THE NSSF STRUGGLE POINTS TO A FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM

All hell broke loose earlier this week, when it was reported that finance minister Matia Kasaija had said he would advise President Yoweri Museveni not to assent to the NSSF Amendment Bill in its current form.

Kasaija said the mid- term access close would disrupt the Fund’s operations and do more harm than good.

The mid-term access clause provides that people who have attained 45 years or saved for 10 years will qualify to withdraw up to 20 percent of their savings.

The minister said the provision would cost the fund sh2.9 trillion but the critics argue that is a wrong calculation of a cost to the fund as only about 300,000 will be eligible.

"Officials familiar with the discussion say they are not averse to mid-term access but the way it is proposed in the current bill. The original intention as they understood it, was that the eligible people would be savers who had made 45 years and saved for more than 10 years, which would have kept the pool of beneficiaries small and manageable....

As it is now even savers under the age of 45 but who have saved for 10 years are eligible ballooning the numbers out of control.

Pushed to the wall NSSF can mobilise the funds required, but at what cost?

They could on one hand, sell off some assets to meet the bill. But given that almost three quarters of their assets are Treasury Bonds, selling them would come at discount – a loss, as it is with all bonds sold before they have matured.

Or they could borrow the money, so that they leave their asset base intact.

In both cases it is very likely

it would cost all members the double digit interest we have enjoyed over the last seven or so years.

As it is now if you are an NSSF member and you never saved another cent with the Fund, your savings would double every seven years. That stops, if the NSSF now stops being able to pay above 10 percent interest as has been the practice.

But even for the members who qualify and take advantage of the mid-term access the reduction in their final package will be more than 20 percent, assuming they keep saving till retirement.

For many members they would never have saved these sums on their own, not only because their employer doubles their contribution but also because the vast majority of do not have the discipline to keep their hands off the money once they have saved it.

The situation is so bad that NSSF reports that they have found that eight in every ten retirees fall into poverty barely two years after receiving their lump sum. It is often not for lack of energy to follow up projects but because they don’t know what to do with the huge sums they receive.

If it was up to me I would change NSSF into a pension fund – with people getting monthly payments till death rather than the lump sum on retirement. This would be at the risk of being run out of this town. We all want our lump sums.

What is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular.

The minister is right to ask that the president stay assenting of the bill until there issue of who is eligible for the medium term access is clarified.

Just a thought, what if we amended the act to allow a portion of our savings to be ring fenced for midterm access. In that way NSSF can invest those monies differently, from the larger pool of long term savings, which would allow for their release when a member reaches 45 and has saved for 10 years without disrupting the Fund’s operations?

BOOK: TO BE SHREWD WITHOUT BEING A SHREW

 AUTHOR: PAULINE MANIRAGUHA BANGIRANA

PP 162    COST: 60,000

Available at all major bookshops

 

Superintendent of Police Pauline Bangirana’s memoirs of have life are a useful addition to the historical record of Uganda.

She was among the first cohort of ten female police officers recruited to the Uganda Police at the tail end of colonial rule. She was at the forefront of improving conditions for women in the force. Women in the force should be grateful to her for sticking to her guns and refusing to resign when she got pregnant with her first son. The police standing orders to did not allow, for women officers getting pregnant, staying on the force when pregnant or maternity leave.

It is clear throughout the book that while being a woman made her stand out, it also worked against her in a force, which was regularly in a state of flux but also still hangover from an institionalised sexism, carried over from the initial Uganda Armed Constabulary, down to the initial design of the women’s uniform.

"It is a familiar script for the trailblazing women of her generation. She got into school through the foresight of an older relative, distinguished herself despite the barriers thrown up against her at every corner and pushed her luck as far as meagre resources and the goodwill of relatives and strangers could carry her....

She is unique though, because as an officer of the peace, especially as a detective in the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), she had a privileged vantage point to observe the goings on of all independent Uganda governments. While most readable, personal accounts in recent years have been of National Resistance Movement (NRM) types in the evening of their lives, Bangirana’s story is a breath of fresh air, told by a public servant – an insider, whose perspective has straddled the breadth and width of independent Uganda.

