Pure Good Governance

Each professional field will always have its lingua. In the civil society field where I am from, you will most probably find words such as “grassroots” commonly used.   These may however not be as common as you will find “methodology” in research or phrases like, “story angle” in the media circles. Over a decade or two ago, political sloganeering in Uganda was heavily punctuated with various expressions, which at the center carried the word “change”.   In the 1996 election, the “we want change” camp battled with the “no change team” and the “no change” took the day.   While “change” was used to describe affection or the lack of it towards certain political ideas, today it has become one of the most detested words in Uganda’s politics.   Talk of stigmatization.   The word “change” has been strongly stigmatized.   Political, social and economic banter that has single or repetitive reference to “change” will be gauged and treated to the petty political p...

Many folks of the older generation will still call it Burma.  Once the name pops up, it will invoke memoires of the 1939 – 1945 world war two. Although unsung, some of our grand parents or great grand parents remain as famous as the English ‘Mad Jack’ who fought in the same war. While Jack earned his fame out of using a broadsword, bow and arrows against the new rifle and tank technology, our grandparents are revered because they either had their military training in Burma or they fought alongside British Commonwealth troops in the most challenging Burmese terrain during the Second World War. When Uganda was getting its independence in 1962, Burma was falling prey to a military coup that has since seen it through different shades of military rule to-date.   In 2010, there was a semblance of multiparty elections that were later largely described as ‘fraudulent’.   A military backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) declared victory in that election. Mil...