Maslow’s Advice to Lukwago in the Tinyenfunza Saga and Why some Ugandans are Still Obsessed with Late Obote
11 Jul 2011 1 Comment
in Corruption, Kampala, Legal issues, Museveni and NRM
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Dear Ugandans,
UPC’s Obote some good things for Uganda just like president Museveni has also done some good things. Actually, all leaders should be fulfilling our needs while in office, after all, they are not using their own money but our money. We should not feel like they are doing us a special favour. If they don’t do what we expect them to do, then it is within our rights to get them out one way or the other. So I have a problem with people over praising certain leaders because they either implemented certain programs while in office or fought in the bushes of Luwero in the 1980s to kick UPC out.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or not. I’ll take a moment to explain it. Maslow felt that there was an ordered set of needs that informed human behaviour. If one’s lower needs were not met then appeals to higher needs would be ineffectual. The hierarchy from lower to higher is: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. The first level of Maslow’s needs is food and shelter.
Here’s how it works. A hungry person will do what is needed to be fed. A sated person will look towards security in one’s person. A secure person will look towards belonging. A member of a group will look towards stature. A person of stature will act for his or her own reasons. A person may be stuck at one of the levels for who knows what reason but once one has passed it one does not look back.
For instance, a man who hoards food is dealing with safety issues. He isn’t eating because he’s sated but neither is he looking for esteem (unless that is the source of his compulsion.)
We all want very much to be recognized as individuals that have rights and a degree of worth. It is the reason why I find it difficult to understand why some people in Uganda feel that they have more rights than others. For instance, why would NRM’s General Tinyenfunza occupy the Kampala mayor’s residence and nobody in our parliament feel the need to raise it? At least, to go on the computer records that it is illegal and wrong.
The answer lies in the fact that the people the MPs represent are poor and are more worried about food, shelter and protection of their family (the 1st level of Maslow’s needs) than what Tinyenfunza is illegally up to. That’s why he can get away with it for a long time till when society changes itself for the better. So, possibly most old and mature people in Uganda are already telling Mayor, Erias Lukwago, to leave the whole Tinyenfunza issue alone because it is not worth it. They are probably telling him to find ways of attracting investors that can build better houses, better markets and buildings in Kampala and forget about Tinyenfunza and company for now. Personally, I’m probably allowed to pump Lukwago with some more adrenaline to go after him because I’m not so old. I’m still allowed to make mistakes.
But seriously, if you’ve got a government with a secret police, like the Shah’s Iran, or you’ve got a government like Uganda where they torture and sometimes kill their political opponents, then property rights are a step lower on the “liberty” scale than just having a government that protects your physical security. Property rights are extremely important but there aren’t absolute; society has to survive and function first. One of the reasons why, for instance, some Ugandans abroad support Museveni is because they can abuse him today on forums such as Ugandans at Heart, facebook or phone; but get on a plane to Uganda and come back safely abroad. This may change soon but I have not heard a lot of cases. However, I have been made to believe that this was not the case during Obote and UPC regardless of the hospitals that were built during Obote 1.
Mazlow has a hierarchy of needs, and once a human’s basic needs have been met, people can then begin to self-actualize. That means that they can, to coin a phrase, “Be all that they can be”. Most of our leaders since independence have not allowed the population to move from the bottom of the hierarchy to begin to self actualizes because such a population is difficult to be bought with 1 kg of sugar during elections or pull a tribal or religious card, and think you can get away with all the crap a leader has done in the past.
Europeans have slightly different priorities when defining “freedoms”. They believe in a right to shelter, food, and medical care and are willing to pay for it through taxes. Ugandans, on the other hand, can praise a leader who built a hospital 40 years ago just because they think he did them a favour or because the current one is making more mess. Even if one tries to tell them that the colonialists drew the development plans in advance which Obote later partly implemented, they somehow feel bad about you.
So, its better we try and understand what exactly matters to the guys on the ground especially in rural areas before we spend more time on issues that may not benefit us so much in the immediate future. UPC’s Obote still generates more debates online than any other Uganda president but how relevant is this dead guy to the current poltics of Uganda? I believe Uganda has now got bigger problems than UPC and Obote, and that is what we should be debating more. I also believe that Lord Mayor of Kampala, Erias Lukwago, should get his priorities right instead of concentrating on battles that he may neither win nor directly benefit the people who elected him.
