By Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi.
Jossy Chameleons sings that : Basiim’ogenze, which literally means that the general public will never be grateful to a service provider not until after s/he has gone.
This is well illustrated by President Yoweri Museveni’s state visit to United States where he met President Ronald Reagan.
He told Reagan that : l have not come to beg for aid. I have come talk about trade and investment.
Reagan was very much impressed by a young President, whom he had cautioned against allying with Libyan revolutionary leader, Col. Muammar El Qaddaffi, whom Reagan had called a terrorist. Qaddaffi had just survived narrowly bombing of his residence by US forces in 1986 which killed his adopted daughter.
Museveni’s position was that he was neither pro East (Soviet Block ) or pro-West (US and NATO) but pro Africa. But in later years, he and Nelson Mandela of South Africa contributed greatly to reconciliation between Libya and the West. It is the West notably USA, UK, France, Italy, etc …that between Libya invaded it, killed Qaddaffi and are now looting its oil wealth.
Museveni’s visit to Reagan paved way for the African Growth Opportunity Act, where African countries are given opportunities to export to US market.
Uganda, which was one of the leading cotton producers, with value addition, expected to produce textile to the market, and a factory with help of Srilankans, was opened at Bugoloobi. Results were not as good as like that if the mountainous Kingdom of Lesotho, which is using women groups again with technical cooperation from Sri Lanka.
So, Museveni was different from African leaders, some of whom, like Mobutu Sese Seko, who was a US ally for over 49 years leading a mineral rich country, but with no meaningful growth or development.
Even regional powers like Egypt, in alliance with US since 1978 Camp David treaty, had turned them into satellite stares, Uganda is not. Today it is with US under AGOA or regional security where we are the leading peace keeping and peace enforcement force, tomorrow with China in oil exploration or infrastructure development, the other day, with Iran, for agriculture, then European Union where under EEC/ACP, we also export everything except arms.
Therefore, leading beneficiaries in AGOA like Kenya, should be grateful to Uganda for leading the way, and in particular to President Museveni for meeting President Reagan in 1987.
No wonder, during last week’s US-Africa summit, President Museveni was a towering figure.
His speech was elaborative enough in a areas, not only trade and investment, but also social services line health, where he called upon American investors to invest in development of Ugandan and African medicine, which is cheaper. He cited a raw material like cassava which is in abundance in Uganda and almost free.
He also talked about other medicinal plants that helped Uganda to invent Covidex at the climax of Covid 19 pandemic.
The most significant was to get funding for the oil refinery which will be for domestic and regional consumption.
Let us all sing with Kwame Nkrumah: Forward ever, backward never.
Haji Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi is a veteran journalist and Deputy Resident City Commissioner Masaka City in charge of Kimaanya Kabonera City Division.
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