SCALE OF OUR INDEPENDENCE AFTER 50 YEARS

how much do we weigh independently?

In around 1500 AD, the social divide between Africa and Europe was almost the same. There was a feudal class, an artisan class of blacksmiths, carpenters, potters, textile makers, and then the peasant’s class. Africa had abundant natural resources, vast agricultural lands, fresh water, pastoral fields and mineral wealth.

The only problem [and probably the biggest] was failure of these African societies to agree on living under a unified political system of some sort! These political fragmentations prompted creation of many small kingdoms which were always under some sort of conflict with one another. These conflicts resulted into wars related strongly on friction between different ethnic groups; simply because most of these kingdoms and chiefdoms were made up of members sharing the same cultural identity.

In the expansion of Europe, came slave traders that acted as a medium that supplied Europe’s industrial systems with raw materials and a cheap labor force. The slave trade industry was much sustained by internal conflicts in different societies all around the world, but it was here in Africa that this trade saw much success. It was the main supply route of weapons to different chiefs and kings, but mostly acted as the main drain that plundered Africa of its natural and cultural wealth thus eroding this once a paradise of all its social progress. 

Once our chiefs and kings had been engaged in this iniquitous trade, there was no turning back. They now needed the slave traders more than ever in order to survive battles that were rapidly spreading across their lands due to the change of war craft technologies when black powder and the gun was introduced on the battle fields replacing spears and arrows.

The Europeans had strategically set themselves on all major ports along the African coastline where they waited their proxies, the Arabs and some African chiefs who constantly brought them slaves and other materials of value from inside what they considered as “the dark continent”. In fact  why would they dirt-en their hands while risking lives in venturing into a confusion of tribal wars that were operated by arrogant savages armed with guns when yet one would just wait at the coastlines for the wars to calm and reap the benefits of buying off cheaply all captured prisoners in previous conflicts in exchange for more guns!......that way the would later look at it as a black to Black-man problem and even remember (if not worship) the White man as a savior!

As a man of science, I believe in the cause and effect theory. Behind every action, there’s a cause. Colonization of Africa was a result of our inborn failure to live in harmony under a unified political system (the Roman Empire is a good example of strength of a unified political system).To this day I have totally failed to find reason as to why we seem to hate ourselves so much that we would rather live in ‘exile’ (Euphemism for self imposed slavery) than finding peaceful solutions to our problems back at home??!!.....

In 1966, Dr. Apollo Milton Obote in the quest for the Ugandan independence from its colonial rulers [the British] had forged an alliance with the Kabaka Yekka (king only) party that leaned strongly on the king of Buganda kingdom, the biggest ethnic group in the fertile central region with Uganda’s People’s Congress (UPC) that consisted of other ethnic groups from the rest of the country. This coalition had later successfully ushered in the Ugandan independence from the British colonial rulers (October 9 1962) in a more civilized manner compared to the bloody revolts that covered the independence struggle in neighboring Kenya lead by the MAU MAU rebellion. But again, rumors [believed to have originated from the British] started circulating of how the Kabaka [then first president of the new republic of Uganda] Sir. Edward Muteesa 2 harbored ill ambitions of controlling Uganda as an Emperor setting him on a head on collision course with the nationalists [like Dr. Obote]  who had fought arm in arm for the independence of Uganda, and later what followed wrecked the independence dream of a peaceful and united Uganda, a land of freedom!!!?.........

Dr. Obote was also advised to abrogate the 1962 constitution of Uganda to enforce an agreement Muteesa had signed in 1955 when he was deposed and exiled to England by the then governor Andrew Cohen after objecting plans of the British creating a federation that consisted of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika, a move that was aimed at stripping the Buganda kingdom of its autonomy. In this agreement, the Kabaka Muteesa 2 became a constitutional monarch thus barring himself from participating in National politics or he would risk abdicating his throne.

Then in 1967, a republican constitution is promulgated abolishing all kingdoms the state of Uganda had found in place during the independence!……it was at this moment that everything that held us together was sent into a spin, everybody just fell back to the old spirit [every man to himself] that separated us rather than the “For God and my country” spirit that had been a core value in forging a great Nation, Uganda. The gates that had been holding the uncivilized dark past simply snapped. And Uganda has since lived to regret a monster, an evil child born from its extra-marital affair with the western agents of confusion, Idi Amin. All norms and values built over many generations were smashed into bits (which have since failed to mend) during his reign.

The independence struggle in Africa was a collective action that was aimed at flushing out the white man intrusion in African politics and an integration of different cultural entities under one unified political system equally sharing power and responsibilities through democratic processes that listened, understood and shared with everybody. Literally, it was an evolution of African systems of governance.

So today, are we free, are we united, are we independent economically and our political decisions true and original to our culture?

Are we still selling our sons and daughters abroad in the name of finding employment opportunities? Are we still buying more weapons than investing in infra-structures that will improve on our social standards, are we still prosecuting our leaders in foreign courts when yet matters accused are of a local nature as in 1955 when Sir. Edward Muteesa 2 was exiled to England by Andrew Cohen?

What is the scale of independence since 1962...?