Byebyo ebyange
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
President Museveni should Come Out on Kazibwe and Ssebagala
26 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Corruption, Kampala, Legal issues, Presidency, security
Dear Friends,
The current reports that former vice president, Dr.Specioza Kazibwe, has been suspended over another financial mismanagement of micro-finance resources is so sickening. Several Ugandans warned the president against reappointing the lady in any financial position of authority after the Valley Dam saga, but he went ahead and did so for reasons only know to him.
It is even more sickening that Ms.Kazibwe reportedly said that it’s only president Museveni who could fire her, an indication that she is one of those who no longer respect the institutions in the country. She looks at president Museveni as everything in Uganda, and she is probably right, but as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) explained that the ‘perfect nature of man’ could be defiled by a corrupt society. He believed that individuals willingly enter a ‘form of association’ with already known criminals because there is a mutual benefit of protecting all participants in this association. If president Museveni, therefore, does not come out to distance himself from Dr. Kazibwe’s actions, we will fairly believe that whatever Dr.Kazibwe did was sanctioned by him one way or the other.
The corruption in Uganda has spread to several institutions including the Kampala City Council such that it was again very embarrassing on the side of the president not to publicly come out to distance himself from another known crook in the names of Hajji Nasser Ssebagala over the Town Clerk’s residence issue. Just like Kazibwe, Ssebagala also claims that it is only president Museveni who can evict him from this house.Oh, i almost forgot another former Vice president,Dr.Bukenya, who rightly said that whatever he did during CHOGM was on behalf of the president. It seems Musevenism is everywhere now and state insitutions are dead.
Anyway, Property is such a very important issue such that it is always painful for anybody who lawfully acquired a piece of land or built a house to be unfairly evicted, but in Ssebagala’s case, I don’t know because the whole thing has got Museveni’s ‘good’ hands on it. We should only feel sorry for those small property or land owners that are continually evicted by the rich as Rousseau also said in his book: ‘the social Contract’:” the right of property is the most sacred of all rights of citizenship, and even more important in some respects than liberty itself; either because it more nearly affects the preservation of life, or because, property being more easily usurped and more difficult to defend than life, the law ought to pay a greater attention to what is more easily taken away; or finally, because property is the true foundation of civil society, and the real guarantee of the undertakings of citizens.’’(p.138)
I have heard old men saying: ‘these guys have stolen more than anybody before but they still want more’. This avarice among some of the current crop of NRM leadership is so scaring. It is, therefore, very important that we support those that use the law to bring these irregularities into the public domain or to be questioned. On this note, I would like Ugandans to support the mayor of Kampala and Executive Director in their efforts to follow the book as they sort out the mess in the city.
Otherwise, the high state of corruption reported daily in the media is likely to make us a bit more isolated on the global stage if we are not careful. Most of the great nations we have got today are building special relationships with one or two countries as a survival mechanism for the unpredictable future. For instance, Britain and USA have got a ”special relationship” which every leader of these two countries tries to defend regardless of some policy differences, something Sydney Blumenthal, one of President Clinton’s advisors, emphasized in 1998 to a meeting of the World Policy Institute.
However, Uganda, on the otherhand, looks to be a bit isolated in both East Africa and world stage. Both the Kenyans and Tanzanians speak ill of our president. We used to have a special relationship with Paul Kagame’s Rwanda but it sickens to read daily in newspapers that we have sunk so low to the extent of accusing each other of certain rebel activities , as we have seen since the death of Colonel Muzora.And it seems nobody seem to be doing anything to revive this good relationship we once had with Rwanda. It is all now accusatiosn after accusations!
By the way, it is good that the government is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of colonel Muzora, and I believe their intentions are good. But I have read messages in different forums indicating that Ugandans don’t trust the government anymore when it comes to high profile murder investigations. Actually, General Tinyenfunza’s interview with the Daily Monitor recently in regard to Muzora’s murder has even made it worse because some people now believe that the whole investigation is meant to directly pin Dr.Kiiza Besigye . Some Ugandans seem to agree with what the American Professor, Thomas Stephen Szasz, once said in 1993 that the law makers do not uncover but ‘’invent crimes’. He also held the view that killing only becomes a crime if it is not sanctioned by the state, and I think he was right to some extent especially in developing countries such as Uganda.