The start-stop-start again nature of her career – she was retired in the 1970s and again in the 1990s, is an analogy for Uganda’s up and downs over the almost 35 years she served in the force. Her life also maps the breakdown in societal values and the eventual pull back from the abyss of despair that came in 1986. Through it all she reveals how people acting selfishly or selflessly cause the many small ripples that change society for better.

"For students of history her recollection of events surrounding, the death of Kabaka Mutesa II, the attempted assassinations of Milton Obote, the coups of 1971 and 1985, the deaths of Archbishop Janan Luwum and more recently Dr Andrew Kayiira and many other anecdotes make for scintillating reading...

Useful too is her crash course in criminal law, necessary in her narration of how she helped update the training manuals of the police in 1969. It is telling that many of the laws on our books for which we are criicised by human rights activists are carryovers from the colonial time.

Her career during which she was a regular police officer, a detective, barracks commandant and OC Central police station compressed in 162 pages is written in a choppy, frantic style as if she has a story to tell and cannot wait to get it out. It is not a tell all account, given the sensitiveness of many of the subjects she tackles, but it is still a gripping account of a time fast fading from our collective memory. The book – part thriller, part testimonial, is worth its weight in gold for the surprising revelations of many key turns in history.

Bangirana’s loyalty to the force is evident at every turn, despite the number of setbacks she suffered. Her discipline and faith in God carried her through some real soul searching moments. The book comes to a startling end that while unfortunate does, not diminish from the stature of the woman who has now retired to a less dramatic life in Ibanda, western Uganda.

A must read for every one and anyone trying to work out why Uganda is the way it is today. Or for anyone looking for a fun read.

 

MTN SHRUGS OFF COVID, POINTS TO THE FUTURE

Mobile telephone operator MTN seems to have shrugged off the worst of the covid-19 economic slowdown, even emerging stronger and maybe pointing to future trends in the economy.

Last week parent company MTN released consolidated results for the group, which boasts 280 million subscribers, mostly on the continent. From those we were able to glean a few things about their Ugandan unit.

"MTN Uganda’s revenues were up 24 percent to about sh2.05trillion in 2020 from sh1.6trillion the previous year. This growth was driven mainly by a 45 percent rise in data revenues, understandable given the increased data usage during last year’s lockdown. Data revenues were up to sh370b last from sh254 in 2019....

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) crossed the trillion-shilling mark for the first time in MTN Uganda’s history, jumping 31 percent from the previous year’s sh775b.

I converted all the figures from South African Rand – using sh246 to the rand, so there maybe some variances to actual figures on the ground.

All this against the background that the company’s subscriber base grew to 14.2 million from 12.6 million in 2019.

As the leading player in the telecoms sector MTN serves as a bellwether of what’s to come.

While voice revenues went up by about four percent, data and fintech revenues shot up to 45 percent and 27 percent respectively. The trend, of low voice revenue growth and high data and fintech revenue growth has become established over the last five or so years.

Thanks to the covid lock down last year this trend can be expected to accelerate. Data subscribers grew 34.8 percent to 4.6 million.

The trajectory of Kenyan telecom operator Safaricom, the market leader in that market, could serve as a useful indicator of things to come for MTN and the industry in general.

As reported in Safaricom’s last annual report voice revenues plummeted to 34.5 percent last year from 42.5 percent in 2017. Going the other way Mpesa (mobile money) and data revenues showed growth of 6.6 and 1.8 percentage points respectively.

One can expect the same trend in our telecom industry looking down the years, that voice revenues will continue to slide while data and fintech revenues rise. Interestingly too, Safaricom over the years has seen reduction in withdrawals from mobile money accounts as people to transact with businesses directly rather than withdraw the physical cash...

Looking to Safaricom’s example accelerating the trend will depend on the spread of smart phones and reduction in data prices, add to that the increased data usage that persists after the covid lock down.

