As I have said many times before, behind every problem is the problem of leadership: local, district, national, regional; religious, academic, intellectual, et cetera. Leadership at the national level in Uganda is less committed to development, transformation and progress of country and people, but more to power retention; not so much to use it to make a positive difference and change to benefit the greatest number of Ugandans as to benefit a small, ethnically oriented group of people.

They access everything – including opportunities – at the expense of everyone else – especially the poor and needy. I see the poor and needy further sinking into the abyss of poverty despite billions of shillings being poured in so-called programmes to conquer poverty. Since there is little difference I see after it has been several times announced that billions of shillings have been sent to the bottom of society by power, it is most likely that most of the money remains at the centre where it is meant to leave, not stay.

Therefore, failed projects due to deception and non-commitment to change (President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s trademark clarion call is “NO Change”) are having an accelerated rate on poverty generation. The combination of non-commitment to change and proliferating failure is reflected in the behaviour of the political leaders and functionaries of the regime in power, including blaming the poor and needy for their poverty. The political leaders cast themselves as the developers of the poor and needy whom they blame for not heeding their advice of how to get out of poverty.

As the political and bureaucratic elite continue to siphon off every coin for their own benefit and the benefit of those within their circle of influence, the blame game will proliferate even more with the passage of time. I don’t hesitate to evoke a failed education system, as a major explanation of mushrooming poverty. Our education system is a success story in producing a selfish elite that is so individualistic that expecting it to be holistic in thought and action would be overstretching it, or expecting too much from it.

A selfish, individualist political and bureaucratic elite cannot be genuinely people-oriented. It can only pretend to be pro-people when in reality its interests are anti-people. We need an education system that puts people as a whole first; not individuals educated to be selfish, individualistic and anti-people. If they work for themselves how can they genuinely work for the people or the community? If they serve themselves, how can they genuinely serve the public interest? Why won’t they be tempted to make policies and laws that erode the public interest but prop up and subserve their personal interests or those of a small group of people ethnically related to them?

One thing is true. The Busoga of “too much poverty” is characteristic of the Movement Era”. The Busoga of the distant past was next only to Buganda in prosperity. But we are talking of financial wealth. Busoga was financially rich. Today we know that Busoga is the wealthiest part of Uganda and, reportedly in the whole of East and Central Africa in terms gold – much richer than DRC.

If a national leadership is interested in freeing Busoga from poverty of all type, it should be strategising to transform Busoga to a new prosperity using its mineral wealth. But can we have a national leadership ready to work unselfishly to transform Busoga and, by extension, the whole of Uganda? We need God to guide us in identifying and developing such leadership towards 2050.

Both truth and lies are brutal. The truth is more brutal. But if we nurture truth, it can set us free, as Jesus, the greatest of the greatest of teachers said.

For God and My Country

• A Tell report / By Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula, a former professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences of the Makerere University, Uganda