Ugandans: Selling our souls to the highest bidder

The ongoing Northern Corridor Summit of EAC heads of state and their ministers is of special significance as we look to fast track the East African Integration process.  The Infrastructural advancements planned including the single customs territory, the single tourism visa, the national ID projects, NCR and arguably the most ambitious project East Africa has ever seen, the Standard Gauge Railway worth a whooping $14bn, once fully operational are expected to launch our takeoff into middle class economies.

Unfortunately, in this country, all this talk and vision is only familiar to a few elites here in Kampala. The president may have talked about it in a few upcountry trips but there’s no real sense that we are moving together as a country on this. This is precisely due to the wide and growing gap between the rich, smartphone-wielding middle class here in the city and the rural and gullible, countryside poor who constitute the largest percentage of our population. This is the population that gets targeted during election time, and more recently, even way before.

This is because it is increasingly becoming clear to many of us that elections are only just a ritual that we engage in every five years, pumping in billions of our taxes but with no significant outcome. Fewer and a reducing number of Ugandans believe in the polls to shape their destiny. If you vote for someone and they win, there’s negligible to zero chances that they will work in your interests or the interests of the general community. MPs are loyal to the parties they subscribe to (and their leaders), more than they are to the voters.  As soon as they are elected, they begin planning for the next election and how to pay back the money the used in funding their campaign. This prompts them to give their loyalty to the sponsoring parties and money lenders. This pattern can be clearly seen once you look closely at how they conduct their business on and off the floor of parliament. 

As they continue to pass ridiculous and unenforceable laws, pick up huge salaries, live large, and more recently, kneel down begging the president to contest unopposed in the party for a fifth term, MPs and their leader continue to alienate their electorate and are increasingly seeming oblivious of the people’s plight. As such, people have resorted to selling their souls to the highest bidder.

There are things that are outside the reach of mere democratic mandates. We acquiesce in decisions of governments we did not vote for not because we accept the rule of majority voting but much more importantly because we know that majorities do not confer absolute power. There’s always need to consult the electorate. Voting one in power is not a blank cheque to do whatever they want.

It is near certain that none of our current crop of politicians in this country will advocate and work towards increasing our chances of putting food on our tables, availing medicines in hospitals, creating employment for the 40,000 or so graduates that get churned into the job market every year or improve the road network in the so called remote areas to connect produce to the market.

Amidst all this government arrogance and disregard of the plight of the common man, people have resorted to begging. Cash handouts in envelopes and sacks, rewarding allegiance with appointments in public offices regardless of one’s performance have become the order of the day. People do not look at their leaders as those who can facilitate transformation in the economy to improve the lives of the people they lead. Instead, they look at them as a means to get their next meal, get a job fix in some organisation or as potential sources of grants. The focus of people has shifted from the long term vision and where they want to go as a country in future, to how they achieve their immediate needs.

The dangers posed by the rampant abuse of power under the guise of democracy (majority) are increasingly becoming clear and will ultimately affect our kids and their kids, however much we might like to rhetorically suggest otherwise when government does things that displease us.

It is this way of life that led us to see a whole 48 percent of eligible voters not going to vote in the 2011 elections, because they don’t believe that their vote will change anything for the better. After receiving cash handouts, soap, sugar and other incentives that meet their immediate needs, the long term needs can be left to God. For a population that lives hand to mouth, you can agree with me that elections don’t really mean much. This is why I can say with absolute certainty, that whoever has the fattest bank account will win elections in Uganda. It’s a shame!