While our counterparts in Kenya and Tanzania were rolling the bitter Mau Mau and Maji Maji rebellions respectively to dismantle the vicious colonial machinery, history was busy conspiring to grant Uganda Independence without a single shot being fired.
While other Africans were agitating to recover their land, the British were helping Ugandans consolidate their traditional systems that guaranteed ownership and access to land. This denied the elites a platform on which to agitate.
Well, it is now 54 years since the Pearl of Africa gained its freedom from the colonial masters on October 9, 1962. But is it worth celebrating?
Before 1962 Ugandans were enslaved by the British colonialists as casual labourers in mines and plantations. This enslavement, of especially able bodied men and women, was being facilitated by cultural leaders and the white colonialists.
Fifty four years after gaining independence a new form of slave trade is at the peak. What most Ugandan job seekers are being given in the Middle East and in Europe are not jobs. It is enslavement.
With no scars to show for our independence struggle we shall live to remain singing our beautiful three stanza national anthem and swing our nice black-yellow-red stripped flag as a pre-independent nation.
An independent government should not be begging for aid to deliver social services to its citizens. Those few dollars and pounds are conditional and that means – you have no independent decision.
Before 1970, opposition became equal to treason. Soon, politicians learnt that if you had anything to say you either left the country or kept quiet. What is the difference in 2016? Politicians are more corrupt than ever before. The economy is just empty figures. What are we celebrating?
