By Ndawula Ronald
Judea is ancient Palestine of the biblical times and also a Roman empire during the times of Jesus.
In the biblical account, during the times of the coming of Jesus the Pharisees were revered and sanctified teachers of the law and used pious platitudes in all their dealing with the people in the Roman empire till the arrival of Jesus.
When jesus removed the veil of hypocrisy and lies their impiety (ungodliness) was laid bare.
This angered and annoyed the Pharisees so much since they were losing ground and attention.
They plotted seditious claims to extinguish and tame the growing fame of Jesus who was a threat to their phoney and vain agenda.
This culminated into the eventual betrayal of Jesus by Judah, his crucification and death.
During the Presidential State of the nation address I was surprised by the ingratiatory remarks that Uganda is now in the middle income status!
This made me believe that there’s a clique of surviving Pharisees in government who feed the President on wrong information every day and spice it with a little economic lingo of which he is privileged to know so that he can disseminate it to us the lay people to appease and tone down the anxiety of a populace who have lived in stagnated development for decades.
Am not an economist and not privy to economic data and jargon apart from having the wits to read, research and a fair memory to recall and compare the difference in ways and standards of living of the many places I have been privileged to visit and live.
In 1978 i was a child attending primary one at Luwero boys school and used to foot from Late Kasoma’s flats to school.
My father was a farmer and businessman who was very pragmatic and versatile from the little time we haf with him and the little I remember about him.
We had a Matooke garden in Kyegombwa, a farm in Nakinyama kikube parish and sometimes he tried rice growing, wheat, pineapples, and tomatoes.
He also used his old model Volkswagen car with a engine at the back to do taxi driving ploughing Kampala to Luwero and sometimes did special errands to Kenya and Zaire to deal in bicycle tyres, valves and razor blades from Hajji Kasoma which were flourishing commodities those days.
I have seen my villages ever from kyampisi, kasiiso, kikube, Bukuma , kigombe, Nsaasi and others from since then todate.
There’s nothing tangible I can proudly say in the few years I have been around that can influence my admiration for the progress of my country since independence.
Uganda for the last 60 years , 40 years of which have been led by NRM and 10 of them disrupted by NRA, the other 10 can be excused for independence transition.
With facts now at our fingertips because of Mr.Google, the present day “Jesus”, the best the Pharisees can do is to switch off internet to deny the timely, truthful, quantifiable, quality and free access to information.
Since the British returned the reigns of leadership to Africans,
What the supposedly independent countries in Africa have achieved is exponential growth of their populations.
Ugandas population growth now stands at 2.6% and by end of year we are expected to be 49 million.
African governments were taught to tax their populations so much and the leaders to clique and devour and share the collections and sometimes export it to Europe and America for hoarding as loot , not to invest it back to their people.
When their stomachs bulge then they think everyone is doing okay and full to capacity like them.
Since independence Ugandans have been steadily languishing in abject poverty.
This is true in my home district, true when I look at my neighbors , true when I see the infrastructure and true when I see the services like education and health.
According to Mr Google, Uganda has never gone beyond the 25 poorest countries in the world, a fact true to all encyclopedias ever written.
If Mr. Google can tell you the minute detail of how many people have died of Covid 19 in the world, the hour of death and burial of speaker Oulanya and also tell you the actual distance from the earth to the sun and also tell you the places you have visited in a year and your current location in real time, how about when Uganda makes a monumental drift and leap from poverty to middle income?
The many researchers and research papers posted by distinguished scholars and organisations believe, Uganda is one of the 20 poorest countries in the world.
Secondly , of those 20 sixteen are from Africa with Burundi leading the Pack.
Thirdly, Burundi , Zaire, Uganda, south Sudan, Rwanda in the 25 poorest pack are in the East African community.
The major precursor of this persistent poverty levels are, pseudo wars, corruption and un democratic leadership.
The worst bit, these countries especially Zaire, Uganda and South Sudan are sitting on not only fresh water but natural resources beyond imagination.
These countries have the most appropriate weather and location along the equator but the only wisdom they’re proud of is fighting one other and each other and the only Heroes are those who died in wars!
To the Pharisees trying to portray a different fact other than the truth be aware you’re not at liberty in the presence of Mr.Google.
Our leaders stop confusing, wasting material time in phoney wars, chasing rustlers, buying military hardware and training armed men as a sign of development.
The 87 billion parliament appropriated for fighting rustlers is enough to buy 8 local breed heifers for 10,000 homes in the affected region.
You can imagine the level of empowerment, hope and ripple effect that can be for the rustling region.
Trust the Wisdom of Pharisees.
Ndawula Ronald, the author is the former chairperson of Luwero district
