CORRUPTION: WHY UGANDAN LOOTERS’ WEALTH IS FUTILE
Published on July 6, 2011 by rugyendo ·
Recently, I had a long argument about corruption in Uganda with Nina Mbabazi on her facebook wall. Nina is the high-spirited daughter to Premier John Patrick Amama Mbabazi.
That debate drew in lots of commentators. And as expected, the focus centered on the old stories of public servants who stash billions of shillings under their beds for fear of being detected if they banked it, a maid who stole half a billion shillings from a mountain of cash belonging their masters, the mysterious high rise buildings gracing the Kampala skyline, the infamous CHOGM scandal and of course Uganda’s continued abysmal score on the world’s corruption index.
But why am I concerned writing about this again? The reason is that I have since noticed that ill-gotten wealth is futile. Ask Sani Abacha. Ask Charles Taylor. Ask the Mobutu family. You can also ask Hosini Moubarak, Ben Ali, Saddam Hussein-the list is big. Neither they nor their offspring is sleeping nicely. Their ill-wealth haunts them.
But if you look at the Mandelas, the Nyereres, the Gandhis and others in their category, you will discover that their kin are sleeping soundly and have more iconic statuses. The last time I traveled to Mandela’s Family Museum in Soweto, a place frequented by paying tourists, you get the impression that for generations, every member of the Mandela family will be revered for generations.
In Uganda, those who are sleeping on piles of stolen money and ill wealth, those who are stealing our medicines and cutting corners at the workplace in order to get rich quick and those who sacrifice our children for riches, are all not sleeping soundly. This is called ‘The Futility of Wealth,’ a term coined by Pope Benedict XVI in April, 2010. While I watched him address a synod of Catholic Bishops at the Vatican, he decried the loss of human values in pursuit of ‘career and wealth,’ which he warned resulted in futility.
The good old Pope made me take a deep thinking about the evil that is eating the core of our society in Uganda and our hypocrisy in blaming others when we are not any better. So, I have been asking myself; what causes corruption? Who is corrupt? What is the remedy? Is it the old politicians in the government that are corrupt? Are we, the young generation, clean from corruption? Is it lack of institutions to fight corruption in our society? Where is the problem?
Nina’s wall had commentators condemning politicians
as a corrupt lot mostly in the government and that their remedy is to lock them up, after all, ‘the Fish rots from the head.’ I disagree. Instead, I found the Pope’s message ably resonating with our hopeless situation in Uganda, which is that personal integrity, a by-product of living a good life, is missing from our society. We value people too much with what is in their pockets and not what is in their hearts. That is why we don’t value professors, thinkers and clean Ugandans because they are ‘poor’ people. But that’s the message El Papa was relaying when he said that ”Those who think that the concrete things we can touch are the surest
reality, are deceiving themselves.”
Corruption is a product of greed and lust. In our society, these are not the monopoly of old politicians in the government. Whenever I turn
around in every corner, I see greed and lust, just that. That’s why a young man who has finished his college degree and gotten into
employment wants to be a billionaire overnight. He is always cutting corners at the workplace because he wants to drive the best car in the industry, wants to dress in the most expensive attire available, live in a posh apartment, all that in one year. And what happens? They will take to borrow from the banks and money lenders. And since the salary cannot repay the loan and maintain a roller-coaster lifestyle, they will have to dip their hands in the company’s coffers.
as a corrupt lot mostly in the government and that their remedy is to lock them up, after all, ‘the Fish rots from the head.’ I disagree. Instead, I found the Pope’s message ably resonating with our hopeless situation in Uganda, which is that personal integrity, a by-product of living a good life, is missing from our society. We value people too much with what is in their pockets and not what is in their hearts. That is why we don’t value professors, thinkers and clean Ugandans because they are ‘poor’ people. But that’s the message El Papa was relaying when he said that ”Those who think that the concrete things we can touch are the surest
reality, are deceiving themselves.”