But overall, those who think that Uganda is a special case whereby leaders will continue to unfairly imprison and kill political opponents without any international actions, are living in a dream cave. The world has changed and our leaders should find a way to change with it as soon as possible or they are gonna be run down by their own citizens and the international community at some point.We should all feel safe while in our country.
Byebyo ebyange
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http://ugandansatheart.org/
http://twitter.com/#!/semuwemba
http://jjanguonkwekule.blogspot.com/
http://semuwemba.wordpress.com/
Will Besigye Travel Today or Not? What is it about Besigye that turns Museveni into this kind of person?
11 May 2011 1 Comment
Guys,
I think president Museveni has lost it, completely lost it. He is rattled! He keeps generating headlines for Dr.Besigye nationally and internationally. Besigye has been on BBC,CNN,Aljazeera ‘breaking news’ for a while now. He has been generating headlines in UK newspapers that don’t normally cover African opposition leaders. I hear it is the same in USA. It seems Besigye does not necessarily need to be in Uganda physically to cover Uganda’s front and inside pages of all newspapers. No wonder president Museveni has started threatening the Daily Monitor and Observer for not doing a ‘Newvision’ on Besigye, i.e, help cover for the state instead of balanced reporting. He has been in our international media for the whole of last month, and this is not a bad way to start May 2011 for an opposition leader in Africa, the same month the president is swearing in again as a ‘’new’’ leader. Wow!
President Museveni is slowly but surely turning him into Uganda’s ”Nelson Mandella”. Surely, why would he be threatened by a man who only got about 2.5 million votes in the just concluded elections if the elections were free and fair? What happened to the almost 70% support the president allegedly got?
Sometimes I wonder what it is about Besigye that turns Museveni into this kind of person or rather animal. Something is beyond politics here and I’m yet to put my fingers on it. He makes our president lose even the little tolerance we have known him to have. What is the real deal with these guys because it now looks personal the way Besigye is being handled by the government.
This is beyond politics now! I don’t believe in the Winnie Byanyima crap because women come and go out of our lives, and especially we tend to forget about them after a certain period of time however sweet they were. So that one is out but there must something else here, and I don’t know what it is. Museveni’s gloves and mercy seem to be off as long as the situation involves Besigye, and now it looks like that whoever wants a promotion in the security services and intelligence system should be seen to be squeezing Besigye in one way or the other. No wonder most NRMs were pushing FDC to get someone else to replace him as soon as possible.
Well, you have got to give it to the guy. I thought he was finished after the elections but he now looks even irreplaceable in the FDC. He is too big for anybody to wear his shoes. How this ‘Museveni- Besigye’ film will end, I still don’t know. Bunyoro spokesperson, Mr.Mirima, seems to think that it will end with the current demonstrations but I highly doubt so. I can only envisage something worse and I’m feeling bad already.
I can’t believe Kenyan Airways have also been bullied by the Uganda government not to allow KB to travel back to Uganda in the scheduled time.There were reports earlier this morning that Dr. Besigye, was seen at Jommo Kenyatta airport with his boarding pass in his possession, ready to board, but was asked not to by the Kenya airways officials. Then one of the FDC officials,Anne Mugisha, communicated to us on facebook that ‘’ The Managing Direct KQ has communicated with airport staff in Winnie’s presence that Uganda government has cleared Kizza Besigye to travel back home on any flight he chooses. Winnie says the president’s party will be travelling on KQ410 departing at 7:55am arriving at 9:00am tomorrow May 12, 2011.’’.
As if this confusion was not enough already, we got a big one which was a statement from Kenyan Airways:’’ Kenya Airways would like to confirm to its passengers, customers, investors and the public that Ugandan Opposition Leader Dr. Kizza Besigye is now scheduled to depart on KQ414/11th May departing Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for Entebbe International Airport at 1750hrs.
Dr. Besigye was earlier denied boarding on KQ 410/11th May at 0800hrs following information from Kenya Airways internal intelligence sources that the aircraft would not be allowed to land at the Entebbe International Airport if he was on board. Dr. Besigye thus could not board the aircraft as Kenya Airways had to first ascertain this information without inconveniencing the other passengers destined for Entebbe.
The airline has now confirmed and issued Dr. Besigye and his wife tickets to depart Nairobi this the evening. The airline takes earliest opportunity to apologize to Dr. Besigye for any inconveniences caused.’’