 Developments in the sector are moving very fast that it would take a brave man to try and project in to the future what will happen in 10- or 20-years leave alone next year.

I remember just before the lock down marveling at a niece who had a phone with a capacity of 32GB, I wondered what she needed all the space for. “Movies,” was her nonchalant response, with a look as if to ask, “Where have you been?”. With the lockdown I promptly burst my 5GB a month data requirements many times over and I went, Oh Okay!

I remember almost 20 year ago one telecom official saying it was not financially feasible to have lower denominations of airtime cards than the five thousand shilling one they had just released. Today you can buy as little as 100 shillings of airtime.

I remember even further back in my life time, that my first desk top computer was an IBM with a CPU with a capacity of 250 MB! It boggles the mind.

But former Safaricom boss Bobby Collymore gave us an idea of things to come. In an interview shortly after he took over the reins at Safaricom in 2010 he predicted that voice will one day be an add-on service given free to subscribers. That the action would be in data and other value added services – Mpesa had not yet taken off.

I could have laughed him out of town at the time, when telcos were heavily invested in delivering voice, were trying to promote texting and mobile internet was still a novelty.

And the scary thing is we haven’t even begun to tap the full potential of data services on our phones. Keep this for posterity.

 

WHAT CAN WE SAY ABOUT JOHN POMBE MAGUFULI

Former President John Pombe Magufuli breathed his last on Wednesday evening.

His death was an exclamation mark on the last few days, when he had been uncharacteristically out of the public eye. Speculation had been rife that he had contracted Covid-19 and, depending on who you listened to, he was already comatose, shuttling frenetically between Tanzania, Kenya and India to save his life or dead altogether.

The official version is that he died of cardiac arrest.

"In death as in life the man known as the bulldozer –  lovingly or with dread, sharply divided opinion....

Little known is that after his A-level he trained as a science teacher, before he upgraded to a degree and eventually earning in doctorate in chemistry in 2009.

He jumped into politics in 1995 and before he ascended to the presidency he served as transport and works minister, where he earned the moniker “The bulldozer”. His emphasis on infrastructure development as president was obviously influenced by his work in the ministry. Magufuli is credited with pushing projects such as the development of the Standard Gauge Railway, expansion of the Dar es Salaam port, the liquefied natural gas plant among others. His place in Uganda’s history is cemented if only because he was keen that the Hoima-Tanga oil pipeline get off the ground quickly. He openly expressed impatience with Ugandan bureaucracy, whose lackadaisical attitude he could not wrap his mind around, as he had almost absolute power to implement projects in his own country.

His urgency to develop Tanzania’s infrastructure however, contradicted his perceived skepticism about the East African Community, which while he signed up to all the protocols, his government actively discouraged exports from Kenya and Uganda and made working in Tanzania hostile for workers from the region, despite efforts to free the movement of labour around the EAC.

The last part was an understandable reaction from a country, which many years ago under Julius Nyerere took the step to have all their education carried out in Kiswahili. This has hobbled their workforce, making them uncompetitive against their English speaking counterparts in the region. This policy, while it ringfenced jobs for Tanzanian citizens, is unproductive in the long run as it will affect investment into the giant east African nation. The saving grace for Tanzania, maybe that it is so well endowed with natural resources they can write their own check—for now.

Magufuli was voted President of Tanzania in 2015 and quickly captured the public imagination with his campaign against runaway public spending and official corruption. He was not averse to making spot inspections of schools, hospitals and other public institutions, asking hard questions and firing officials on the spot when they waffled and whittled under his withering gaze. The public loved it. He was just the man to fire up Tanzania’s famously sleepy bureaucracy.

Through sheer force of character Magufuli got the public servants, some would say, to accomplish more in terms of public works, in his first term as president than was achieved under previous administrations.

Obviously he stepped on many toes along the way, especially entrenched interest groups that had enjoyed and profited from the status quo.

But the emperor had feet of clay.

Magufuli’s doggedness in trying to lift Tanzania up from the boot straps required an unwavering conviction in his own beliefs and that seemed to work for other things.

