Kampala, Uganda 2

12 September, 2024

My Thoughts About Uganda

Of all the African countries I have visited, Uganda has emerged at the very top of the favourability rankings. On this trip I did not stay long enough in Rwanda to form a substantive view on the place. What I did see in Rwanda though, was not the warm conviviality that greeted me in Uganda. Cool calm polite efficiency could easily be superficial.

Uganda is warm, friendly and genuine, in my experience, and I find those whom I have met to be articulate and well informed, regardless of their status or station in life. And they are not conceited. Also, they are understated, as exemplified by their top notch tourism industry that hardly ever makes the headlines and usually gets featured only in passing in popular tourism literature.

At 69% Nigeria's adult literacy rate is significantly lower than Uganda’s 80.59%. In Nigeria we are intelligent too, but our intelligence seems not always to be directed collectively towards the common good. Uganda is not perfect by any reckoning either, nowhere is. But it has clean streets, clean marketplaces, which speaks about the people and their attitudes. Things are better regulated and more tightly controlled than in Nigeria. In Uganda it is less likely that I would get food poisoning from drinking bottled water that I had bought on the street, as I did when I visited Kano, Nigeria, earlier this year and ended up sick and in a hospital bed.

Kampala, Uganda, is a genuinely pleasant city to be in. I prefer Kampala to Nairobi, Kenya, for example, for its authenticity, and the perceptible sense of self-assuredness and pride in its own identity. I think Nairobi (and Kenya in general) tries too hard to please foreign tourists. Kampala does no such thing, and has the self confidence to just be itself.

While political leaders across the continent can be rightly accused of leadership failure, and I am no lover of autocratic rule, credit must be accorded where it is due. The current political leadership in Uganda are largely responsible for the stability that makes this country such an attractive place. The proof of this is in the relatively large number of foreign nationals who come here to settle. This year foreign direct investments in Uganda have increased to 3.01 billion dollars, up from 2.8 billion dollars in 2023.

Postscript: I had started writing this before my time ran out and I had to start making my way to the airport. I concluded it after I had arrived back this morning. Cheers.— in Kampala, Uganda.

Uganda’s Independence Monument at Nile Avenue in Kampala

At the Namugongo Martyrs' Shrine

At the shore of Lake Victoria at Entebbe.The landscapes in and around Kampala are an interesting combination of hills and extensive papyrus swamps, wetlands. In that sense it is quite unique. Uganda, although landlocked, has a maritime feel nonetheless, with sea breezes from Lake Victoria and lakefront views in Entebbe and Kampala to rival any beachfront area anywhere in the world, even if calmer, more natural, and less touristy. I liked it a lot.  

Saint Paul's Cathedral Namirembe, commonly and locally referred to as Namirembe Cathedral, is the oldest Anglican cathedral in Uganda