They are not only telling lies — because they need Museveni more than Uganda does — but are also pursuing something else. Like some coy and exploitative mistress.
Whether it is the World Bank, the American embassy, European Union, GIZ, Unesco or other, whenever they threaten Museveni, the most they are doing is using ‘Museveni’s vulnerability’— and Ugandans’ as ping-pongs — to squeeze juice from their old lover, sweet Yoweri Museveni.
If it is Museveni threatening them either, don’t believe him, too. It is mister and mistress having a misunderstanding (over which estate belongs to the children or the main wife). But once darkness descends, they will squeeze into the back room, and most likely, retire on the same bed. (I will not say more).
Rule of the thumb number two: whichever international agency, embassy, environmental conservation groups or other (again, from the EU, World Bank, IMF, Unesco, etcetera), they do not care about any human rights, environmental rights, or anyone’s well-being on the African continent. Like that sneaky mistress, they don’t care about the main wife or the children of the main wife.
I repeat, they do not. All they care about is the economic interests of the countries from which they come. What these international groups have really mastered — and they have spent quite time and a fortune making themselves believable — is how to package themselves, rhetorically, aesthetically, and pragmatically. You have actually seen them spending money on the continent.
Sums that look big, but are actually miniscule compared to what they take out — through their corporations. Just as mistress gifting her old lover to smoothen her way into his estate. Since the World Bank is present across the entire continent, let me demonstrate how the cartel works.
In a recent study published in New Political Economy, between 1960 and 2018, Europe and North America stole $152 trillion from the global South (meaning Africa). To understand the enormity of this sum, consider that the American economy is $26 trillion.
In simple speak, there would be six United States of America in Africa. But all these have been stolen by, among other mistresses, the World Bank. Note that those are sums stolen officially — under what is termed “unequal exchange.”
But then consider that which is simply stolen say in the DRC’s innumerable minerals, Nigerien uranium, South Sudan’s oil, or $500 billion France steals from West Africa annually. Consider the oil being stolen from Libya after the country was bombed, or as Prof Abdi Ismail Samatar told us, the European pirates stealing Somalia’s marine resources (fishing in Somali waters, but at the same time, dumping garbage in Somali waters). Like all dangerous mistresses.
WORLD BANK’S WITCHCRAFT
In the ongoing standoff between Museveni and the World Bank (threatening to) withdrawing funding for crucial projects in Kampala (akin to withholding leg, Mama Night style), there has been interest in scrutinizing the projects World Bank has funded over the previous years.
There is a long list of them on the World Bank website. There are so many of them, more than 250 projects, since Museveni became president. They touch every aspect of our lives: education, electrification, civil service reform, poverty alleviation, economic recovery, agricultural reform, telecommunication, women empowerment, etcetera. Every aspect.
Sadly, as every Ugandan attests, averaging to about $300m – $350m annually (a generous estimate), our condition — in all those things funded/supported — has only got worse over the years. Why? Because this money is not only small, but most of it is stolen by the political, technical and civil society elite. This realty of theft and often half-done projects is fully appreciated by the World Bank.
But they don’t care because this is the design of the entire system. If mister, and his rabid surrogates and hangers-on are on full stomachs, then the wananchi, can go hang themselves.
Rule of the thumb three: It is important to understand that there is no distinction between World Bank, IMF, Unesco, Usaid, EU or GIZ on the one hand, and Coca-Cola, Total, Heritage Oil, Glencore Plc, Dan Gertler International, Barclays Bank, ABSA, MTN or Monsanto on the other. These are one and the same.
They come from the same place, have the same interests and, more importantly, work together. (But to their credit, they have mastered the art of disguise. You will never find them openly working together, say sharing an office. In fact, sometimes, they even appear antagonistic. But understand that the script is the same, good old colonialism was also outsourced through corporations).
COY MATRIX
You have to begin from the understanding that it was the World Bank and IMF that killed progressive, self-sustaining institutions across Africa to create way for their corporations. As political economist Jörg Wiegratz and more recently Prof Edward Suruma told us, they coerced figures that our parastatals weren’t working.
Europe and North America are so mineral-poor but have cultivated a mineral-reliant lifestyle that they cannot live without Africa. They will kill not to be kicked out of Africa. Note that 70 per cent of items used and consumed in Europe and North America come from the rest of the world.
To ensure continued flow of cheap and free things, their WB and IMF killed African progressive institutions and policies. (Yes, with the continued help of folks such as Museveni, who they installed and keep on the leash threatened with removal or murder). That mistress ever threatening to obliterate your family.
Their commercial banks came marching in — and according to The Economist, these European commercial banks in Africa “are the most profitable in the world while being the least efficient.”
They created room for their telecommunication companies, their coffee exporters (10 of the major exporters are all from Europe), gold dealers, etc. Ever wondered why all of us, including President Museveni, wear second-hand clothes from downtown Owino?
The man’s dangerous mistresses killed our industries. In fact, in other parts of the continent, they are openly paying bribes and funding insurrection. Glencore Plc. admitted recently in a British court, that they have been bribing and funding insurrection in DRC and South Sudan so as to advantage themselves.
Then, you see them stereotyping us mbu they are supporting industrialisation, electrification, women empowerment, financial literacy, while as at the same time their banks, coffee exporters, telecoms, are just looting for sport. It is a matrix.
Dear reader, the point I am making is that this Museveni and the World Bank need each other more than we need them as a country. We are the ping-pongs in a game of two exploitative lovers.
World Bank’s withdrawal of leg has nothing to do with us — nothing to do with LGBTQ either — but these two lovers are wrangling, publicly, dramatically. Under the cover of darkness, they are negotiating what more and how to take it from us without us knowing.
yusufkajura@gmail.com
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University
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