Last year the covid-19 pandemic broke out, sweeping from Asia into Europe and the Americas leaving a trail of illness and death in its wake.

As countries scrambled to contain the spread by instituting restrictions on travel and congregation, Magufuli emerged as one of the biggest denialists of the pandemic. He spurned the standard operating procedures promoted to slow the disease spread – washing hands, wearing masks, social distancing and rejected calls to lockdown his country. Tanzania stopped reporting the number of victims and deaths due to Covid-19 in April last year. He went further and declared that Tanzania was Covid-free when neighbouring countries were beginning to report an uptick of cases.  

It will remain a mystery how a scientist, albeit former seminarian, could ignore all the evidence about Covid-19 and choose a contrary path, but whose negative after effects will resound through Tanzania’s history.

Since the beginning of this year some high profile people have died of Covid, like Seif Sharif Hamad, Zanzibar’s first vice-president and it was becoming harder to sweep the situation under the carpet.

As one of his last public pronouncements at the end of February Magufuli conceded that there may be a problem and urged Tanzanians to wear masks, for him it may have been too little too late.

KENYA MAIZE BAN, UGANDA SHOOTING ITSELF IN THE FOOT YET AGAIN

Early this week we awoke to the news that Kenya had slapped an immediate ban on maize imports from Uganda.

Industry sources say that

total exports of maize to Kenya come in at around a million to two million tons annually. At about $250 a ton that can be up to $500m (about two trillion shillings) a year....

Kenya said our maize has unhealthy levels of cancer causing aflatoxins and unfit for human consumption.

We have been here before.

Between 1997 -2000 the European Union banned our fish exports sighting unhealthy levels of metal in them. As a result the fish processing industry had to retool their plants and improve their output. The issue of health and safety when it comes to food exports is hard to compromise on. Barley two years ago government placed restriction on chili exporters for fear of an imminent ban of our exports to the EU, of which some had been found infested with pests.

Who can blame any country from banning our produce if they fear or have proof we are not maintaining healthy standards along our value chain?

The ban is complicated by suspicions of big Kenyan concerns supposedly interested in frustrating our growing maize exports to our eastern neighbor. We are generating a significant surplus – we produce all we consume and then more, and at a considerably lower cost of production than the Kenyan farmer. There have been complaints that our maize is squeezing their maize out of the market.

Maize is the staple food of Kenya and as such, as an industry, has a strong political lobby, it would not be farfetched to suspect that some shenanigans were afoot.

An even more fantastic were rumours that the ban was specifically targeted at a major politician there, who was importing massive amounts of grain for campaign purposes.

Those may be as they were but it does not take away from the fact that our phytosanitary standards, which relate to the health of plants, especially surrounding international trade, leave a lot to be desired.

People in the grain export industry saw this coming years ago.

Maize exports to Kenya have been rising by leaps and bounds. Official statistic show that maize exports to our eastern neighbor have tripled to $176 in 2018 from $62m in 2008. But as stated above industry players think the unofficial trade – a euphemism for smuggling, swells this number to nearly half a billion dollars, when we enjoy a bumper harvest.

Given its growing prominence in our exports, one would expect that our government would pay particular attention to it.

Since the last decade organized exporters recognizing this and foreseeing just such a situation as our maize exports are suffering now appealed to government to tighten regulation around the grain. The regulations they sought were just as the restrictions Kenya has now imposed on our maize exports, that there be certification of quality and safety of every export and proof of origin. What we have dragged our feet to implement, the market has done for us. Never the ideal situation...

Part of creating market access for our goods abroad is enacting laws and regulations that ensure that our exports stand up to foreign scrutiny. When the government, pandering to parochial interests ignores this, it makes a mockery of us trying to drive exports.

The East African Community(EAC) has really helped us drive exports, but it was foolhardy of us to believe that our laxity, even negligence, would be tolerated indefinitely by our neighbours.

