This is how President Museveni manages the country

I have never worked in state house, never been a presidential assistant, don’t have a friend or a relative working in statehouse and I have never even stepped in any of the two state houses but, who tells you that I should be a priest, bishop, pastor or a religious scholar to write about Jesus.

Managing this country is not as hard as many people might assume, any Ugandan with a sober mind and possessing the required qualifications can manage this country, maybe even better.

As usual, people try to complicate things to threaten the interests of others who want to compete with them just like when we were still journalism interns, senior journalists would surely show you how hard it is to write a feature story. They would never tell you that writing a feature story is as simple as outlining the reasons for the fall of Idi Amin, of course adding some flavor and flow.

Managing this country is as simple as managing your own family, some families might even be harder to manage with so many issues ranging from deadly infighting to witchcraft.

Imagine winning the battle to be the heir of the family and you know that every fight has winners and losers. Losers are always disgruntled people who can react in a dangerous way if not handled carefully. That is how Democratic Party (DP) stalwarts, Kawanga Ssemogerere, John Ssebana Kizito and William Nyakatura and UPC’s Omara Atubo managed to make it to Museveni cabinet after the NRA bush war struggle in a government of national unity.

Some children in the family have bad manners - disrespectful, big headed; so many times you will be forced to punish them to make them upright, the likes of Miria Matembe, Eriya Kategaya, Bidandi Ssali, etc when they opposed the third term for the family head (President Museveni).

Some, after a long and sustained punishment like Eriya Kategaya and Gen. David Tinyefunza reformed and were called back to the family and some who remained with their big headedness were completely chased from the family, the likes of Kasepiki’s Dad - Bidandi Ssali.

Some children are punished heavily to deter others from following suit, the likes of Kiiza Besigye who faced tramped up rape charges and recent whipping by the unpopular Kiboko squad.

Some will be given land very far away from the family headquarters to avoid infecting others with their bad manners and giving headache to their parents. Winnie Byanyima was endorsed by Uganda government to work in United Nations in USA.

Those who are well behaved and dance according to the tunes of the family head are of course rewarded, the likes of the Guinness World Books of Records candidate as alleged by a Ugandan tabloid - James Kakooza who got a state ministerial position for spearheading the 4th term presidential bid.

Actually, the president’s work might even be easier to do than a ministerial post because the president reports to peasants who lack the real intellect to question his work – when he makes them a road, our dear peasants as the president always calls them will always say it’s a favor. For a ministerial work, you will have to report to people who know their rights and how to demand for them, who are educated (parliament, the president and local politicians) who are always challenging to convince (of course, other factors remaining constant like the moral standing of the supervisors – president, parliament and local politicians).

However, the sickness with our African presidents is failure to set up systems due to greed for power. They want to be the custodians of land and national jobs, etc so that whoever dances according to their tunes can get an opportunity to share on the national cake. All this makes the work of the president hard to do, limiting it only to those who are “visionary”.

If everything goes according to plan, I envision a situation where the president has a bunch of people who think and implement things on his behalf, as a president, you wake up in the morning at state house and there is someone whose work is to know that the president is thirsty and needs water, there is someone whose work is to know that the president must visit this town and should say this, there is someone to read the presidents emails and letters and know how to respond to which letter, the Hon. Prime minister is busy managing the cabinet and the president receives reports and takes appropriate measures not this confusion of which cadre should be appointed the ambassador of which country even leaving behind people in the foreign service who can actually do the work better.

In fact, even a young man of below 35 years can rule this country; these old people should not scare you (the youth). I think the people who put the age limit at 35 years for someone to contest for the Uganda presidency; at the back of their mind knew that it was just a fence to stop people who are not experienced, exposed, etc from entering and messing up the country. Because, at the end of the day, it is not actually the age. Joseph Kabila who became president at 29 years of age has managed the country better than his old father – Laurent Kabila (the young man has managed to hold one of DR Congo’s successful elections and reconciled many of the worrying factions), Alexander the Great was in his 20’s when he won battles and conquered
the whole world. Did I hear that Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is the oldest president in the world? How is he managing his country?

The president only needs to intervene where things have failed to work and give direction to the country.

What millions of African women think of African men?

“You can’t limit the number of wives your husband gets because that is how God created men,” says a lady seated next to me while traveling in a bus on a journey from Uganda’s capital City of Kampala to Western Uganda town of Fort Portal recently.

I once jokingly told my girl friend that we should have a rotational presidency of the family. She said, “No! No! I think a man is supposed to be the head of the family.”

