| Liberation from colonialism was my greatest contribution | ||||||||
| By Andrew Mwenda | ||||||||
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In this part Obote tells Andrew Mwenda about Uganda’s economic performance under his second administration.
I am now 79 years old and in virtual retirement. But I have got to continue for as long as I breathe to ensure that Uganda is once again a free nation. I do not, however, consider ever being president of Uganda again, no, never! I am old.
I am not like Ronald Reagan, former United States president who came for his second term in 1984 when he was eighty years old. My successes In both my first and second administration, Uganda’s economy grew impressively well: at an annual average of 5 percent in the 1960s and 6 percent in the early 1980s. These facts can be verified from the library of the Ministry of Finance in Entebbe. In the economic sphere, by the time Idi Amin staged the coup, Uganda was a net supplier of ready made textiles and garment to major departmental stores like H&M, C&A, Marks & Spencer etc. Museveni does not know that Uganda by 1970 had reached a stage of the manufacture and export of industrial products and was competing very well in European markets, and was about to enter the US market. The third pillar of my work is investment in social infrastructure to improve the quality of life of our people. We wanted our people to live well. So we invested in housing estates for the upper and middle-income groups. Large-scale apartment blocks like Bugolobi, Bat Valley and Bukoto estates are a product of this effort. The UPC administration made significant investments in health by building 22 rural hospitals in every district (then) and over 500 dispensaries in every sub country in Uganda. Our investment in education in both my first and second administration was also significant and that is why UPC is popular all over Uganda. Then we built roads, improved the rail system and expanded our air services. We also promoted the development of private enterprises owned by Ugandans who competed effectively, just like state enterprises, against both multi national companies and Asian owned business. The fourth pillar of my achievements is in the field of international relations. I was a founder member of the Organisation of African Unity. During that conference, I played a major role in hammering out the compromise between the Monrovia Group and the Casablanca group, and personally suggested the creation of a body to drive Africa towards unity. I am very proud of the role played by me personally and my government generally in the liberation of many African countries from the yoke of colonial rule. We contributed money, logistics and diplomatic support to the different liberation movements in Africa in both my first and second administrations. Uganda was among the countries that former South African President Nelson Mandela visited when he ran from South Africa and visited other African states looking for support.
Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana were the three major Commonwealth nations that opposed Ian Smith and his Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. It was because of my deep involvement in the struggle for South Africa’s liberation that I went to Singapore to attend the Commonwealth conference there in January 1971, and caused the British to gang with the Israelis, South Africans and Amin to overthrow my government. My failures I am reluctant to condemn Paulo Muwanga because I am not very sure about his role in the coup. In any case, Muwanga remained a strong UPC until he died. I also regret that my second administration was unable to stop the killings and massacres of innocent civilians in Luweero by Museveni and his insurgent army. As head of government, it was my duty to ensure the safety of person and property in Luweero from all threats – be they from within government or from without. We later found out that it was Idi Amin’s soldiers who were bombing Lubiri. I called for Amin, he came and we discussed it. By this time, the battle of Mengo was over, although many authors have said the battle went on into the night. Unfortunately Mutesa was my friend. Regarding the current political situation in Uganda, I am not happy with the proposed cabinet White Paper because from the little I have read, it seems as though Museveni wants to manipulate the return to multi party politics without actually freeing political parties. We found that federo virtually means division of work between two governments. We assessed the different institutional and resource capacities of the different districts/regions – Toro, Ankole, Bunyoro, Busoga and Buganda and we gave them different degrees of control of their own resources. I regret to say that Buganda used federo to undermine the central government. The Kabaka was used to attempt to overthrow his own government when he was also president of Uganda, a very unfortunate development. Also important to note is that at the time, ethnic loyalties were very strong in Uganda and the kingdoms did not help much in helping the young nation to develop a national identity. One of the reasons why the government, and later the constituent assembly, decided in 1967 to abolish kingdoms was because of this problem. Today, Ugandans have a strong sense of nationhood and therefore kingdoms no longer pose a threat to national unity, at least not to the magnitude that we had to deal with in 1960s. Regarding Buganda, the current Kabaka, Ronald Mutebi is a more