Change is coming to the sorry state of Uganda
Life, it is said, is about choices and the decisions we make. On Friday, Ugandans find themselves at another such point in life. They go to the polls to pick a new leader, but this is not like previous polls. It is actually a referendum on the state of affairs in Uganda after 25 years of Museveni and the NRM.
One does not need the services of a superior being to understand the kind of situation in which Uganda finds itself in today. So widespread is the poverty across the country that one can literally touch it.
The health sector is in a mess. There are neither drugs nor medical personnel in our health facilities. Last week patients in National Referral Hospital Mulago rose up to protest the level of neglect. Government has over the years failed to facilitate the recruitment and maintenance of additional health workers.
The few on the payrolls are so poorly paid that they have to look elsewhere to supplement their incomes. Free education for all was introduced in 1997, but no actual learning is taking place. It is not strange to find pupils sitting on cold floors or bricks and stones.
Libraries and science rooms are ill equipped. Children go unfed and water and sanitation are inadequate. Teachers are in short supply. The teacher to pupil ratio is 1:120.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Uganda has the highest drop-out rates in East Africa. While only 25% of pupils who joined primary school in 1999 reached primary seven in 2006, while 84% Kenyan, 81% Tanzanian and 74 per cent Rwandan children did.
Many children in P7 are incapable of communicating in English. Little wonder that 117,603 out of 512,057 pupils who sat PLE in 2010 are ineligible for secondary education.
So bad is the state of education that Uganda was during September’s United Nations MDG summit ranked among the worst places for children to be at school.
During a 2007 youth conference, Museveni said that Ugandan needed to create six million jobs between then and 2011 in order to absorb youths who were coming onto the job market, but he never did anything about it.
The infrastructure is in a serious state of disrepair and corruption has run out of hand. Ugandans have been increasingly appreciating that this will be Museveni’s legacy.
They must therefore choose between this state of affairs and a new one that promises change in five major areas namely job creation and economic empowerment, quality education, creation of a functional health care system, roads and infrastructure, and support to agriculture.
Once interventions are made in those sectors, Uganda will become a fully democratic and well administered country where resources are equitably shared in a transparent manner; where the law applies equally to all; where there are no two ways around separation of powers and where leaders are not judged on the basis of how much wealth they have tacked away in some secret accounts, but on the strength of what they have done for Uganda.
This vote is about putting in place a regime that is corruption free and one that will import more tractors than four wheel cars. It is about putting in place a regime that will ensure that children are well nourished, workers paid a living wage, and that employment opportunities are available to all.
That has been the gist of the 112 days of campaigning. Judging by the response at all IPC rallies, I can authoritatively say that change is coming. Uganda embarks on a new journey on the night of February 18th, 2011.
Article contributed by Isaac Mufumba, Information Officer, IPC campaign bureau for Dr Kizza Besigye.
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