Day 26 | Voices of Uganda

Elect a leader/s who will ensure proper monitoring and improvement of service delivery in the health sector.”

If you have been following this photo blogsite, or if you have taken time to go through many of the photos and their messages, you have then noticed that some themes or issues are recurrent – what we mean is, several people have spoken on the same problem. There are two things that you need to understand before this recurrence gets boring to you. First, is that the subjects are from different geographic areas of Uganda, and speak different languages. In fact, most of them are so poor that they have never traveled more than 50 miles from their villages. That they can speak of same issues without having contact with each other only underscores the prevalence of the problem. Second, is that the situation is real, true, and has been confirmed from community to community. Uganda is hurting, it’s people are truly suffering from the lack of basic health services.

When the Prime Minister, Apollo Nsibambi was involved in a chopper crash, he experienced this misery firsthand when he could not get access to a functional medical facility in the nearest place from the crash site. He was taken to some health center, where there was not a single private ward. Instead, he was taken to a room near the maternity ward, and across that room was a pit latrine only a few feet away, unleashing an un comforting stench. He experienced this only for a while, but our people have experienced these situations their life times.

Uganda needs a leadership that puts the needs of the people first. Unfortunately, this has not happened in a long long long time….

Makamazibu

A sane leader cares for his people, regardless of their political affiliations. Unfortunately, in this 21st century politicians still talk of things like, “you are suffering because you voted wrongly”, yet all citizens contribute through a heavy tax regime. It’s important for Ugandans to understand that social services are not a favour, but a right. Making roads, providing healthcare, proper education, security, etc. are things that we have a right to demand regardless of who we vote for. They’re our right and we should demand for them! No one should intimidate us in any way! Like the government demands for taxes from us and so we should radically demand for quality social services. Taxes are the form we contribute to social services financing, and therefore the resources belong to us, not to any politician. We hire them to serve us, not to exploit us. Let’s demand for our fundamental rights!