Yes, too much sleep has left Ugandans poor

What you need to know:

  • Paradox. But there is a paradox. It were as if President Museveni’s officials keep awake with one eye, which makes them very rich, but sleep a lot with the other eye, which makes his government incompetent, corrupt and ultimately poor.

Apparently, thanks to the “peace ushered in by the NRM”, after Ugandans got back their bedtime sleep, they started treating sleep as an occupation. In daytime, with their eyes wide open, they are still asleep.
At (MP) Paul Amoru’s thanksgiving in Dokolo District, President Museveni observed that Ugandans – and Africans generally – are poor because they spend too much time sleeping. (See “Sleep making Ugandans poor-Museveni”, Daily Monitor, March 12.)

Mr Museveni cited water, land, minerals and the climate; the resources Africans have not fully exploited to overcome poverty.
Whether in full presidential seriousness or in mock-priestly jest, Museveni went biblical and admonished the natives: They leave undone the things they ought to do, and they do things that they are not meant to do…

This was vintage Museveni sermonising! In broad daylight!
Yes, there are millions of Ugandan loafers. Remember, only about 25 per cent of working age Ugandans are said to be in ‘proper’ employment.
Among the remaining 75 per cent, millions dabble in trade. The majority which is asleep sells things like grasshoppers to urban dwellers and remains poor. The few who are awake sell things like junk military helicopters to Museveni’s government and get rich.
You have millions of taxi touts and other petty parasites, and only hundreds of big brokers who connect top government officials and ‘investors’ in dirty land deals.
In short, millions are half asleep and poor; only hundreds are awake and rich.

Farmers are the same. Half-hearted millions go out to dig; only a few hundred are fully awake when their tractors seize the dawn.
One sleepy Naalongo in my neighbourhood poses as a suburban cattle-keeper with two local cows, while an Entebbe-based cattle-keeper who sleeps very little has thousands and thousands of cows on several ranches around the country.
But there is a paradox. It were as if President Museveni’s officials keep awake with one eye, which makes them very rich, but sleep a lot with the other eye, which makes his government incompetent, corrupt and ultimately poor.

Mr Museveni’s government also leaves undone many things it should have done, and it does many things that it should not have done. His (NRM) party suffers the same confusion, often celebrating instead of going to the confessional.
Don’t look far. Stay in Dokolo District. When the district chairperson, Fredrick Odongo, complained about insecurity, the President expressed surprise that there was some insecurity.

Really? When the President had only recently said the police was infested with weevils during Gen Kayihura’s time as IGP?
Moreover, with our micro-sleep President doing the right things, how did police decay reach weevil status under his watch? This decay and the general mismanagement of the country – call it sleep – have left Uganda and Ugandans trillions of shillings poorer, making the 2020 achievement of global middle income status a fantasy.

Stephen Hawking: a tribute
I am writing on Wednesday, half on the page, and half absorbed in thought about the life of the British theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Prof Stephen Hawking. He threw light on a very complex universe.
At his passing, a huge gap has been left where his shrivelled body held one of the towering minds of our time.

Not a buyer of myths of an afterlife himself, it would be absurd to wish a peaceful rest for his soul, which got extinguished with him. But for centuries to come, his ideas and his very life will inspire scientists and non-scientists never to tire in the quest to understand their godless universe.