“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.” This is one of the sayings President Museveni put in mind while heading to the bushes of Luwero to liberate this beautiful country.
Ahead of the forthcoming NRM liberation day celebrations on the 26th of January, 2024, Busoga Leaders and other stakeholders are busy in preparations on how to host the president and other dignitaries.
What do the people of Busoga expect?
Busoga leaders should drop the ego, arrogance and useless fights. Unite and form a critical mass to lobby important and achievable programs for the people.
A region which boasted of a sounding economy, particularly between 1920-1970 has been reduced to a mere sham and fodder for ridicule. We are tired of being identified with a new empirical foundation of jiggers and chapati making.
Busoga is currently ranked among the poorest regions in the country. The majority of the people in Busoga can hardly afford two meals a day. This is coupled with numerous bitting challenges of poor education standards, poor health sector, poor roads, and decline in the agriculture sector but most importantly our leaders are doing nothing to block the infamous sugar bill which is going to completely break down our sugar cane farmers who have been minting a lot of money from the sector of late.
Unite and forge a way forward on how to go about the values of an inter-generation with much enthusiasm to overturn the misfortunes we are undergoing and overcome the unimaginable stereotype obstacles, not strategizing on how to use the event to lobby for Government Positions and political mileage.
We need tarmac on the Jinja-Kamuli-Bukungu and Iganga-Luuka-Kamuli roads. We are tired of hearing the word “process” for 38 years. We want to see real work being done other than singing praises on promises.
Most of our schools are stinking with inadequate or dilapidated buildings and poor staffing. Poverty alleviation programs have failed to lift our people out of poverty and this calls for a special program for Busoga.
Our health centres have mere buildings with inadequate drugs and poor staffing. The only referral hospital, Jinja Regional Referral Hospital is in a sorry state. Corruption and embezzlement in our government entities have crippled service delivery to the local people. These are some of the issues we expect our leaders to present to the president for immediate action.
We should focus on a Busoga society where previous leaders like the late Kirunda Luwuliza, Mathias Ngobi, Sir William Nadiope, Haji Kivejinja etc did decent jobs, and honest work while adding value to society throughout their principled careers. Doing dishonest work while causing more social harm than good throughout unprincipled careers has dominated the current trend of our sons and daughters in influential offices.
The most unfortunate part of it is that the more comfortable a person is with abandoning principles, the more likely that person will rise to the highest ranks in government. For this reason, it is often the dishonest, indecent and unprincipled members of society who occupy the more influential positions and receive the greatest financial reward the extent of millions of people.
To buffer themselves from their consciences, they adjust their moral judgments in a process psychologists call moral disengagement or moral distancing. They find ways to rationalize their negligently harmful behaviours to protect their self-images and maintain their self-esteem. They surround themselves with like-minded people who, wearing their self-deluding masks, reinforce their cultures of distorted beliefs and harmful values.
The writer, George Mubiru, is a Jinja-based researcher and NRM mobilizer.
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georgemubiru93@gmail.com
