Museveni address honours place of food in our politics

I often struggle to help my Kenyan friends understand why our politics is the way it is and why the Kenyan politics is that way.

When you are in a foreign country, you tend to become more patriotic than you would be at home and become the ‘unofficial diplomat’.
Many of my Kenyan friends hold a dim view of Ugandan politics.

‘How can Ugandans put up with so much ‘bullying’ by the State or rather President Museveni’ in their view. They wonder how we can vote the same person for more than 30 years. They find our politics unbearable as much as I find theirs impossible to follow.

Most people wonder why Ugandans are very patient in difficult situations like this, perceived stolen elections or rebel activities. Leaders in Opposition have failed to galvanise Ugandans to walk the streets protesting bad politics or policy in a way that disparages the government.

As I listened to the State-of-the-Nation Address by President Museveni on June 4, he provided the most insightful clue. There is almost no reason for most Ugandans to walk the streets in protest. This is partly because no matter what happens, many families will still have food. Gaps are often due to challenges in distribution and storage.

As such, we hear of obnoxious unemployment rates, unimaginable levels of corruption, endless borrowing, failure of government programmes including lack of absorption of funds by government departments, and a sluggish social service delivery. Still, a few people make noise on social media and we move on.

Ultimately, President Museveni has understood what matters to Ugandans. We can return to the basics-food and shelter, that he has always known matters. While his opponents speak of corruption and failure in government, he focuses on the majority of Ugandans; the farmers.

Even when the budgets do very little for agriculture, programmes for farmers are always ever present. And real change can only come from these peasants we like to think less of, now keeping us alive.

Politics and food go together. It is what makes the difference between Uganda and Kenya. We have almost so much food that we waste it. We always give away food and share with those around us. I occasionally get a lot of Irish potatoes from a friend in Kabale, matooke from Sheema or a friend’s farm in Kampala, posho from Mbale, rice and beans from my mother’s garden, all without charge. Even if there is no money, fewer Ugandans will starve in the real sense. That is the life of many Ugandans.

In much of Kenya, you will probably starve to death if you cannot buy food, and it is not cheap. It is the reason President Uhuru Kenyatta was on his feet with real economic solutions to go along with lockdown. In Senegal and Niger, people are rioting over lockdown measures because they are starving. South Africans are not taking things lying down, even the courts have declared some lockdown measures unconstitutional and violation of human rights.

We in Uganda, patiently waited over two months to be allowed to leave our homes without rioting, not because we had better solutions. It is because we could cope and have the basics.

A friend told me recently, that it is a shame to be highly educated and have nothing with which to change your community or finance your dreams or those of your children. He was told ‘not to be a fellow who just speaks good English with no money in his pocket’.

Many educated Ugandans would relate with this statement, especially now, thanks to Covid-19. The tragedy is that even the educated Ugandans who speak good English with no money in their pockets, will seldom appreciate the gravity of their poverty, and hardly relate their lack of money to either state policy failure or market failure. They will do nothing to hold the state accountable because they still can have food for very little. Our cost of living is minimal.

If we understand these dynamics of food and its place in politics, we will appreciate why government had to distribute food, despite its pain and costs of distribution when it could have been easier and cheaper to send cash transfers.

Urban voters shall always remember those men in uniform, in the trenches, drenched in rain and their muddy boots or sweating, knocking on their doors bearing gifts when they most needed it. They shall remember how it felt receiving them. And that is how we go back to basics. I hope this will signal a new era for the place of agriculture and health in our country. Now we know the extent to which we are blessed as a nation.

Maractho is a senior lecturer and head of faculty of Journalism, Media and Communication at Uganda Christian University