CHRIS NKWASIBWE ON YOUTH AND TRANSFORMATION
30th March 2012
Nkozi University
Uganda stands at cross roads in its quest for good
governance. The increased narrowing of political space by the state, seen in
the offing of unconstitutional legislations like the public order management
bill, among others. This only affirms
that while Uganda has taken four steps towards democratization of the state by
strengthening the rule of law through constitutionalism, she has taken six
steps back in the same direction. Uganda is now characterized as a
neo-patrimonial state, and one of the most fragile in Africa.
Research has further shown that the government of Uganda has
increasingly become unresponsive and insensitive to citizens concerns and
amusingly citizens are taking a more passive than active role in deciding on
the issues of their governance. It is even more disturbing and appalling that the largest number of this passive
citizenry are youths who form the largest numbers in all Uganda’s political and
economic spaces and represent the future
of our country.
It is no longer debatable that Uganda’s demographic reality
of 65% youth population means young people must be at the centre of
consolidating or completely dismantling Uganda’s democratic gains towards or
away from sustainable development. To assert this even deeper, Uganda 9th
parliament is largely youthful, a testimony to the fact that young people are
no longer tomorrow’s leaders but today’s.
While this new young breed of leaders emerges onto Uganda’s
political and economic scene, the low levels of civic consciousness in this
group have had a spillover effect into the country’s key governance
institutions like the legislature resulting into more reactive than responsive
debate for legislation, extreme polarization and intolerance for dissenting and
diverging views, increasing disregard for constitutionalism resulting into
governance crisis in Uganda at hand.
The broader and most significant context of this challenge
is the death of idealism and ideology in Uganda’s politics which have been
replaced by individualism which is detrimental to the growth of democracy.
It is important to appreciate that despite the existence of
more than 33registered political parties, many of these parties do not have a
political ideology of their own. It is for this reason that political parties
engage with narrow party issues as opposed to collective national issues, with
greater focus on individuals as opposed to ideology born out of idealism.
Instead, parties are seen to or seem to protect individual interest as opposed
to being grounded in ideology and what that translates into socio economically
and politically. The result of this is the Uganda we see today: A nation that is divided along individual
party lines, increased exclusion and intolerance for diversity, abuse of public
office and compromised socio service delivery in the sectors of health
infrastructure among others.
As Uganda passes through these trying moments it is
imperative that Ugandans must strengthen and contribute greatly towards the
Uganda they would love to see. It as in that regard therefore, that the
historic role of youth in engendering discourses and socio-political
transformation by nurturing a culture that promotes an interaction between
societies and ideas through research, debate, innovation and refining of
ideologies must be reawakened to address the evolving trends in Uganda’s
governance.
It is with such a background of need, urgency, desire,
concern and responsibility that a group of thirty youth from across several
universities sat at garuga and engaged in contemporary socio-economic issues
and reflect deeper to provide a viable solution on how to sustainably Uganda’s
challenges.
Guided by; diversity, inclusiveness youth leadership,
national unity, peace and tolerance freedom and human dignity, they came up
with and later adopted the document: the
Garuga declaration which on behalf of the hope initiative, I present to you
today.
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