Dear Tingasiga,
The good news of the birth of a baby to Ms Natasha Kainembabazi Karugire, daughter of President Yoweri Museveni, has been overshadowed by the din that greeted reports that the family had used the presidential jet to hop over to Germany for the happy event.
I congratulate Mr and Mrs Karugire. May their little one live to tell her own great grandchildren the story of her controversial birth.
Most of those who have commented on this story have focused on what they saw as an example of an ostentatious lifestyle that has become the hallmark of Mr Museveni's family.
People who know these things estimated the cost of flying the Gulf Stream IV-SP jet to and from Germany to have been about $ 90,000.
When the bean counters added the per diem fees for the crew and the requisite courtiers who were charged with keeping the first family safe and comfortable in Europe, the cost exceeded $140,000.
Thus the royal birth could have paid for the obstetric needs of tens of thousands of Ugandan women, with lots of change to spare.
Understandably, many folks were upset by what they saw as an opulent lifestyle by the rulers of an impoverished country.
Even the government-owned New Vision newspaper penned an editorial on September 23, deploring this waste of public funds.
You will excuse me because I was neither surprised nor particularly bothered by this story. It was wasteful all right, all protestations notwithstanding. I guess I have become too accustomed to the excesses and contradictions of most of Africa's ruling families to lose any more sleep over it.
Africa's rulers live off borrowed money from the developed countries, yet they routinely indulge in luxuries that the leaders of the donor/lender countries cannot imagine.
They waste their countries' borrowed money on expensive armaments, but forget to provide passable health services for the very soldiers they depend on for personal and political survival.
They run down their countries' health services and despise their own doctors, only to go abroad for treatment by physicians who are not any better skilled than those they have left behind.
Ironically, some end up being treated by fellow countrymen, now working as highly respected expatriates in the developed countries.
Whether it is their choice of hotel accommodation or mode of transport; whether it is their shopping for the latest fashions and trinkets; or whether it is their choice of imported furniture, these African rulers and their families have developed a taste that is similar to that of the royal families of eighteenth century Europe.
In fact, Museveni and his family are relatively frugal compared to some of their peers, which may explain why he was deeply annoyed by the scribblers whose poison pens besmirched his family's honour.
The president penned a passionate counter-attack in which he justified his decision to lend the presidential jet to his daughter. The presidential missive was dripping with rage and contempt for those who dared to challenge his family's lifestyle.
This was much ado about nothing, the president wrote. The actual cost of the flight to Germany was a mere $ 27,000, peanuts really when you consider the security needs of his family.
In earlier days, of course, Museveni would have taken issue with such an argument. In his inaugural speech on January 29, 1986, he told his grateful countrymen: "We want our people to be able to afford shoes. The honourable excellency who is going to the United Nations in executive jets, but has a population at home of 90 percent walking barefoot, is nothing but a pathetic spectacle. Yet this excellency may be busy trying to compete with [US President Ronald] Reagan and [USSR President Mikhail] Gorbachev to show them that he, too, is an excellency." Well, times change. The president has grown wiser.
In any case, the president argued, we must not expect him to entrust his or his family's lives to Uganda's health care providers, especially the doctors, many of whom are part of a huge network of enemies lying in wait for him.
What the president was not able to explain was why he sent his daughter to Germany and not to a friendly African country with excellent health services. Why did Natasha and her support persons not go to Libya or Namibia, two countries with very good services?
While I understand the security concerns that compelled the president to send his daughter abroad, it is troubling to note that after nearly eighteen years in power, Museveni does not yet have a trustworthy medical team inside Uganda that can safely meet his family's health care needs.
One would have assumed that the presidential physicians and nurses, paid for by the taxpayers of Uganda, enjoyed the full confidence of the first family. Apparently that is not the case.
So what would happen if the president or another member of his immediate family suffered a medical or surgical emergency that required immediate treatment? To be sure, the president may need to review his belief that seeking medical treatment abroad protects him and his family from their Ugandan enemies.
Ugandan doctors are all over the world and, for all I know, there may have been a Ugandan doctor working in the city where Natasha had her baby.
While these Ugandan doctors may not provide direct care to Museveni or his family, the medical fraternity is such that news of their presence in a hospital in Frankfurt or the United States travels faster than a Gulf Stream jet.
If I were Museveni, I would seek to build a first class health care service for all residents of Uganda, and to cultivate a mutually respectful and trusting relationship with Uganda's doctors and nurses.
I would also seek to build peace in the country and the region; to reconcile with all these "enemies" that seem to grow day by day; and to prepare for a peaceful transition to a freely elected president.
That is the way he would immunize himself against at least the internal enemies who seek his demise.
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
