Is East Africa finally coming to terms with its biggest resource?

Our syllabuses have a common syllable, we are a great source of raw materials. In Uganda we talk about the 3 “C” s, coffee, cotton and copper which once dominated our economic fortunes. We also talk about tourism offering our great sights, sounds, flora and fauna to foreign visitors. This story lasted as long as the global economic order laid emphasis on it. Then came big oil.

Nigeria struck big oil in the life of the first republic, then launched itself into decades of political upheaval dominated by military coups. So did Ghana egged on by exports of first bauxite then oil.

The DRC set a record of first direct mayhem by foreign intelligence organisations notably the CIA and others that ousted, and executed Patrice Lumumba and now more than three decades of continuous military conflict.

In the DRC, the trifecta of black gold, incredible mineral resource, square miles of timber have converged to make the country the size of Western Europe with only 80 million residents ungovernable at times. At Uganda’s midwestern border with the Congo, 20 TEUs, container trucks full of cargo ply the Bundibugyo-Karugutu-Fort Portal Highway that navigates the western rift, perhaps one of Uganda’s most scenic routes direct to export.

When Ebola broke out in September 2022, for a minute, I thought the golden trail that I trekked on a short holiday to the vast beauty of the Kabarole’s crater lakes in the confines of Fort Portal City, Semliki gorge, the hot-springs at Sempaya and Nyinamwiru Falls outside Nyakasura Boys School was the route on which Ebola had travelled.

All my misconceptions possibly shared in these pages were cleaned out of my head by a bio-safety specialist in our Ministry of Health on a flight from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam. It is interesting, Ugandans get quite talkative outside of their country’s border, yet Uganda is by no means or measure a police state.

We routinely abuse the President, politicians or listen to time-wasting tirades on Talk Radio but are reluctant to dabble in technical details, systematic argument and cause and effect definition of our most pressing problems. 

This gentleman who introduces himself as a brother to a senior UPDF general after trying for minutes to catch my attention felt he had something to get off his chest. The red eye from Entebbe to Nairobi had already done its number on me. “I am a proud Muganda, of the Nankere branch of the Mamba Clan” even though my mother is a Munyankole.” “The Ebola attack in September came from Sudan, it was Ebola-Sudan, the variant that killed Dr Mathew Lukwiya. It was brought by Sudanese who had been brought to mine gold in Bukuya District.” Dr Michael Bukenya with whom we shared the same hall of residence- Lumumba named after the great leader, and delivered my youngest son represents Bukuya in Parliament. I tried to remove the wax from my ears. There is no vaccine for Ebola-Sudan because after the 2000 wave, no further attacks were recorded in Uganda. No commercial need for a vaccine existed.

I propped myself up, why has the definition of “vaccine” become more diluted or even misleading. There are vaccines for both Ebola Congo and Ebola West Africa. You know we are in another global war of attrition, “sounded like the Global War on Terrorism.” 

In Covid, the West and China exchanged body blows. Ebola-Sudan could also be part of this war, the systematic transmission of chronic and highly infectious diseases, the sort of things we accused Saddam Hussein of.  From a military perspective all Ebola tissue and waste has to be destroyed, except for the sole purpose of creating a vaccine. Then the twin engine roared its way into the Julius Kambarage Nyerere International Airport. 

There were not one but two military officers flanking two lawyers. The two gentlemen spent a little more time clearing immigration than I did, but I was left wondering how we have become pawns in this global war of wills.

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate. 

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