SO, I MADE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA... (Part 2)

So, along the way someone asked about parliament; "Mr. President, since you are talking about cost reduction, how about the many MPs and constituencies we have?". Somehow the same question had bothered me and I resolved early that when the opportunity came up, I would throw this to a national referendum, but not before I have placed my cabinet to the test and showed the nation that it is possible to run the nation better, thinner and leaner. It is important for the people to see the benefits of these drastic changes so that they can believe the words of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (1886-1969),"less is more".

My background was in the corporate workplace where we hustled for the next frontier. Working there I learned that you cannot make money or grow wealthy by borrowing and living above your means. It worked there; it can work here as the parallels are simply mind boggling. I kept wondering in the past why no one in government could see this simple logic. I often got arguments around public service and management of public affairs being different and requiring a different model. The arguments are passionate but simply never cut the logic. In fact, more crazy ideas were up for grabs; I had briefed my line Cabinet Secretaries that the civil service was to undergo a major reform to enable this new model. We were to immediately retire everyone, re-advertise and re-interview. The existing persons by default were to be shortlisted, but competition had been opened to everyone else. The civil servants take home packages were to be raised to align to the best in the market, but the numbers were to be dropped and automation employed a lot more. Yes, we were making the civil service more competitive again. In fact, our dream was to make this the employer of choice in every sense of the word. in the words of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, we could not put "old wine in new wine skins", else they would burst. These new jobs would be performance driven and contractual as well. I remember sometime back some government agencies had done very well with similar models, so they proved it worked. Now the model was being adopted full scale.

"How about the corruption" Mr. President, the Prime Minister designate had quipped in on one of those brain storming discussions we had held at our inaugural cabinet retreat; "...how are we gonna deal with it?". My reply was simple but resolute: "We shall set the tone at the top, chief!" I replied, "I hold each one of you twelve secretaries personally and firmly accountable, you hold the next guys down your chain, they hold others, etc". "If we fail to the break the back of this monster then its you guys around this table that have failed". I however noted swiftly that corruption was a now a cultural monster that transcended government offices, was acceptable in schools and in every small little transaction. We resolved that day that one of our core National values that we would promote in our next five years was "DISCIPLINE". "You see Mr. President" one of the cabinet secretaries had observed in a detailed analysis that he gave us; we cannot continue as an undisciplined nation of people and expect to break the back of corruption. "And discipline begins in the basic things and interactions in our homes, schools, churches and mosques and our marketplaces. This must return as a value at that level; like our forefathers once said, it takes a village to raise a child" he submitted to an attentive room. The point had been made; the nation needed to be spurred back to a lifestyle of discipline at the most basic of cores. This would be now one of the ever-increasing songs we would sing. We would drive the discipline mantra into every sphere of our society and bring back societal accountability to the core of all our dealings; and that, we had the power to do. "Let’s see how this monster will respond to this first phase of treatment" I summed up. But I knew this was the biggest huddle we had to fight and raze down. Many had gone before us that had encountered it with the same passion, and they sadly had been eaten by this queer creature; I quietly prayed for my team of twelve. John Maxwell, the foremost of the leadership scholars of our generation had once observed that for one to improve leadership the leadership lid had to be raised up; we have just resolved to do that by holding ourselves as the first and the last person to blame for this failure.

Growing up, I had seen several traumatic leadership experiences, but I had also been privileged enough by God to see the turning where change became a real possibility. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni had come to the helm of leadership with a lot of promise and several things swung back into place and real growth started. Now people could speak freely and exercise liberties in ways previously only seen in our separate dreams. Over the years a lot of events and in some cases, complacency had set in with many of the actors that should have made continuous change possible. Somewhere along the way some of our leaders had started romancing the devil and somehow had picked up on his diabolical ways. But one of the strengths that I grew to appreciate was the resolute security posture the country took. Uganda had grown from being every bullies punch bag to leading the way in emancipating many now mighty African economies. Many stories of these wars where Ugandan blood had been spilled had been told; there were many more in the dark web where some of the heroic dark operatives only told these stories to their little grand children. The thing though was that Uganda had grown into one of the leaders in this security field on the continent. "Security levels cannot be left to drop even an inch" I cautioned my DEFENSE, BORDERS AND SECURITY secretary. "In fact, many think that a civilian president can't lead a previously heavily military nation but lets now show what leadership we have. We cannot forget the lessons previous leaders in Africa made that birthed the mighty blood births across the continent" I added. I knew with confidence that during the Museveni era professionalism had been rebuilt back into the Armed forces. The key for us was to spur it on and well to ensure that these gallant men and women were well taken care of; they were in good hands as I knew the quality of the team, we had to lead them. A lot of what we could achieve was only possible with a very secure nation. And that was the very idea of creating a 360-degree view of it under one control; to have one centre of command for all matter’s security and defence. A few thoughts this would never work, but I knew better.

Now someone had challenged my ideas on all this and called them "crazy and out of this world". I simply told them that only crazy people ever changed the world. All great nations of the world were made by "Crazy". Israel, Iran, Egypt, formerly Lybia, South Africa, South Korea, Singapore; the list is huge. Some would argue that some of the nations in my list above do not deserve to be on the list. I often gently asked them why, and soon they discovered that they only looked at certain aspects. My measure was always what resolve could achieve in such a short time and yet with great impact. "Why has the story of sub-Saharan Africa been different?" I often asked. "Do we have less brains or are we not capable of honour and good?" This is the real issue I knew we needed to address among our leaders. What I called "the Exit Plan mentality". Leaders that never saw their future among their people, and therefore served them what they could not eat. "How come African businessmen like Aliko Dangote have gotten rich right here on the continent?" I often asked in challenge and sometimes in subtle jest. "How come when South Africa was thrown the bitter pill of sanctions they thrived? they made aircraft parts and thereby learned to make airplanes?". "How did the late Muammar Qadhafi build the biggest man-made river in Africa? how did he manage a green revolution in the desert?". "So crazy Iran, how did they manage a science revolution?". I had many questions on how Singapore made it "from third world to First" in the words of Lee Kwan Yew one of their greatest leaders; how South Korea advanced from a third world economy in the 1960s, onto making rickety Hyundai cars (I saw these ugly cars in the 1980s) and now to being technology leaders both soft and hardware ? I could clearly see that our work was cut out for us.

All these thoughts started throwing me into serious thinking. I thought about the possible opportunities we could exploit; the number was staggering. The people, the natural resources, the geographical positioning, the weather, the educational background; these were countless. I realised we needed to start somewhere and that soon and rather urgently. I realised we need to stop the wishful thinking and get to some serious action. I realised we risked being overrun by those that could see what we could not see in terms of our opportunities and what they perceived as threats to their own existence. I knew we needed to act and that so urgently!

(To be continued...)