It never rains but it pours
Oct 09, 2010
IT never rains but it pours, we are constantly reminded, in tones of doom-is-around-the-corner; and what is more it will pour buckets and you left your mackintosh at home, and, if a lady, you’ve just had a very expensive hairdo and have no car!
By John Nagenda
IT never rains but it pours, we are constantly reminded, in tones of doom-is-around-the-corner; and what is more it will pour buckets and you left your mackintosh at home, and, if a lady, you’ve just had a very expensive hairdo and have no car!
But what if the rain (apart from getting your food to grow) brings with it manna from heaven, or diamonds landing softly from the sky, should you not rather sing, as in the movie: “Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain?†And, in Uganda recently, if you hadn’t noticed, it’s been raining great goodies.
Let’s start with The Oil, not that recent, but as these matters go, recent enough; and in the near(ish) future that black gold will gush out of our black soil at, it has been estimated, a profit of two billion dollars a year for the next quarter century or more.
Not enough? But surely better than a kick near the hip! Should we be willing, giving us enough time to start plotting what dreadful things to do to our usual suspects to make them desist from “Nigerianising†these rewards.
On top of the oil gush-stream, Uganda is this week reported to have been made the Hub for peacekeeping in the region, bringing with it a minimum, we hear, of five billion greenbacks spent every year in this country.
Ooh my giddy aunt, as the genteel in Edwardian tales used to nearly swear! Let it rain. Build more houses for the coming peacemakers to rent, stock up shops to sell what they eat, and what they wear, increase schools suitable for their kids, line our empty beaches everywhere with hotels for them, with eating and drinking places, fill in the 10 million potholes so that their automobiles the more sweetly glide. Hold me back, am hyperventing!
Bricks, tiles, sand, cement, windows, roofs, swimming pools, air-conditioning units, exercise books, pens, shoes, corn flakes, steaks, eggs, milk, tea, coffee, beer, hospitals, members’ clubs, planes to fly them in and out, vehicles, the railway reborn, mosquito nets…This is a hymn to greed but good greed is mighty!
Uganda, simply, is about to enter a new league. It would be feeble to pretend that this huge influx into our economy came about by a toss of the coin, by Great Good Luck. Partly by prescience, partly by a conviction that if you do right, right in the end will be done unto you by the laws of fair play; partly by the crossing of the stars (or what we may call Fate), all of a sudden, but having percolated for longer, Stuff Happens. We shall return to this presently.
As if the Uganda cup were not flowing over, at around 1745 hours on Wednesday, our young man, Moses Kipsiro (shout it loud) in the Jawaharlal Nehru Sports Complex, Nnew Delhi, India, before the eyes of those who were lucky to be there, or more likely on the television, ran the race of his life to win the 5000-metre Commonwealth title against a competition bristling with talent.
Watching the manner in which he grasped the race by the throat, going to the front many laps before home, playing catch-me-if-you-can, and staying on and staying on as the Kenyans like a pack of ravenous wolves closed in and prepared to swallow him whole, (did he dream of Home?) opened his eyes to the swiftly approaching finishing line, stormed to it and crossed it first.
Give the young Hero a Heroes Medal. What an icing to the oil, and the hub, and now to this. Happy the Winner, and those watching: three days before Uganda’s Swithin’s Day, better known to us as Independence Day, October 9!
*******************
How did we arrive here? Road to the mountain top, clearly, was led by one unflinching man: “a man among menâ€, as the saying goes. These things keep attracting important components as they move on, and then, at an almost perceptible point, they accelerate and, Wham, achieve Lift off!
It has now happened. In breathless order we can mention the ultimately victorious Bush War, then the terrible tragedy of Rwanda, when Uganda, along with the whole world, were unable, or failed, to play meaningful roles. Aafterwards we were determined to do our part, and did, in D R Congo, and latterly more positively still, in Somalia, as the world knows, and especially its leaders.
In between, in November 2007, there was a highly successful CHOGM in Kampala (never mind what the local thieving Mafia looted from it). Additionally the central geographical positioning of Uganda regionally helped the decision.
Thus when time was ripe for the UN, and the world leadership, to seek a Hub for the regional peace keeping, Uganda stood ready and willing.
Which brings us to President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
He is imperturbable, strong as a rock, difficult to sway off his course. When a flock of international military leaders visited Uganda this week it was easy to see who was effortlessly in charge.