Corruption is a product of greed and lust. In our society, these are not the monopoly of old politicians in the government. Whenever I turn
around in every corner, I see greed and lust, just that. That’s why a young man who has finished his college degree and gotten into
employment wants to be a billionaire overnight. He is always cutting corners at the workplace because he wants to drive the best car in the industry, wants to dress in the most expensive attire available, live in a posh apartment, all that in one year. And what happens? They will take to borrow from the banks and money lenders. And since the salary cannot repay the loan and maintain a roller-coaster lifestyle, they will have to dip their hands in the company’s coffers.
Our societal values also encourage us to be corrupt. However much
wisdom you will posses in your head, no one shall ever respect you if
you don’t have wealth. We are a society that worships wealth and wealthy people. That’s why the lowest common denominator for our women’s wants in their male partners is financial stability. The rest are secondary.
wisdom you will posses in your head, no one shall ever respect you if
you don’t have wealth. We are a society that worships wealth and wealthy people. That’s why the lowest common denominator for our women’s wants in their male partners is financial stability. The rest are secondary.
The richest men and women in our society will always sit on the highest
table, no matter how they got their wealth. We are a society that gives a
rousing welcome to people who come home after serving a jail term for
corruption in the US. We are a society that appoints them ministers and presidential advisers. A young man who dates the biggest number of beautiful women is envied by his peers and is the Hero of his Generation, yet this is the lowest ebb of his morals. A young lady will be envied by her peers if she manages to date the biggest number of rich men around, just for money. As Erich Fromm, a famous German-American Jewish philosopher once said; ‘Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts a person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.’
table, no matter how they got their wealth. We are a society that gives a
rousing welcome to people who come home after serving a jail term for
corruption in the US. We are a society that appoints them ministers and presidential advisers. A young man who dates the biggest number of beautiful women is envied by his peers and is the Hero of his Generation, yet this is the lowest ebb of his morals. A young lady will be envied by her peers if she manages to date the biggest number of rich men around, just for money. As Erich Fromm, a famous German-American Jewish philosopher once said; ‘Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts a person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.’
Even Jesus Christ of Nazareth gave us an analogy of a stupid young man who pursued wealth but never got satisfaction. That’s why he came to Jesus and asked him what he could do in order to inherit the kingdom of God. This stupid young man lost out and buried his name when Jesus asked him to sell his property and follow him. Jesus had seen the hollow in this young man’s soul that Riches were not filling. Jesus wanted this man to strengthen his soul by stopping to worry about his wealth. The young man killed his name and up to now no one knows his name. Instead those whose names are remembered and written in golden letters are the likes of St. Peter and St. James who abandoned their fishing nets and followed Jesus.
The way I see it, it is too late to salvage our generation. We are all
entangled in a web of yarning corruption by our societal values, by our
education and by inclination. If we want to save our society, we have to start off with our children. Let us teach them that success is not about how much money you make. Success in life should be seen through the integrity we possess, the care and respect we give to others, the loving we apportion to our jobs, etc. If you rob a nation’s resources, drugs, money meant for infrastructure, you don’t have integrity because, you are a liar and you have a corrupted soul and heart. If you pursue men and women because they are rich, then you have tagged your soul on money and you are corrupt without any sense of self respect. And if you have no self respect, you can never respect your employer, your colleagues and even the whole society you live in. Wealth is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who madly pursues it, and enlivens the life of who earns it justly.
The way I see it, it is too late to salvage our generation. We are all
entangled in a web of yarning corruption by our societal values, by our
education and by inclination. If we want to save our society, we have to start off with our children. Let us teach them that success is not about how much money you make. Success in life should be seen through the integrity we possess, the care and respect we give to others, the loving we apportion to our jobs, etc. If you rob a nation’s resources, drugs, money meant for infrastructure, you don’t have integrity because, you are a liar and you have a corrupted soul and heart. If you pursue men and women because they are rich, then you have tagged your soul on money and you are corrupt without any sense of self respect. And if you have no self respect, you can never respect your employer, your colleagues and even the whole society you live in. Wealth is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who madly pursues it, and enlivens the life of who earns it justly.
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