The national economy continued to see a major slow down all through the year. One of the best signs of this was in the number of groups, usually reluctant to take a stand on anything political and public, deciding to stage strikes and demonstrations, from Kampala City traders to the wives of police officers. In October, the new hydroelectric power dam being built at Bujagali falls near Jinja which the government had promised for many years would finally solve Uganda’s electricity problems was commissioned.
On Friday night, December 14, came news that an outspoken Member of Parliament, Cerinah Nebanda, the Woman MP from Butaleja district, was dead. Just 24 and with no reports of an accident or recent ill-health, many Ugandans started wondering what might have killed Nebanda. Rumours started spreading that she mighthave been poisoned, while other speculation focused on her lover Adam Karungi, who disappeared shortly after her death became public. Her family and parliamentary colleagues, puzzled about this sudden death, approached a pathologist, Dr. Sylvestre Onzivua, to take samples from her body to South Africa for examination.
The biggest news development of the year continued to be about corruption. The corruption was so glaring that this time, even the western donor countries had finally had enough. Several of them announced they were suspending their aid (or what is politely termed “budget support”) until the funds to the Office of the Prime Minister were accounted for.
All through 2012, a controversial bill, still at its early stages, continued to galvanise Ugandans. This was the anti-homosexuality bill that was first proposed and sponsored in 2009 by a Member of Parliament called David Bahati.
The year 2012 marked the golden independence anniversary of Uganda, having attained full sovereign self-rule on October 9, 1962. It was a year dominated by media broadcasts and published special features highlighting the theme of “Uganda@50” as it was termed.
One of the most serious problems to persist and grow worse through the year was that of youth unemployment. The latest available figures put youth unemployment in Uganda at a staggering 83 percent, meaning an average of 83 out of every 100 able-bodied young people in Uganda was unemployed.
In August at the summer Olympic Games in London, Uganda and the world were treated to a most unexpected victory in the men’s marathon by the athlete Stephen Kiprotich. The last time Uganda won an Olympic title was 40 years earlier, in September 1972 at the Munich summer Olympic Games when John Akii-Bua won gold in a new world record time in the men’s 400 metres hurdles.
Even as domestic political and social issues dominated the year, across Uganda’s western border in the Democratic Republic of Congo events that impacted on Uganda were unfolding.
An ethnic Tutsi rebel group calling itself the March 23rd movement (M23) started making quiet noises in the first half of the year about their welfare in the Congolese army. That noise grew louder and in August the M23 started moving to take territory in the eastern DR Congo, eventually seizing the provincial town of Goma in November.
In 2012, the “Nodding Disease” afflicting children specifically in Acholi in northern Uganda made a lot of news. It was a strange condition and made many observers wonder why it should afflict only children in Acholi.
From most of the preceding analysis, all signs point to 2013 as going to be a very difficult year for most Ugandans or foreigners resident in Uganda. The projections for 2013 for most western economies is of continued recession and national bankruptcy for some like Spain, Italy and Greeceand very slow growth and recovery for others like Britain, Ireland and the United States.This means that Ugandans hoping to go to the West in search of “green pastures” are likely going to get disappointed once there, as even White Europeans themselves will see more stress and high unemployment.