understanding king than his father, with better judgement to avoid the pitfalls Mutesa led Uganda into. In any case, although many people in Buganda may not accept this, the dissolution of their kingdom as a result of conflict with the central government in 1966/7 has taught them to be more careful in the future and therefore not to press unrealistic demands on the central government. My return to Uganda There is a time when Ruhakana Rugunda was Minister for the Presidency and he presented a paper to cabinet about my return. As it turned out there was no plan at all but a manoeuvre to try and lure me back to Uganda and perhaps to kill me. Recently, Museveni asked a friend of his, an Indian here in Lusaka that he should like to meet me. And I asked the Indian, what for? I never received a reply and when the day of the meeting came, I sent a delegation to meet Museveni to get the message from him. I am very reluctant to meet Museveni. I would not want to meet him. If in the unlikely event I found Museveni in the same room as myself, I would walk out. I hate Museveni very much because the man killed my parents; I would be inhuman not to hate him. The army attacked my father’s home! He was a blind man. My father told the boy who used to hold his stick to go and climb a tree. The boy went. My father was put in the courtyard in his chair. The soldiers came and they cut off his tongue. They said they would not waste a bullet on him. He died bleeding. I built a house with a water-tank on top and had a borehole in front of my mother’s house. So people who came to draw water would also fill the tank up. The tank served my mother in her house. They went and pulled off the borehole that it was built with government money. I had never used government money in all the years that I was in government to do personal work or to build my house or my father’s house. In short I was never corrupt. Never! If there has been a Ugandan president who has never been corrupt, I am that president. So my mother got a heart attack and never recovered. My conditions for returning to Uganda are simple. When the parties are operating, and there is no more dictatorship, I will return to Uganda. I would rather be out! Museveni being in government does not necessarily mean dictatorship and military government. Museveni can be under democracy. It depends on the situation. One time I read that Museveni had offered to rebuild my house in Lira. I don’t accept that. He destroyed it, now why would I want the taxpayer to do it for me? If by accident of history I found myself in the same room with Museveni, I would poke him if I had a stick. That is how much I loathe and hate the man. He is a huge fellow I can poke him anywhere. I have been a president I know he does not sleep. He is worried that all the suffering he has taken Uganda through will come back to haunt him. I personally was never worried about being overthrown when I was president the way Museveni worries about it. I do not therefore miss being president because I never worked for it. I did not like titles like Your Excellency. So I would spend most of my time as president working on projects like the construction of hospitals, schools, roads, industries, water projects, electricity for the people and other economic projects. Travelling abroad for international conferences was a great experience. I remember the time I travelled to London for a Commonwealth conference. It was 1963. When I arrived, Kwame Nkrumah then president of Ghana shouted to all other heads of state and said, “There is Obote!” I was very proud to be introduced by such a great man, to such a gathering of leaders. I was very proud. The one person I admired most was Nkrumah who is now dead. He was a personal friend and an inspiration in the struggle for Africa’s liberation and unity. The other leader was Mahatma Ghandi. I never met him but I liked his philosophy. Nkrumah had ideas about Africa, which were good. But implementation was difficult. He was not patient enough to cultivate implementation. He was in a hurry. But he was an illustrious leader. Africa has not had such a great man again. Nkrumah was frustrated by the western powers through the manipulation of the price of cocoa on the international market. They pushed it downward in order to cause him foreign exchange problems and when he was overthrown, the price went up in Ghana, which means that those who were responsible for it put the price down in order to undermine Nkrumah. Nkrumah thought African, governed African, lived African and died African. Another leader who inspired me was Jawarha Nehru, first Prime Minister of India. One of the icons of Africa was Gamar Abdel Nasser of Egypt. The other was Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria. I had also great admiration for Sekou Toure of Guinea and when I was overthrown in 1971, he sent me a message of support. I like Nelson Mandela although his most productive time was spent in jail. After he left jail, he gave South Africa the best constitution for that country, which other African countries should emulate. I did not have the opportunity to meet the other US presidents, so I cannot judge them. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a personal friend and we shared a common background of leading political parties with a strong base among workers. Tomorrow find out what Obote thinks about Godfrey Binaisa, Paul Ssemogerere, President Yoweri Museveni and other leading tellers of Ugandan Politics. |
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