positions. Yet he too has failed to ‘Singaporise’ Uganda in 30 years.
Museveni of the political sunrise years was scornful of African leaders for failing to modernise their unfortunate countries.

He wondered why Nigeria which was at the same development level with Indonesia and Ghana which was at the same development level with South Korea at independence had lagged far behind while Indonesia and South Korea had become industrial nations.
Little did Ugandans expect their country, which in 1986 was at the same level with Malaysia and Vietnam, to also lag behind while Malaysia and Vietnam became industrial nations within 30 years of Museveni’s rule.
In 2000, Museveni wrote that Uganda was almost at the same GDP income per capita as that of Kenya.

At the time the GDP income per capita of Uganda was $330 and that of Kenya was at $ 340. After 14 years, Kenya’s GDP income per capita was as high as $1,376 while that of Uganda was just $675 (World Bank figures). What this means is that if Uganda had kept pace with Kenya economic development, our GDP income per capita would be $1,366, putting us in the lower middle income status like Kenya is as a of now.
In 1960, Uganda and Rwanda had positive reserves in New York while Kenya, South Africa and Singapore had negative reserves. Today, Singapore has more than $30 billion in reserves while Uganda has less than $3 billion.

In 1914, Kenya’s White settlers sent their wives to give birth in Uganda and South Africa, yet now Ugandans go to Kenya for better medical services. In 1960, Singapore sent its medical officials to study Uganda’s excellent medical services in order to use the Uganda model in setting up their medical services. Fifty years down the road, African presidents such as Robert Mugabe go to Singapore for medical treatment instead of coming to Uganda.
In 1960, Uganda was the leading economy among the three original East African countries followed by Kenya, while Tanzania lagged behind. But now Kenya leads, followed by Tanzania while Uganda lags behind the original three.
In 2014, a Kenyan intellectual called Uganda a “failed state” and advised African countries “on how not be a Uganda”.

And Museveni still clamours to be President of the unfortunate Ugandans for life.
Both Karl Marx (1818-1883) on the left and Alfred Marshal (1842-1924) on the right saw economic development as being progressive, from permittivity to socialism/communalism (Karl Marx), and from lower level of development to the entelechy capitalism, (Alfred Marshal).
Adam Smith (1723-1790) and the Biblical Moses of capitalism saw collective private greed as an engine of development. No economist envisaged that there would be a policy or ideology that deliberately aimed at keeping society in total stagnation or even regression. Under development in Africa was attributed to external factors: Imperialisms, colonialism and of late, the IMF and World Bank.

In 2008, Norwegian Harvard-trained economist Erik S. Reinert published a classic book How Rich Countries Got Rich, and why Poor Countries Stay Poor. Prof Reinert gave the example of President Museveni who wrongly believes that investors should be pampered at the expense of keeping the wages of Ugandans extremely low (page 277).
In other words, while investors in Europe, Asia and North America pay competitive wages to citizens there and in the process make them prosperous, Museveni wants investors to pay pennants to Ugandans in order to keep them poor in what he wrongly believe is “development”.

Conclusion
But not all is lost. Karl Marx warned that “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please”. Museveni may make history, but not as he originally wished. The truth is that he has failed to airborne Uganda to the expected economic development.
Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga seems to have learnt Museveni’s political master card of survival. She appears to have diplomatically postponed the motion seeking to lift the president’s age in order to appease the discontented majority Ugandans.
And on Tuesday, September 26, Ms Kadaga could make history by suspending the motion seeking to lift the age limit, the way the Kenyan Supreme Court set a precedent by nullifying the presidential elections.

The writer is a journalist
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