Even his longevity in the job (frowned upon by many) ironically became an advantage: no one was going to jostle him in a hurry! You need permanency in a Hub. God grant Museveni health.
IT never rains but it pours, we are constantly reminded, in tones of doom-is-around-the-corner; and what is more it will pour buckets and you left your mackintosh at home, and, if a lady, you’ve just had a very expensive hairdo and have no car!
But what if the rain (apart from getting your food to grow) brings with it manna from heaven, or diamonds landing softly from the sky, should you not rather sing, as in the movie: “Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain?†And, in Uganda recently, if you hadn’t noticed, it’s been raining great goodies.
Let’s start with The Oil, not that recent, but as these matters go, recent enough; and in the near(ish) future that black gold will gush out of our black soil at, it has been estimated, a profit of two billion dollars a year for the next quarter century or more.
Not enough? But surely better than a kick near the hip! Should we be willing, giving us enough time to start plotting what dreadful things to do to our usual suspects to make them desist from “Nigerianising†these rewards.
On top of the oil gush-stream, Uganda is this week reported to have been made the Hub for peacekeeping in the region, bringing with it a minimum, we hear, of five billion greenbacks spent every year in this country.
Ooh my giddy aunt, as the genteel in Edwardian tales used to nearly swear! Let it rain. Build more houses for the coming peacemakers to rent, stock up shops to sell what they eat, and what they wear, increase schools suitable for their kids, line our empty beaches everywhere with hotels for them, with eating and drinking places, fill in the 10 million potholes so that their automobiles the more sweetly glide. Hold me back, am hyperventing!
Bricks, tiles, sand, cement, windows, roofs, swimming pools, air-conditioning units, exercise books, pens, shoes, corn flakes, steaks, eggs, milk, tea, coffee, beer, hospitals, members’ clubs, planes to fly them in and out, vehicles, the railway reborn, mosquito nets…This is a hymn to greed but good greed is mighty!
Uganda, simply, is about to enter a new league. It would be feeble to pretend that this huge influx into our economy came about by a toss of the coin, by Great Good Luck. Partly by prescience, partly by a conviction that if you do right, right in the end will be done unto you by the laws of fair play; partly by the crossing of the stars (or what we may call Fate), all of a sudden, but having percolated for longer, Stuff Happens. We shall return to this presently.
As if the Uganda cup were not flowing over, at around 1745 hours on Wednesday, our young man, Moses Kipsiro (shout it loud) in the Jawaharlal Nehru Sports Complex, Nnew Delhi, India, before the eyes of those who were lucky to be there, or more likely on the television, ran the race of his life to win the 5000-metre Commonwealth title against a competition bristling with talent.
Watching the manner in which he grasped the race by the throat, going to the front many laps before home, playing catch-me-if-you-can, and staying on and staying on as the Kenyans like a pack of ravenous wolves closed in and prepared to swallow him whole, (did he dream of Home?) opened his eyes to the swiftly approaching finishing line, stormed to it and crossed it first.
Give the young Hero a Heroes Medal. What an icing to the oil, and the hub, and now to this. Happy the Winner, and those watching: three days before Uganda’s Swithin’s Day, better known to us as Independence Day, October 9!
*******************
How did we arrive here? Road to the mountain top, clearly, was led by one unflinching man: “a man among menâ€, as the saying goes. These things keep attracting important components as they move on, and then, at an almost perceptible point, they accelerate and, Wham, achieve Lift off!
It has now happened. In breathless order we can mention the ultimately victorious Bush War, then the terrible tragedy of Rwanda, when Uganda, along with the whole world, were unable, or failed, to play meaningful roles. Aafterwards we were determined to do our part, and did, in D R Congo, and latterly more positively still, in Somalia, as the world knows, and especially its leaders.
In between, in November 2007, there was a highly successful CHOGM in Kampala (never mind what the local thieving Mafia looted from it). Additionally the central geographical positioning of Uganda regionally helped the decision.
Thus when time was ripe for the UN, and the world leadership, to seek a Hub for the regional peace keeping, Uganda stood ready and willing.
Which brings us to President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
He is imperturbable, strong as a rock, difficult to sway off his course. When a flock of international military leaders visited Uganda this week it was easy to see who was effortlessly in charge.
Even his longevity in the job (frowned upon by many) ironically became an advantage: no one was going to jostle him in a hurry! You need permanency in a Hub. God grant Museveni health.