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OPINION

Odrek Rwabwogo

By Odrek Rwabwogo

The 2024 Mentorship Awards were held at Entebbe, Uganda, on March 28, 2024. This was the second time they were being held. Below are the remarks of Odrek Rwabwogo, the chairman of the presidential advisory committee on exports and industrial development (PACEID), in honour of the awardees.

Mr President, The visiting speaker of the House of People’s Representatives of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, the Honourable Tagesse Chaffo Dullo; The elders who will be awarded today; cabinet inisters; Members of Parliament; young people, who joined us at this year’s mentorship luncheon.

I thank you very much Mr President for allowing to host this luncheon and to award the crop of old people we chose for 2024. Last year, you were kind to send us the retired PM Hon. Amama Mbabazi (who is here) to preside over the mentorship dinner at Sheraton.

I thank the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Hon. Ahmed Abiy, who your excellency sent us to, for in turn sending us Speaker Tagesse to be our keynote speaker today.

Some of the yardstick we use to arrive at cohorts to award annually includes the following traits:

• They all have to be 70 years of age and above,
• The years of service a person has put into work for Uganda,
• The quality of decisions (not just quantity and being a busy body) they made when they had authority,
• The depth, intensity and character of the person,
• The kind of changes or reforms they instituted,
• The impact they have, even in retirement.

As you might notice, the categories we choose cut across science and technology, art and culture, enterprise and manufacturing, politics and religion and many other areas of life. Uganda has many good people who have laid foundations for our country, but few are known and even fewer are celebrated.

I got to know this when we began with nominations last year that run into 60+ people yet we wanted few.

We were not sure who to pick and who to leave out. That gave me hope to know there are many people out there who build in silence, but in the end, our country keeps united, stable and growing.

To mentor is to guide; to illuminate a path for young person by elder, a sort of apprenticeship in life by the older to the young. Often it can be reversed given where one has knowledge and the young can mentor the old too. Mentorship is a good classroom for young people in leadership, but sadly we haven’t been deliberate at it.

We have not been intentional in creating seedbeds of leaders to guide institutions and the country in a world so competitive and set against Africa.

I woke up to this reality years back when I would be teaching and young people ask questions that show they are unhinged from the reality of what it takes to build a home, a business, an institution or country. Many come into leadership without preparation and they often confuse leadership with positions and titles.

There are about four mental architectures I get from young people, especially because of the changes wrought by the Internet and social media. I know this from reaching across the country since 1992 as a young university student.

The first category is avoidance. Young people severely reduce quality relationships for fear of opening up to causes that are bigger than them.

They do not want to be hurt; they pretend all is well using clean-cut social media images of themselves; they appear strong on the outside, but pretty weak inside; they do not want to be vulnerable by consulting elders on what they don’t know.

They assume they know it all. In the end, they do not fulfill their purpose and their potential remains underutilised. This category I meet regularly and they are full of criticism and less knowledgeable on what to do.

The second category are those who suffer from what psychologists call deprivation. These were raised by self-centred caregivers who showed them that their needs do not matter.

They develop an inner critic that tells them, ‘You don’t matter to the world, you are on your own.’

These youth often have unworthy feelings and they struggle to fit in. This category is easily abused by peers and led into alcohol or drugs because deep in their hearts they have a yearning to fit in.

The third category are the ones we call overreactive youth. Often, they were abused when they were young and threatened by circumstances.

Those thoughts stayed with them through life. They see no neutrality in anything. Everything that doesn’t take their view is menacing and should be fought!

The world to them is a dangerous place and there should be no compromises. They overreact and lash out at small inconveniences. They don’t want to wait.

They are impatient and confuse time with seasons. (Cronos versus Kairos). These miss the calling on their lives and rush into instant gratification and kill their tomorrow.

The fourth category I meet are passive aggressors. This group has repressed anger over the years, probably against parents or their caregivers and peers.

They sidestep open communication to avoid conflict and confrontation even when this confrontation might heal them of this anger. They have trouble dealing with negative emotions; they turn this passive aggression into subtle power play. They manipulate others so that they can make them feel guilty and in return get their affection.

All the above categories need mentoring because these are the young people who will come into leadership with these emotional, social and political deficits.

