No wonder our region is an unhappy place

Bernard Tabaire

What you need to know:

  • Perception. The leaders of East Africa look at themselves as God’s own Chosen Ones. The masses of the people in these countries, however, don’t think much of these special characters.

In Burundi, teenagers get thrown into prison for scribbling on a photograph of president Pierre Nkurunziza contained in school textbooks.
In Rwanda, a president who overestimates himself forcibly stops his people from visiting neighbouring Uganda. It does not matter whether they are visiting for commercial, leisure, family, or even safety reasons.
In Uganda, ruling party lawmakers cannot fawn over their leader enough.
In Tanzania, the president is simply bulldozing his way through his tenure.

In South Sudan, they are still waiting on their gods. And in Kenya, the jury is still out on a myriad range of issues, including corruption gone bonkers.
No wonder East Africans say they are an unhappy lot. Let’s return to the rankings in a bit.
Last week, three Burundian schoolgirls — aged 15, 16 and 17 — were detained and could be jailed for up to five years for showing “contempt of the head of state”. What kind of head of state is this who cannot take some humour, or some insult for that matter? His thin skin could be because he has not delivered, which is why he has to compensate by ruling through fear.

“School children have in the past been kicked out of school for similar offences, with some jailed and released,” we learn via Reuters.
“In 2016, 11 children were jailed on accusations of defacing a photograph of Nkurunziza in a school text book.
“In another incident in the same year, more than 300 students of a school in the capital’s Ruziba neighbourhood were sent home after being accused of defacing Nkurunziza’s image.”

Okay, these children may not be the innocents they should be. They seem engaged in a puppy politics, but, hey, president Nkurunziza should surely be concerned with more useful matters of state. He should get teachers and parents to talk to their naughty children. End of story.
Otherwise, the man lauded in the terms below, in the words of the secretary general of his party and as relayed by AFP, is making a fool of himself.
“After going over the immense works realised by his excellency the president of the republic, the value of his ideas, his teachings, advice and acts, (the party) found him to be an excellent charismatic leader and decided to raise him to the status of Visionary of the CNDD-FDD.”

That visionary word.
Before Mr Nkurunziza became a ‘The Visionary Leader’ last year, President Museveni had long beaten him to it. And we were reminded of the same and more last week during a retreat of the NRM MPs in Kyankwanzi.
Mr Museveni is His Excellency the President. He is Mzee. He is The Beloved Leader. He is The Visionary. He is The Unifier.

No one will be allowed to even dream of challenging Papa Yoweri as party leader and flag-bearer in the 2021 presidential elections.
The NRM lawmakers agreed to “warmly and strongly recommend to the membership of the NRM, our national leadership organs, the continuation in leadership of both State and party up to 2021 and beyond - our beloved leader, General Yoweri K. Museveni”.
Okay. We now have an eternal leader on our hands — just further confirmation of the results of removing the constitutional term and age limits under which one can be president.
NRM legislators are free to do whatever they want, but I find this sort of grovelling over another human being by grown men and women intriguing.

Papa Yoweri is now fully a cult figure. Does that make him feel good?
In some form or other the other leaders of East Africa look at themselves as God’s own Chosen Ones.
The masses of the people in these countries, however, don’t think much of these special characters and the governments they preside over. We have evidence. It is contained in the 2019 World Happiness Report launched last week at the United Nations in New York.
Produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, one set of factors considered in ranking countries around the world was links between government and happiness. After all, as the report says, governments “set the institutional and policy framework in which individuals, businesses and governments themselves operate”. The take-away is that quality government delivers a happy people.

In East Africa, the governments headed by our visionary leaders have simply left us unhappy. Out of 156 countries ranked, Kenya is happiest at number 121. Uganda follows at number 136, Burundi at 145, Rwanda at 152 (who knew!), Tanzania checks in at number 153, and South Sudan holds the regional and global tail at number 156.
This ranking is about people’s perception of their happiness. Given what is going on in the region, the people’s perceptions are actually the people’s reality.

Bernard Tabaire is a media trainer and commentator on public affairs based in Kampala.
[email protected]
Twitter:@btabaire