National School Exams are here once again. I know you will be anxious for your kids to do well. But please remember. Amongst the kids who will be sitting exams there is an artist, who will not need to understand Math.

In the last two years, COVID-19 pandemic, left the world in utter misery. However, not all was lost because there were some bright spots. For example, Kenya conducted its election peacefully and had a smooth transition of power, a rare feat in Africa. Brazil’s by-elections, won by ex-President Lula, occurred without the anticipated violence by former President Bolsonaro’s supporters. Similarly, the USA has just concluded its mid-term election without the anticipated overwhelming victory or violence by ex-President Trump’s far-right election denialists. 

Kenyan government has published partial accounts of a controversial railway contract signed with China in 2014. A contract whose high rates has engulfed Kenya in huge debts.

Built at the huge cost of $4.7 billion the railway line (known as the Standard Gauge Railway) is marred by corruption scandals and alleged criminality.

The invisible new “Cold War” is imbedded in development policies, plans and implementation. African scholars and opinion makers spend a great deal of time and energy debating, comparing, contrasting, and critiquing the Asia and Pacific development model led by China and the Western model led by the USA. The debate is healthy. But what ultimately matters are the value-added policies, programs, investment portfolios and infrastructure. A disconnected Africa cannot develop fast.

Colonialism by a different name is still the same. Having been forced to cede their colonial territories, colonialists and emerging imperialists designed new, sophisticated, and seemingly pro-African development, pro-free market, pro-human rights protocols, and pro-modernization instruments that bolstered the continued extraction and rent-seeking of financial and natural resources from Africa.

France and the national elites which it encouraged and created, still dominate Francophone Africa. Anglophone Africa is dominated by the United Kingdom and the domestic elites it trained, educated, and deployed. 

I commend the provocative proposal by Jonathan Powers and others for that a massive aid will be the solution to Africa’s problems. However, I am afraid to dispute that idea that a massive Western aid program will transform structural and institutional poverty and technological backwardness in this otherwise promising continent populated by the youngest population on the planet.

Surely, wouldn’t a massive infusion of aid into Africa be pouring money down a rat hole? Isn't this the mistake that was made in the past–enormous generosity by the rich countries only to see it wasted on misconceived projects, bad economic management, or siphoned away into war and corruption, as is evident in Zimbabwe, Congo, and Somalia right now?

That every country has the right to celebrate its independent day is incontestable. But what is contestable is what the government does during the celebration relative to its responsibilities for serving all citizens equitably. On October 9^th, this year, Uganda celebrated its  60^th year of independence with pomp and circumstance. One thing struck me among all that happened at the Kololo Hill celebration in Kampala. It was the national Air Force flyover.