Export markets are critical to the transformation of the economy and especially the creation of jobs for the army of jobless youth. We should give this endeavor the importance it deserves.

Thankfully the Kenyans have lifted the blanket ban. It is probably our last warning. We are not indispensable to them, they can import their maize from southern Africa.

And contrary to populist opinion, the formalization of the sector will do good for the small farmer. As it is now there is little price distinction between poor and high quality maize, because millers have been getting away with murder accepting wet and poor quality maize...

By insisting on quality standards millers will be forced to invest more – like the fish processing plants did two decades ago, and farmers will have an incentive to invest in better post-harvest handling as a result.

This is not only for the export market. By regularizing the industry we can be healthier. By some accounts Uganda has the highest per capita cases of liver cancer in the world and some suspect its from all the aflatoxins we ingest.

Put our hands up if all your boarding school life was sustained on posho and beans.

 

THE FATE OF SCHOOLS AND WHAT'S TO BE DONE

Last week it was reported that many schools are folding under the weight of Covid-19 and are on the chopping block, with promoters seeking to shed themselves of them.

You have to feel for the owners who for many, through no fault of their own, are in this distressed situation.

On a more global level the collapse of these schools will have far reaching consequences on the sector, which is driven mainly by the private schools.

There was a time when public schools and those set up by religious groups dominated the sector. But underinvestment in the 1970s and 1980s, population growth and this government’s commitment to Universal Primary Education (UPE) meant the demand for education, of whatever sort burst through the roof.

The private sector jumped at the opportunity. As a result, there has been a boom in the education sector in the last few years. One businessman with interests in real estate and finance when he made an entrance into the school business, said it was the easiest money to make.

"Covid-19 and the measures government took to contain it brought the gravy train to a screeching halt. And as it is with any crisis, you will know who was swimming naked when the tide goes out...

Not to kick a man when he is down, but for all of us the old saying that, make hay while the sun shines has never been truer.

A cursory analysis of the most distressed schools shows three rough patterns.

The worst hit are the new schools who had just begun, had not broken even and were in “the valley of death”  -- that stage in any business’ development before the business model has been proven.

The second group are those who while they have been around for a bit still have massive fixed costs, especially rent, which they still owed while the schools were shut down and not earning any income.

The third group and probably the most tragic, to my mind, are those whose schools were established, had even invested in their own premises, had not quite created a brand but worse still they had no buffer fund to tide them over the hard times.

This last case the proprietors were content to eat all surpluses, the schools were indebted up to the eyeballs and when the first bump in the road came they collapsed like a pack of cards.

Not to oversimplify the issue, but many distressed schools find themselves facing a variation of one of these themes.

Moral hazard – reckless behavior by borrowers knowing they will be saved from themselves, aside, the government needs to look into how they bailout the education sector.

Already of course, the market, which waits for no man, has jumped into the fray, with distressed owners putting their enterprises up for sale.

The challenge with the market is that while it is the most effective creator of wealth the world has known, it is the worst distributor of that same wealth. It tends to give more to those who have and take away even the little that the poor have. The challenge of leaving the education sector’s current woes to be resolved by the market is that one, this may very well lead to concentration of the sector in the hands of a few people, who have the funds to buy all these distressed assets. We shouldn’t begrudge people their hard work, but one effect of such a scenario is that they will be able to charge as much as they want for lack of competition.

Which might not be the worst thing though.

"The worst thing is if the school owners find no buyers, which may affect thousands of learners, who may not be easily absorbed in the existing schools. It was reported last year that in Kenya some school owners had turned the premises into poultry farms and the returns were such that they were not contemplating a return to the education sector.

Education is not a service a country can do without. It is an essential service that can very well determine the fate of a nation. As it is, experts are already warning that the makings of greater economic inequality are being sown between those students who have continued learning online and those who cannot for whatever reason, but mostly because their parents are already poor.

The nature of the interventions will of course determine whether the education sector comes out the other side with the minimum of pain or distorts it even further. Any bailout must be to the most deserving school, with the main parameter being schools which have the most impact on the most vulnerable communities.

