Whenever I get time, I walk along some Kampala streets to observe the surroundings.
One common thing specifically on Jinja road and major roundabouts is the sight of many youths selling small items ranging from watches, chargers, car carpets, handkerchiefs, chewing gum, etc.
These are some of the very roads that bigwigs in government use on their way to and from work, some in convoys of big four-wheel-drive cars.
What an irony!
What should worry all of us is that some of these youths engaging in petty trade are graduates. One day, a government official narrated to me a surprising story. He said he was once held in traffic jam along one of the busy streets in Kampala and he decided to by newspapers.
Before buying them, he set a trap in bid to establish whether these young people that engage in street vending are educated or not. So, he set a condition: “I am going to buy two papers from you but on condition that you at least tell me the name of one columnist in one of the papers I will have bought from you”.
To his astonishment, the vendor knew all the columnists in the leading newspapers in Uganda and on which day they feature, and some of the columnists in the regional papers and magazines.
So, these are youths with high aspirations and expectations not only for themselves, but also for parents and guardians who invest in them millions of money hoping that tomorrow they would look after them when old age knocks!
As the National Resistance Army (NRM) celebrates 31 years in power, one of the achievements that tend to be associated with the party is security.
But as we continue to work hard to, among others, secure Ugandan borders, unemployment seems to be running out of NRM’s hands. Reports from institutions such as the World Bank, Uganda Bureau of Statistics, United Nations and the National Development Plan place unemployment among youths above 60 per cent, for the last five years.
We need to find solutions to this menace. Otherwise, the next confrontation by the army may not necessarily emerge from civil conflicts, but from a hungry and angry population driven by food insecurity and hordes of unemployed youths.
Kenedy Musekura,
0784393922.
Anti-Trump marches make no sense
The women marches which sprung up in different parts of the world during US President Donald Trump’s Inauguration day don’t make sense to me.
In America, the so-called female Hollywood stars have taken the forefront of these marches that are supposedly fighting for women’s rights. I am a woman, but I am not a feminist because feminism seeks to undermine men and make them effeminate.
Men should be masculine and women should be feminine. There should be no gender or role reversal. Feminism has gone too far. It has reached a point that any man who stands up for his fellow men is immediately branded a misogynist by aggressive feminists!
The saying, ‘What a man can do, a woman can do better,’ stems from a feministic viewpoint, which is wrong because in Genesis 3:16 (NIV) God made woman subservient to man when he told Eve, ‘Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’
It is evident Donald Trump cares about women as equally as he does men, for when he was addressing America in his inauguration speech, he said: “January 20, 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”
Josepha Jabo,
Kampala
Let us take Kiswahili seriously
Ugandans should embrace Kiswahili rather than cry foul if we are to fast-track the East African integration process. I have attended debates by Kiswahili students in schools and universities and there are indicators that we now have a good crop of a Kiswahili-speaking population.
The perception that we speak better English in the East African region should be dumped and we come to realize that we are not Britons, anyway.
I have done postgraduate studies at the Islamic University in Uganda where Arabic is compulsory and I can testify that students learn the basics and pass both the written and oral examinations yet Kiswahili is much easier.
Government should consider making it compulsory for all interviews in the public service so that our people take the language seriously.
Samuel Mweru Byachi,
Kampala.
Thanks NRM for women empowerment
In 1986, the NRM not only brought peace to this nation but also allowed women to participate in politics and, since then, the momentum has been growing. In schools, businesses and politics, we see women getting more active.
Women played a big part in getting this government into power and the likes of Dr Specioza Wandira Kazibwe have been great role models to young ladies of this nation, encouraging them to stand for their rights.
I applaud NRM and the ministry of gender, labour and social development that have organized gender training exercises countrywide.
Mercy Abio,
Kampala.
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