Before I started writing this column last Saturday morning, I had considered joining other Ugandans living in Kigali at Amohoro Stadium the next day to celebrate 50 years since my country gained political independence from Britain.
But, by the time I typed the first paragraph, I was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that I would not be part of the Amahoro celebrations. Instead I would go to church in the morning to pray for my country and dedicate the entire afternoon to reflect on the startling statistics that define the life of an ordinary Ugandan, a half a century since the colonizers handed us, the reigns of power.
Here are some of the awful figures not worth celebrating:
1. Water: Nearly half of estimated 33 million (44%) of us do not have clean and safe water to drink. These Ugandans drink untreated water collected from swamps and unprotected springs which they share with frogs.
2. Health: More than 435 per 100,000 Ugandan women die while giving birth- a startling figure that makes the country one of most unsafe places in the world to be a woman with ambitions of producing a child. Yet even those that manage to deliver their babies through hardships, 63 out of 1,000 babies born die before their first birthday mainly from preventable causes such as diarrhea.
3. Employment: At least 34 out of very 100 Ugandans aged 18-35, who join the labor market each year, cannot find work—one of the highest unemployment rate in Africa. With hundreds of thousands of new graduates churned out from the ever 20 universities and hundreds of colleges every year, this figure can, but, only grow. I ask myself, where is the future of the little ones for whose schooling many parents have invested in?
4. Electricity: A new study has revealed that on 15% of the estimated 32 million of us in Uganda do not have electricity in our homes. Simply put, about 25 million Ugandans, most of them in rural areas, have never seen electricity. This means that a majority of Ugandan children cannot read as soon as the sun goes down. It also means that health facilities in rural areas cannot perform simply, but life-saving surgical operations on patients. Yet we are told that there had been a big improvement since 2003 when only 5% of the population was connected to the national grid.
5. As I reflected on those statistics, I remember that my country has one of the highest fertility rates in the world to date. At 6.15 live births per Ugandan woman (more than half of the population is female), Uganda has one of the world’s fastest growing population.
As a result, economists doubt the country will attain middle income status in the foreseeable future.
So, too many babies are born. They find no rehydration salt and die soon because on dehydration; those that are lucky to survive find a poor education system that ensures that they hardly learn how to write their names; they drop off and become child parents. So, disease and ignorance continues to reign supreme.
Sadly, those in power say they have achieved a lot.
The President, in power for 27 years (more than half of the 50 years of our independence) says he has solved most of the bottlenecks and we now have good governance, a wonderful human resource, beautiful infrastructure, vibrant industry and agriculture sectors. I shudder.
I shudder because I am aware that some 22 countries in Africa recently achieved middle-income status, but Uganda is not among them. I am also told that another lot of 10 are on the road to middle-income status by 2025, but again my country is not one of them. According to World Bank, a country is categorised as a middle income when the income per capita is a mere $1, 000. This certainly remains a distant dream for many a Uganda with per capita income of a paltry $300 and about 32% of them wallowing in abject poverty.
Dear Ugandans, for those of you who can gather some courage to make merry, please spare a thought for our mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and ground daughters—I mean the 435.