The nature of bailout can range from taking over the schools altogether, restructuring their debt or even providing a grant.

The point is these are not shops or other private enterprises we can abandon to the vagaries of the market. Something systematic and effective needs to be done. Sooner than later.

WHAT THE SACCO TAUGHT ME ABOUT BUSINESS

Next month I end my four-year stint as the chairperson of the New Vision Staff Savings & Credit Coop. It has been a great learning and a gratifying experience. A learning experience because there is no better way to learn about business than to be in business and gratifying because of how many people the SACCO helped, helps and will continue to help well into the future.

1.       1+1=11

I once read a definition of synergy which went, with synergy 1+1 is not 2 but 11. That the sum of the whole is much more than the sum of the component parts. I understood that on an intellectual level but seeing it in action was a revelation.

When the SACCO started in 2005 with about 50 members saving a minimum of sh40,000 we did not envisage how big it could become in a small while. In our first year we made sh2.3m in profit and built an asset base of sh66m. Last year we made a profit of sh661m and logged assets of sh9.6b. There are now about 1,200 members of the Coop.

The human mind tends to think in arithmetic progressions but when you work as a group geometric progressions kick in.  So given our sh10b asset base, arithmetic progression would suggest that we will double that over the next 15 years, but geometric progression, given the past rate of growth, suggest that the asset base will almost triple over the next 15 years.

This wisdom was not lost on our ancestors who said, if you want to go fast travel alone but if you want to travel far move with others.

2.       PROFIT IS GOOD, EQUITY IS BETTER

For mere mortals looking in on a business they get excited by profits made, but when you are in the business, the more important thing to focus on is the balance sheet – the statement of assets, liabilities and equity. Profit is good, it shows that the business model works – you are making more money than you spend, but the strength of the balance sheet – how much higher the assets are than the liabilities, is what determines the sustainability of the business.

Profit is where you determine how much you made, the balance sheet tells you how much of what you made you have kept. That is how wealth is created.

Many a Ugandan business has been profitable, or at least made sales, but collapsed the next year because they ate all the profit in the good times and when a small crisis happened it crumbled like a pack of cards. 

3.       CUTTING COSTS IS NOT AN EVENT, IT’S A BEHAVIOUR

Related to the above is the issue of the costs. For many companies they start cutting costs when they get into trouble, but holding costs under control is not an event but a behavior. US billionaire Warren Buffet says it’s a red flag when he hears management is going into cost cutting, for him cost cutting is like breathing, no resolution needs to be made to manage costs.

Cutting costs by a business is an admission that they made some unwise spending decisions in the past, why not keep costs low, without compromising the productivity of the business, to begin with?

Even more important is that the savings from managing costs should be ploughed back into the business.

4.       GET GOOD PEOPLE, LET THEM RUN

The customer is king, but to make him feel like a king you have to have the right people working for you. We have three staff – Edith, Treasure and Emmanuel, who know their work and are everyday increasing their understanding of what the business is about.  They run the day to day business. We have been fortunate to hire only good workers over the 15 years of the SACCO and I would like to think that this is the factor of the executive committee’s putting the stability of the business ahead of family and friends.

But more importantly good people treat your customers well and as a result the business grows. There is always scope for improvement.

Whenever a businessman now complains that the economy is doing badly I ask them how their customer service is. You will be shocked how much business falls through the cracks because your employees treat your clients with contempt.

 

5.       MAKING MONEY IS NOT SEXY

Most of the processes that are required to make money are very mundane and boring activities. When you think about it, making money is about putting money in one side of your business and it coming out the other side with something extra on top. And repeat until rich.

It took the NV SACCO almost 15 years to achieve a net worth of a million dollars, so who are these overnight millionaires (are they millionaires?) in our poor economy?

Critics can brand you conservative but in chasing sexier lines of business, which show huger margins, it often is that you are increasing the risk to the business – in a financial institution this risk can mean sinking the business altogether.