These mental frames are the raw material a country has to produce leaders of tomorrow. It is the reason we use these mentorship sessions annually to create a bridge between the young and the old. A bridge is a good metaphorical example in life.

It helps you cross to the other side so you can understand it better. If you keep this side of your river, you will never know that life has to be lived on both sides for a sense of maturity and leadership to emerge.

These old people have crossed that bridge of life and returned and they are good examples to study from.

Mentorship isn’t just verbal. It is also watching the actions and reading the thoughts of those ahead of you and discern what to do for your time.

Take Mzee Kintu Musoke as an example. At age 14, he watched his uncle Simeoni Kintu being arrested in Kalungu in 1949 simply for asking to be allowed to gin his cotton.

He saw a force of Turkana men imported by the British to quell the Katwe riots, descend on fellow Africans and beat them badly. Kintu Musoke would join Ignatius Musaazi as a young boy to campaign for independence.

When he got to India for his studies, he mobilised two other young men — Kirunda Kivejinja and Bidandi Ssali and; together they forged a bond that helped them deal with the politics of Uganda over the years, as a team.

They remained committed to Uganda and to each other’s ideas. Why don’t you as young people ask them the questions of life, parenting, ideology and how to keep a country united, even if there are political pressures from all corners internal and external to not work together?

These values of commitment to something higher is partly why we remember Jacob Oulanyah too today.

I thank his family for allowing us to use him as a point of connection to illuminate the path for young people and to celebrate the life of these old people when they can still hear and see us. Every time we celebrate the life of old people when they are alive, I feel a burden lifted off my shoulders, a sense of relief. This is because speeches at funerals aren’t helpful to the one you would have told when they were alive so that they can know you valued their life.

Jacob Oulanyah and his first wife Dorothy Nangwale were my friends and I know they cared much about the quality of institutions for the country.

They also had a deep sense of fairness and justice. Jacob in particular knew how to suspend judgment and hold two opposing opinions and still walk gingerly through life. He had a sense of commitment to what he chose to do.

Commitment to something higher than self is what brings true meaning and significance to life. When you commit to something, you are not just making promises. You are re-ordering your life to fulfill this commitment.

Jacob understood that choices mean depth and not superficiality and that each choice we make has costs.

For example, when he left one side of the political spectrum, he was not liked where he left.

Some members of the group he joined were suspicious of him preferring to keep a distance. It is standing at halfway house and not knowing who to trust. He moved on nevertheless. He was also a peace maker and without him in the Juba peace talks, perhaps, we would have missed the very compelling voice to some diaspora groups which didn’t understand the war in northern Uganda yet kept pushing for its continuation out of selfishness. He spoke plainly and convincingly when he took a stand on an issue. This is why we use his example this year as a connecting bridge between the young and the old.

Perhaps Jacob picked his reconciliation and forgiveness pathway through his suffering as student and beyond — both mentally and physically. I know very much that those who suffer forgive most.

The playwright Thornton Wilder in his short poem from the play The angel that troubled the waters, says “Without your wounds, where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve”.

I am glad we celebrate you, old people and remember Jacob on a day just before Good Friday. May the example of unity of generations we see today, mend our broken areas and keep us strong as a country.

Now to you, young people who came to witness this occasion, keep doing the right thing even if you are under pressure to digress, to join the crowd of wrongdoers in your offices, farms or in private sector.

Last night I was listening to a country singer called Johnny Cash, who died in 2003. Its words say, “No, I won’t back down, there is no easy way out, I will stand my ground, I won’t be turned around, because, I know what is right. I got just one life and, in a world, pushing me around, I will still stand my ground. You can stand me at the gates of hell, but I won’t backdown”

I ask that you look at those who have done well by serving our county and learn from them. Don’t back down from doing the right thing.

And to our elders, it is in the sunset of our lives that we get tired and make mistakes. We ask you to remain a shining example to our young people to the end in your word and deed. It is in your good example that together with young people, we can create a RAFT to help us cross to a brighter future for all of us a country and a continent.

Once again, I thank H.E. the President for allowing us do this here and for gracing this event with his presence; Speaker Tagesse for being with us Speaker Anita Among who came to the airport to receive our guest with us; the State House team that helped us with this work; PACEID’s team of young people; Thank you and the Lord God bless you all!

The writer is the chairman presidential advisory committee on exports and industrial development