All African struggles have had one baseline which has been “to stop African resources from going to develop other parts of the world while leaving Africa in abject poverty with both natural and man-made death traps.”
The first great robbery of Africa was its human resources who went as slaves. What we were taught in school about the slave trade excluded the strategy that sustained and fueled the trade which was “unprincipled conflicts and statelessness.” The slave merchants could identify an African Chief who was not sophisticated enough who could be aided to raid and attack all his neighbors. After taking the slaves from all the surrounding chiefdoms, that very chief and his subjects would be taken as the last lot of slaves.
The contemporary great robbery of Africa is the ongoing mineral wealth hemorrhage. The present day strategy for the current slave master is to identify the super-rich countries in mineral wealth, like Libya, Sudan, DR Congo and Uganda which have the biggest reserves of oil, coltan, gold, lithium and cobalt then get those countries into a stateless setting. Persistent insecurity, sustained armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, unpredictable political situation and a very high crime rate are the right ingredients for the current mega robbery of Africa. These are the prevailing conditions in Libya after those who helped to bring down Gadhafi were eliminated and three governments and the Daesh terrorist group took over. What is constant in Libya is that the over $ 4 billion dollar oil must be pumped out per year as the six million Libyans grapple with abject poverty and statelessness. The current advice on Google about Libya is for people not to travel to that country because “it is too dangerous” when oil is being siphoned out. I therefore find it very strange for the likes of Bobi Wine to keep shouting and prescribing a Libya-like political solution for Uganda in 2021.
The Libya of yesterday had the highest per capita income in Africa. The Libyans were sure of being alive and a substantial part of the oil revenue was being used for the people of Libya. Gadhafi was even trying to see how he could distribute part of the proceeds of the biggest oil reserve in Africa to the whole continent. His moves could have had both the selfish and Pan Africanist motives. Generally the Libya then was far better than the Libya of now. The Bobi Wines of today are the unprincipled conflicts loving African Chiefs of the slave trade era. They are the Mobutus of the 1960s. It is very painful when Bobi Wine tries to compares
himself to the Mandelas, Patrice Lumumbas and Nyereres of yesterday. Ignorance is a very traitorous and deadly disease and it is the remaining tool of the slave master.
Obviously it was wrong for African leaders like Gadhafi, Mobutu and a handful of others to turn the national mineral wealth into personal fortunes. In Uganda I see our beloved President Museveni has nationalized the country’s mineral wealth as per the provisions of the Oil laws that were enacted by the 9th Parliament, and as per the contents of the Minerals and Mining Bill, 2019 in process. Such legislation and the stability in Uganda makes it very difficult for those interested in the minerals to have them on their terms. How can a sane and informed leader conclude that the two situations, – that in Libya by then and the one in Uganda now, are the same and require a similar political prescription?
Bobi Wine has released so many videos and audios and going by the biblical teaching in Luke 6:45 which states that “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks,” I am tempted to conclude that Bobi Wine is either traitorous or deceptive to the African cause and struggle to end the modern day economic enslavement which struggle starts by ending the current mineral wealth robbery. It is not possible to be both good and evil at the same time, to the same people without being deceptive. Beneath Bobi Wine’s constant rhetoric is grave ignorance and the dangerous lack of comprehension of the possible outcomes of his petty prescription of an uprising after the 2021 elections. It is therefore our constitutional duty to resist him and his maneuvers in line with the provisions of our constitution.
Ending the current robbery of Africa’s minerals does not mean stopping to share the abundant resources in Africa with the rest of the world. It is a call for negotiated transactions mutually beneficial to both Africans and the rest of the world. It is just a call for fair play in a civilized setting.
WASIKE STEPHEN MUGENI
Former Presidential Advisor and ex-MP of Samia-Bugwe North. Busia.