In my village, old women will always advise new wed ladies to take extra care of their husbands like preparing them warm water in the morning for bathing, cleaning their clothes, preparing them food, kneeling when serving them food. Actually, all the above and so many others are taken as divine responsibilities of women. But who tells you that a man can’t prepare food, prepare bathing water for himself, and wash clothes among other family chores!

In the Central Uganda Kingdom of Buganda, there is a common saying that a lady can force laughter when angry, stressed, not in moods of laughing, etc for the sole purpose of making her husband happy.

Funny! Such thinking is still claiming territories in the developed world which always press for women rights in developing countries like Uganda with highly conservative societies. United States of America for instance has never elected a woman president partly, because of a conservative thinking that women can never be strong leaders to defend their country. Madam Hillary Clinton recently faced the wrath of that conservative thinking when he tried to put herself in ‘men’s shoes’

It maybe true, that most women are emotional, soft, etc because society demands them to be like that. If you acted like Semenya (South African athlete), talked with authority like Uganda’s Miria Matembe, played football, approached your dream man and said, “I love you,” ooooh! Many African men will be scared, to them, that behavior is unusual, strange, unwanted – not even sexy. 

But, are there many differences between the two sexes – male and a female? Girls have been on top of boys on so many occasions in so many things for instance in school performance in Uganda. If you doubt this, Namagunga, Gayaza and Nabisunsa girl’s secondary schools will silence you.

You have seen women heads of states performing better than men, can you compare the current president of Liberia, Ellen Johnstone Sirleaf with a brutal and corrupt dictator - Charles Taylor. What about Mwammar Gaddafi’s (Libya president) women escorts – their boss doesn’t seem to complain of loopholes in his personal security. Who in the security circles in Uganda didn’t shake, shiver, etc when the Queen of England – Elizabeth II - landed in Uganda for the Kampala Common Wealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) in 2007? If you want to prove it, pleaseee…. Kindly, ask generals Kaguta, Nyakairima, Tinyefunza and Kayihura.

Gender stereotypes are deeply embedded in African cultural and religious thinking but a change in that thinking is very possible. Who doesn’t want to see his mother, sister, daughter enjoying real equal rights with men?

An ignorant environmental artist

She seems even busy for an interview with Solomon, in her craft factory inside her room in Nankulabye – one of Kampala’s sprawling suburbs. She looks to be in love with the whole craft making activity. She makes her crafts from waste material like banana fibers, waste plastics and waste paper materials just because they are cheap and easy to get. Using waste material is good for the environment but for Namatovu Beatrice, that’s not why she uses them.

“I make necklaces from papers and plastics, table mats, door mats and balls from banana fibers,” says Namatovu a student of business at Makerere Business institute. She says, her business course will help equip her with the required marketing skills for her crafts. 

She gets some of the material like Banana fibers from as far as Mpigi district where her mother comes from. Namatovu gets the waste papers especially expired calendars for making necklaces from friends who work in offices and only buys threads for making table mats.

Namatovu who has helped train many young people to do crafts was inspired by her friend called Nora who even taught her to make crafts and Namatovu has never looked behind. She adds that her background in fine art during her secondary school days gave her an added advantage to learn faster and do better crafts. Besides, getting some income from the craft business, she enjoys what she does.

Although having quite a busy schedule, Namatovu has never failed to get time to do her crafts work, “I have my lecturers from morning to 1pm, I get time for my crafts work in the evening.”

Her efforts for making good quality crafts seems to be paying off because she never fails to get market, “many people buy my crafts like friends, well wishers, tourists and organizations and on a good days sale, I can earn roughly Uganda shillings 50,000 (which is good enough for any Ugandan student’s side activity).”

Namatovu has a number of places to sell her crafts including her home, her friend’s homes or work places and a crafts shop of Joy for Children Uganda – a non governmental organization based in Kampala, which also helps promote the talents of young people. The organization has a display board and visitors especially whites many times get attracted and buy them, says Namatovu.

She also exploits a number of opportunities such as exhibitions like a recent one at the Baptist Church in Kampala, which unfortunately never reaped good fruits because few products were sold. She blamed the poor sales to an abrupt and poor organization of the event and therefore, people were not prepared to buy.
The young and promising craft artist says the only problem with the crafts business is lack of a stable local market because Ugandans aren’t good consumers of craft items and most times, she depends on people from the western world, who rarely come making the craft business very unpredictable.  

As hardworking as always, Namatovu isn’t sleeping and has big plans for the future in line with her craft business, “I expect to buy a plot of land, build a house and start my own big craft shop and recruit more people to make crafts.”