Of Museveni and APC blames

The president of Uganda, General Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, made a shocking revelation last Saturday. He revealed with that airtight certainty of a scientist reading a research report, that poverty in Uganda was caused by past governments in the country. He blamed misrule by past leaders of the country and colonial powers for the poverty and the economic backwardness of Uganda. President Museveni has been in power in Uganda for 36 years and 143 days, having captured power from Milton Obote (after a five-year insurrection with the aid of Tito Okello) on January 16, 1986. He will be 78 years old on 15 September, 2022.

In a report published by Kenya’s Nation.Africa on Wednesday, Museveni was quoted to have held that the colonialists established an unfair, unhealthy agricultural and behavioral pattern. He added that subsequent Ugandan leaders continued the colonial pattern without properly weighing the options for the country. He said: “When the colonialists came, they made our people grow the crops they wanted: cotton, tobacco, coffee, tea; and then our leaders just copied what the colonialists told them. When I studied the issue, I could see danger, number one was working only for the stomach.” This was President Museveni lamenting the cause of poverty in his country. He “studied the issue”, but while at it for over 36 years now, the crops that were forced on Uganda, its people and former leaders should be ripe for replacement. Some of them are annual crops!

The Ugandan president has the courage and, perhaps temerity to still point fingers after nearly four decades as president of Uganda. The president’s position has generated angry reactions in the country. But to what end are the reactions? It’s the almighty president that has spoken. He has told us the result of his ‘study’ of the poverty ravaging his country and has been able to place his hand on it.

Of course Museveni has supporters. They are everywhere echoing the folly of their leader, trying to flesh it up by making it look like an adorable toy rather than a monstrous scarecrow. They argued that those who are angry that their dear president has accused others as the cause of their poverty ‘do not see the big picture’. His supporters said that the country’s history should be considered. Some of the president’s supporters also claim that the report was timed to rhyme with the announcement of the discovery of billions-of-dollars-worth gold deposits. They have their words properly carved, packaged and delivered. Their defence readily tickles the unwary. They are genuine words meant to deceive by confusing those who are not careful. The things you get from the defense of a bad, enduring government are circumspect words and speeches targetted at the unguarded and unwary.

However, this sudden discovery of the cause of grinding poverty in Uganda is not just revealing, it is also heartwarming and innovative. A report by the Ugandan Ministry of Finance says that 28 per cent of Ugandans are poor. The Ministry reported that the World Bank rated Uganda’s official poverty line as being “equivalent of $1.99 purchasing power per day and per head.”

We have ours too in Nigeria because that’s exactly what our government does. Blame it on the rain, blame it on the stars. In Nigeria, ‘blame others’ is called All Progressives Congress (APC). The APC has not just been in government for seven years in Nigeria, it has also been in power (apologies to a certain military regime). Over the years the APC as a party and as government has supremely elevated and adorned the blame game and whataboutism. It is now the right thing to respond to its utter inefficiency with ‘what about when PDP was in power’ and sundry annoying slurs. APC has relentlessly been blaming everybody except itself for the security, economic and infrastructural abyss Nigeria country has sunken into. Always on the lips of APC, its apologists and government is the 16 years of the ousted Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the life of our beleaguered country, years which were not a bed of roses either.

There are enough grounds for Nigerians to cry out and disparage the APC and its government. Their grounds are that they have suffered more hardship in the seven years of APC than the blighted 16 years of PDP. Beyond disparaging the government, a large band of Nigerians also denigrate the party and refer to it as a plague. They have their reasons, chief among which are: the high cost of living wrapped as inflation; this is propped by the current high cost of domestic (cooking) gas, the near collapse of public power supply, the high cost of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel; and the skyrocketing cost of food and sundry commodities.

Then there is insecurity. We are also dogged by religious intolerance which has manifested in obvious division of the country along ethnic and religious lines; and perceived favouritism (as the government’s lame reaction to killers in southern Nigerian forests show). The APC and its government are not addressing any of these and this attitude is heightening Nigerians’ fears as 2023 approaches. There are fears that we are about to enthrone an ailing elder after the demise of the owner of the household. There are fears that the electoral process might not be as upright as the powers that be would want Nigerians and the world to believe.

Like Museveni, the APC and its government have staked PDP as its go-to place whenever the cause of the perennial economic woes in the country is the issue. It’s all blame and little grace. Even the Ugandans are rated higher in their poverty. They are living on $1.9 per head per day, according to the statistics released by the government ministry. Nigerians are still lower in that, ours is less than $1 per day. There is no electricity in Nigeria and thus, small and medium scale enterprises are in jeopardy. The statistics show that four in ten Nigerians are living below the poverty level.

We are not at our wit’s end as a people, it’s just that we have been made listless by abject poverty. Efforts are suppressed by bad management of the country and our leaders only usually get to blame everyone except themselves for the rot.