This is all insane! What is annoying is that Mr.Kirunda Kivejinja, the internal affairs minister, has denied this one too, as he did with the hammer and pepper spray on Besigye last month. What happened to the generation of old men speaking the truth in public? I grew up looking at old men that way but I was astonished to watch Kivejinja, Kashaijja and president Museveni( all old men) on YouTube telling lies that Besigye had a hammer and pepper spray in his car and he used it to provoke the police. What has happened to the world? Nobody seems to know. Phewwwwww
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
Please introduce Commuters in Kampala City
30 Oct 2009 Leave a Comment
in Kampala, Politics, Trasport and communication
Old taxi park in Kampala
While I would like to agree that regional development is very important and I support every one to develop their own regions, I can’t see how this can affect negatively the development of a capital city or commercial city such as Kampala. Kampala is apparently so jammed because there is nothing like public transport in Uganda. Brother Alhajji Sebagala who is the current mayor of the city, had promised commuter buses or city buses in his manifesto while campaigning to become a mayor but I have never personally seen them.
The increasing number of car users in Kampala is causing a lot of problems for everybody in the city and that is why we need an immediate introduction of public transport like commuter trains. Nevertheless, the population in Kampala will just keep growing despite the developments taking place anywhere else in the country. For instance, the population of London has been increasing despite the fact that UK has now got other larger cities such as Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool with almost everything or same services as that in London. These other cities some times act as the ‘magnets of investment’ for themselves and later on London thus creating some form of parasitic relationship among cities.
In a similar vein, preference for public transportation is higher when commuters believe that it is less environmentally damaging than the car. At the moment, all the environmental activists like Ken Lukyamuzi have somehow kept quite about the increased use of cars in Kampala and how much these old cars are destroying the environment. When I was in Kampala in 2009, I was surprised to find that almost all the people I considered friends were driving or owning cars and they could do anything to make sure that I see their cars, but some of their cars were too old to be on the road but nobody cared. There is a generally lot of ‘showing off’ with cars in Africa and I think I understand where it is coming from.Most Africans have been born out of poverty and cars have always been a luxury. Basically, the issue of the environment and cars needs to be addressed because it is causing a lot of problems to the country.
Bus park in Kampala
In addition,the population in Kampala is not gonna go anywhere because of the introduction of public means of transport such as trains. Kampala will keep growing and expanding- whether the central government takes over the city management or not, or whether Soroti or Gulu becomes another city or not. Kampala is similar to India’s Mumbai in a lot of ways.For instance,the growth of other cities in India has neither reduced the population of Mumbai nor affected its development negatively. By 1990, Mumbai was the world’s sixth most populous metropolitan centre and it also generates more wealth, both through production from its industrial base, now mainly on the outskirts of the city, and from its service sector, than many cities in India put together. The city produces 10 per cent of India’s industrial output, handles 60 per cent of the maritime trade, accounts for 33 per cent of total income tax collection and 60 per cent of customs duty, and has the single largest share of the services sector. It registered an employment growth of 59 per cent between 1971-91.
Mumbai has grown from an island city – or rather a city that grew out of the joining together of seven islands – into a vast urban agglomeration .Similarly Kampala is a product of joining together several hills though some people want to extend its official boundaries for reasons best known to themselves, an issue that has raised some storm between the central government and the Buganda kingdom.
Unlike Kampala, Mumbai is served by five railway corridors. All originate in the south of the city and then branch out to the north and north-east. The government there encouraged people to use public transport to beat the traffic jam such that an incredible 88 per cent of all travel in Mumbai is by bus and rail. This statistic in itself illustrates the popularity and the necessity of the public transport system, particularly the railways.
The trains can carry four times the traffic load of city buses in terms of passenger kilometres of travel. The local trains carry 5.5 million passengers every day. Although the normal capacity of each train is 1,700, at peak hours more than 4,000 people crowd onto them. On a typical day, according to the Mumbai Metro Planning Group study, Western Railways operate 923 trains and Central Railways 1,072 trains. During the peak period between 9 and 11 am, 118,000 passengers.
Please let us encourage our government to start investing heavily in public transport such as commuter trains in cities or linking up cities because it will help reduce the problems in Kampala. I remember listening to FDC’s Dr. Besigye one time on KFM radio in 2005 and he was promising Ugandans a modern railway system across the country if elected in power. How i wish Ugandans had put him in the Statehouse then than being stuck with the current mess in Kampala.
Byebyo banange
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
United Kingdom
