Witnessing King Leopold’s injustices in the Congo, one academic wrote: “In their lust for quick profit, civilized men turned savage”.
This is exactly the story that continues to unfold in Uganda; where you wake up and read that a group of people have shared Shs 6bn amongst themselves. That Shs 230m, Shs 242m, or Shs 150m can be wired on a single person’s accounts purportedly for a ‘thank you’ in the midst of a starving population!
But the Shs 6bn oil handshake is not new; it is the old storyline where oil prospects and boom breed dictators, cause instability and escalate poverty. States dependent on oil, it is said, have 23 per cent chances of erupting into war compared to 0.5 per cent chances of countries without oil.
The reasons are twofold; one is that as oil resources begin to flow, dictators start feeling comfortable and arrogant but also attract friendship with countries such as China that are less bothered about democracy. Secondly, those that feel left out on the oil boom festival will do all it takes to get a share of the ‘free’ oil money.
Unfortunate stories are that in 1970, before the oil craze, about 19 million Nigerians lived below the poverty line, but by 2007, with $400bn oil earnings in Nigeria, 90 million people were living below the poverty line.
In Congo Brazzaville, when Andre Milongo took over as prime minister from Denis Sassou-Nguesso, he found seven months’ unpaid arrears of civil servants and a $5bn debt yet the country of about two million people then was pumping oil worth $2m daily!
At the advent of the oil prospects, many Ugandans were optimistic that we would follow the footpath of countries such as Britain and Norway that have successfully managed their oil resources. This, I think, was a far-fetched dream given the instable greed exhibited by the leadership.
The greed that saw banks robbed because people needed money to fight a guerrilla war; the greed that shamelessly ripped off all Ugandans of their 30 per cent money when they assumed leadership in the country!
Since the Shs 6bn ‘devil’s’ handshake, I have followed Abdu Katuntu’s probe in parliament in amazement because I keep asking, to what effect is this probe? Most oil deals have links with the high and the mighty of the land.
When the French set out to investigate the Elf oil deals, it became very difficult for the investigating team because the company was owned by government bureaucrats in partnership with Gabon’s Omar Bongo.
Again, in Congo Brazzaville, the oil audit there came under threat because all oil proceeds were being taken to Sassou- Nguesso’s personal account or hidden under army budgets. In the Katuntu probe, there are already tales-tell signs.
Former attorney general Fred Ruhindi testified that he was only implementing a directive and some of the ‘beneficiaries’ have since indicated that their accounts were simply used as conduits.
Bank of Uganda governor Emmanuel Mutebile revealed that only a trickle of the handsome oil money had reached the reserve account. Will Ugandans ever get to know who took the Shs 6bn and where all the other oil money has gone?
Recently, I had a conversation with a young PhD holder from Makerere University who expressed shock that Uganda’s State House uses up to Shs 800m every day and asked how Uganda could get out of this conundrum.
I told him that this is a cancer whose only medicine can be change of leadership. The young doctor asked if there was guarantee that the new leadership would not be the same or worse.
My response was that there was no definite guarantee given the betrayal occasioned by the 1986 crop that behaved like hungry hyenas that entered the country speaking the language of milk and honey. But I have hope in the leadership of FDC.
In FDC, there is no leader that is unquestionable. No leader will act nonsensical or out of the rules and get away with it.
And courtesy of Dr Besigye, there is a defiant DNA which has been built within a section of the party membership; the ability to say no to unjust and unfair systems, to question leaders and not just take them as kings. This is all that Uganda needs; to stop looking like sheep so that wolves find the country unattractive.
The author is the FDC district chairperson for Mbale.