State brutality is integral to the electoral cycle in Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda. There are campaign beatings, ballot beatings and post-election beatings. When the election cycle is over, the country reverts to ordinary beatings.

Britain is hosting the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in an attempt to revive its Empire after Brexit. African countries need to be vigilant to avoid any trade agreements with Britain that do not serve the interests of ordinary African citizens. 

The fishermen of Kabarole District appear to have blown the whistle on an audacious act of bio-piracy. They brought to the attention of the authorities that they were being barred from access to the 53 crater lakes that they have fished in from time immemorial. In law this is known as a customary right. It cannot be extinguished simply by putting up barbed wire or waving guns about. But that is just what the District Fisheries Officer of Kabarole tried to do when he leased all 20 lakes to Ferdsult Engineering Services who then proceeded to “re-stock” some lakes and claim ownership of all them.

The meeting between US ambassador to Uganda Debra Malac with Uganda's disgraced Minister for Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa on 19 January 2018 demonstrated that the value of Uganda’s cooperation in furthering American foreign policy and corporate interests clearly outweighs any embarrassment caused by Kutesa’s alleged incontinence.

Despite the evidence of worsening poverty, the government felt sufficiently confident in this year’s budget speech to move the target date for attaining middle-income status forward by two decades. Originally planned for 2040, the new status will now be attained in three years. Agricultural output is going to be increased, educational outcomes improved and corruption eliminated. Just like that.

It will be a source of embarrassment to the United States Department of State to discover that while it is spending billions of tax-dollars in promoting democracy, human rights and the Justice Law and Order Sector in developing countries, justice, law and order are crumbling in, of all enlightened places, New York State.

Many African nations are mired in huge debts arising from foreign loans that have hardly benefitted the people. The citizens need to audit these debts. Odious debts should be repudiated, damn the consequences. Moreover, as Thomas Sankara demonstrated in the four years he was president of Burkina Faso, African nations do not need foreign loans to meet the needs of their people.

In 2013 Mozambican government officials formed three private companies and took out illegal secret loans totaling $2 billion. Donors suspended credit to Mozambique because of the loans as the national currency fell by 70% in 2016. Restructuring the illegal loans means imposed austerity on a population already living in extreme austerity and eventually repaying the creditors from revenues derived from Mozambique’s natural gas deposits that on the market in 2023.

Aggressive population control campaigns in Africa have their roots in American foreign policy going back nearly 60 years. US authorities concluded that rapid population growth in the developing world  threatened America’s access to cheap resources necessary for their consumerist lifestyle. Unknown to many in the countries targeted, and against protests from the Catholic Church, America has pretty much achieved its objectives.

Museveni and Castro both came to power through a revolution. Despite a crippling international blockade led by America, Cuba under Castro made huge strides in development while Uganda, a darling of the West, has remained backward - with all those millions of dollars in aid. It is a country where ordinary diarrhea is a life-threatening condition.

State brutality is integral to the electoral cycle in Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda. There are campaign beatings, ballot beatings and post-election beatings. Ugandans this week witnessed pre-swearing-in beatings. They can expect swearing-in beatings, after which there is every chance there will be post-swearing in beatings. Then, the election cycle over, the country shall revert to ordinary beatings.

In the US election – as in African ones – there are large numbers of voters totally devoted to the establishment candidates. It is as though the downtrodden, unwilling to take responsibility for their own futures, settle for the hope that a greater amount of crumbs will trickle down to them from the master’s table.

South Africa’s once revered ANC ruling party now behaves as if it is entitled to the republic. The motto on the country’s parliamentary coat of arms may as well be changed from ‘We, the People’ to ‘We, the ANC.’ Firebrand opposition leader Julius Malema may have a point when he says the liberation party is turning the country into just another banana republic.

Indeed, manners maketh the man, but what happens when the man who insists on being treated as a highly-respected elder uses his position to steal millions of dollars of public money to redecorate his private home? Maybe being a conscientious people with good manners is what is causing the downfall of Africa.

The rare display of groundedness and humility by a sitting African head of state was enough to catapult Nyerere on to the path to canonization. His daring socialist experiment and the decision to leave office at the end of his term, something that remains difficult for African presidents, are significant highlights of his pro-people politics.

At times like this you can almost forget the good and gentle South Africans you have met over the years. The slow Sunday brunches after a foray into the Mall when everybody calls you ‘My sister’…

Africa often seems to be stuck in an endless cycle of dictators, rancid revolutionaries and false dawns. But genuine champions of change exist, some great others quite ordinary people.