Innovation should be encouraged and that is where new value is created, but for every business this should always be with an eye on the downside, the risk of loss.

6.       ITS ALWAYS ABOUT THE LONG GAME

The company’s vision is important, no, critical. The New Vision SACCO’s vision is, To serve as a vehicle of financial freedom for the members. One becomes financially free when he no longer has to labour for money, but that the assets he has created or bought throw off enough income to sustain him.

Last year the coop paid out just under sh450m in interest and dividends to its members, but the payroll of the New Vision is about sh20b a year so there is still some way to go. Achieving the long term goal will take the continued profitability of the SACCO but also improvements in the members’ financial literacy, because you can take a horse to the water but you cannot force it to drink.

 

ANOTHER UGANDA POLITICAL LEADER LETTING DEMOCRACY DOWN

When facing an adversary who has captured the high ground and is entrenched, it is suicidal to try a full on frontal attack.

With much fewer forces than you, the enemy can defend his position, costing you a lot in life, ammunition and morale. Bombardment from the air or below may help obliterate him, but that is conditional on you having the requisite capacity – airplanes and artillery. If you are considerably weaker and lacking in capacity these are out of the question and you will be better served trying to lay siege wait him out, starve the enemy out, disperse their fire power by attacking on several fronts or infiltrate some of your people behind their lines. The military experts will explain better.

As in war so is life.

Former presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi this week formally served notice that he is withdrawing his petition to overturn the results of the 2021 presidential election. In his sworn affidavit Kyagulanyi says he doubts the impartiality of the court, complains that his witnesses are being harassed and that his home detention has hampered his capacity to put up a credible challenge.

Previously

"the National Unity Platform (NUP) has insisted they have incontrovertible evidence that the election was rigged and that their leader was the rightful president of Uganda. They have now decided to take their evidence to the court of public opinion, where they think they will get a more sympathetic ear....

From the beginning, this column didn’t give Kyagulanyi much chance at outright victory. This conviction was sealed when the Electoral Commission (EC) announced that of the 18,500-plus nominees up and down the political system, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) had more than 18,000 nominees. This was an important revelation because these are the foot soldiers whose influence is then converted into support for the presidential candidates. No footsoldiers, No chance.

These are not the movies where John Rambo or Arnold Schwarzenegger single handedly take on a tank division.  It is like going up against European Champions league champions Bayern Munich short by seven players.

There are some miracles that just don’t happen.

That being said NUP’s sweeping of central Uganda and Busoga was impressive and probably beat even the party’s leadership expectations. Beth is as it may, it was stretch to extrapolate this into a national win.

We waited with baited breath for the evidence the Kyagulanyi camp would adduce to support their challenge.

With the withdrawal from the petition we missed that opportunity to one, have the supreme court rule on it and secondly, for us mere mortals to hear this evidence and make up our own minds. If Kyagulanyi’s withdrawal from the appeal is allowed by the court this will be a missed opportunity.

"The value of appealing against the election – win or lose, is that the supreme court would rule on the process, which ruling would set important legal precedents as well as feed into future electoral reforms. While this is not as sexy as having the supreme court overturning the result, such rulings is how societies or democracies are built....

This column has previously expressed disappointment at Besigye refusing to challenge the election before court for the same reasons.

This refusal by Kyagulanyi to pursue his case is selfish. It tells us like with Besigye, what matters is whether they win or not and to hell with the larger picture.

"Appealing to the court of public opinion is grandstanding, it serves little to advance society. Public opinion is fickle – an indiscrete clergyman or a US battleship docked in Mombasa or Liverpool FC’s slumping ways, easily sway attention from the serious issue of how our country is governed...

To go to court is to put your grievances on paper, saved for posterity, so future generations can look back and see what we did or did not do. I think future generations will take a very dim view of the current goings on.

One of the reasons African civilization has been overrun by lesser versions, has a lot to do with us relying on oral tradition. Try relaying a story down the line and see how after several reiterations the story will have changed beyond recognition. Not a good way to advance society. And hence the importance of the appeal.