The folly of leading Uganda – Part II 

In the first part of this series that ran last week, we spoke to some strategic problems of governing Uganda that transcend the Museveni presidency. It is highly likely, that with or without him, those problems will continue and that is; robust population growth and a small and clattered-to-bits land mass. 
These two factors determine the multitude, efficiency and bureaucracy that any government managing them should take on.

READ: What it will mean to lead Uganda after Museveni
 
So in this article we shall add some skin to these two. 
Uganda sits strategically at the Equator; this allows it two – not four seasons. Those two seasons; wet and dry, allow for very specific types of food production and as such, the thriving staple foods in Uganda are less a matter of the people and more a matter of the weather patterns. The Northern part of Uganda, for example, doesn’t enjoy two rainy seasons, it gets one – and how that season is used for food production determines the politics, migration and demands that the state in the North will face.

In the greater South, two seasons of rain allow for people to have more harvests in the gardens and of plentiful variety in the carbohydrates, protein and vegetables rich in Vitamins. It also allows for animal rearing with high yields. But this also means, the breeding of bacteria and disease causing insects like Mosquitoes and tsetse flies - or even ticks is high. 
More recently, the rains, in their unforgiving manner have been causing floods and wrecking parts of the South like Kasese, Bulambuli, Bududa etc.
This columnist thinks, for years to come, the politics of the South will largely be dominated by access to markets to sell the robust harvest, access to health services to deal with recurring disease and mediation of land rows that arise from class development. 

For the North, the politics of food production and storage will remain a key area for quarrelling. There will emerge two schools of thought, if they haven’t already; a centralized system of food production where feudal Lords with access to capital and markets monopolise access to large tracts of land and employ the majority as laborers earning meagre pay at the start or a bitterly fought out small scale subsistence production that leaves the region exposed to the vagaries of hunger – and poverty really. If you could go to the bank to stake a bet on where a strong labour union will first emerge, the North will have higher odds.

These two will open up the frontier for the third headache of Uganda’s next leader; the money economy. Uganda is also fast-urbanizing. This urbanization has created a real force for the money economy. Urban areas leave little room for subsistence production, they favor money over almost anything; but money requires people to offer themselves as labour and also requires functional markets. Markets can neither be shot at nor forced to produce results. They require high levels of knowledge and the much dreaded word; policy. Markets reward and punish bitterly. That means, at all times, government – and its leaders – will need to pay attention to how their policies reward and punish. Those who succeed will be the ones that reward majorities and punish minorities and not the other way round. 

This is why, any Ugandan prospective leader should pay attention to the concentration of income in the hands of the few. 
In the third part we shall talk about the issues that will likely define the coming elections and what kind of governments and opposition they will produce. Pour a coffee, this will be a long one.