TENFOLD GROWTH AGENDA! Patriotism, Discipline Key to Uganda’s Economic Transformation
Asiimwe Stephen
By Stephen Asiimwe
Since 2005, the NRM government has rolled out patriotism programmes throughout the country, and today, every organisation or institution has a patriotic club or association training Ugandans about their country.
Patriotism is about one’s ancestry or heritage. Our heritage is our beloved country, which is now 64 years past colonial rule. Therefore, in countries where citizens embrace patriotism, there is a sense of collegiality and belonging to their country. They endeavour to promote common interests. For example, during national cleaning days, groups of citizens with a common bond, whether they are within or outside the country, deeply care for one another and commit to doing better in their communities. As provided for in our Constitution under the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, citizens have a duty to be patriotic.
The developed world did not begin by manufacturing aircraft to end household poverty. It began with land and improving agriculture through good genetics, better feeds and good farm management practices. Our President, Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, has emphasised this since the 1996 election campaigns. Many of our farmers have improved their farming methods, which have greatly contributed to the growth of our economy.
Discipline means doing the right thing even when no one is watching. It means respecting the rules even when breaking them would be easier. It is choosing tomorrow’s prosperity over today’s convenience. A nation cannot develop if its people and institutions lack discipline.
Therefore, the goal of making Uganda a US$500 billion economy by 2040 is possible if our people are patriotic and disciplined. We can begin by improving agro-industrialisation, tourism, commercialising mining and ICT. However, to achieve all this, we need cadreship in all sectors of the economy and the State.
When you follow what is happening in our districts, you find cases of civil servants “eating” an entire toilet, road, school, bridge or hospital. All these are enablers of economic growth. Therefore, we should all be committed to doing better and being patriotic to Uganda.
Most of our leaders have written about the story of Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew and have even recommended that our cadres read his book, From Third World to First. The story of Singapore is not one of luck. It is a clinical study in the transformative power of patriotism and discipline.
For a country like Uganda, which shares a colonial history dating back to the 1960s, one may wonder why some countries continue to be among the world’s poorest nations while Singapore emerged from a resource-poor swamp to become a global financial titan. We often find ourselves mired in a cycle of “what could have been”.
The missing ingredient is neither talent nor resources. It is unwavering discipline and the ability to place the collective future above individual interests. Greedy individuals with an insatiable appetite to steal everything stand in the way of progress.
Discipline and patriotism are not merely high-level policies; they begin with the “small things”. When one observes daily life in Uganda, one sees a microcosm of our national psyche and character. The chaos involving matatus, boda-bodas and, recently, Sino trucks is more than a traffic “nuisance”; it is a vivid representation of a “me first” mindset.
A nation cannot build a First World economy with Third World road manners. If we cannot respect a simple red light or lane marking, how can we expect to respect the sanctity of a public contract or the national budget?
The former President of the United Republic of Tanzania, J.K. Nyerere, once said, “When private interests override public interest, society dies.”
This absence of patriotism breeds a hazardous mindset in which every citizen feels compelled to break the rules simply to survive. As Lee Kuan Yew understood, transforming a nation begins with reshaping the mindset of its people and instilling the belief that order is a foundation of progress.
Recently, the government implemented a trade order, yet people had been operating in the middle of the road. Imagine the situation with “a forest” of leaders in our cities and districts. Today, there is sanity in most towns. We must continue to support all these initiatives to build a better Uganda.
Our country is endowed with natural resources, and soon we shall have our “pearl sweet oil”. What we need is to prepare the population and strategically train our cadres to understand our vision and position in the region and Africa.
Ambition is healthy. Plato feared that fiction could seduce society away from the truth, while Aristotle saw imagination as capable of revealing what is possible. We must remain grounded in practical realities and have patriotic citizens to push our agenda forward.
According to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, we are the Pearl of Africa. Singapore was expelled from the Malaysian Federation in 1965 with no hinterland, no resources and no obvious reason to survive as an independent state. Yet, within a generation, it became Southeast Asia’s reference point. Growth in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand accelerated in Singapore’s shadow.
Therefore, discipline and patriotism should be emphasised.
Let us look at the UPDF, which has grown from a ragtag force into a regional force and now a pan-African force on the continent. We must continue to build systems where efficiency is the norm.
Discipline is often painful; it demands the courage to say “no” to immediate gratification for the sake of the common good.
As Kwame Nkrumah said, “Backward never, forward ever!”
The writer is a Pan-Africanist.
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