Uganda to World Bank: our bottoms are not up for grabs!

The deposition of Nigerien President, Bazoum, has left anything but a sweet taste in the mouths of the country’s erstwhile European masters. Not only has Niger been one of the last bastions of France’s unrelenting neocolonial influence on the African continent, but Paris is smouldering from internal political unrest as well. If you believe in re-incarnation, there you have it—the French Revolution got rebirthed! President Macron is getting clobbered on all fronts: home and abroad. Moreover, in the matter of cutting ties, many francophone former protectorates of France are risking it all to the extent of entertaining the notion of dumping or downrightly ditching French as their official language. Mali did in June. Never mind that the announcement was delivered in French!

It appears that we’re fast approaching that point in time when the only things renowned about France will be French fries—which, by the way, didn’t even originate there—the Eiffel tower; the 2022 World Cup French soccer team whose composition was nearly all African talent. And, finally, we can’t possibly forget the fact that Paris hosted the enigmatic death of the Princess of Wales back in 1997. As to why the crash scene was thoroughly scrubbed with JIK bleach and industrial-grade detergent only hours after Diana’s Mercedes smacked into that pillar in the infamous Alma Bridge tunnel, is just about as mysterious as the apparent correlation between World Bank (WB) money and Africans’ buttocks—more on this later!

As hordes of French nationals and their international compatriots scampered for the nearest exits out of Niger, late July into early August, the scenes in the capital, Niamey, were reminiscent of the 2015 action-thriller No Escape. The movie tells the story of an American engineer that gets caught in the trap of a chaotic coup in an Asian country where he and his family have recently relocated to. The expat works for a company that the locals know to be plundering their country. His wife, two daughters and other foreigners’ lives are thus plunged into serious peril after they become prime targets of hostile militia groups that are eager to meet and greet them with machetes; and violently usher them into the next life! How he escapes the turmoil is the great puzzle.

France’s desperation to maintain involvement and meddle in the politics of the West African region is quite telling of its heavy reliance on former colonies to keep afloat, especially economically. In diplomatic language, this is what they refer to as having key interests! But, you know, that’s just political correctness for saying, ‘Hey, we’re still interested in taking your stuff!’. Right, cos one of their most conspicuous interests in Niger is uranium, a resource that feeds France’s insatiable energy needs and the French have exploited for nearly half a century. All the while Niger still ranks as one of the poorest countries in the known universe.

As the second largest supplier of uranium to France, it matters a lot who’s at the helm of Niger. If anything, it can’t be someone that’s antagonistic but, much rather, a crony of the French. Alas! Their man got booted in the recent coup! What’s to happen hereafter is debatable, but it appears that all options are on the table for France, including military intervention, just to re-instate a leader who shall favor their interests. After all, desperate times call for desperate measures.

For decades, postcolonial Africa has largely been the playground for the western world in the aspect of scrambling for, partitioning and exploitation of the continent’s vast natural resources at the expense of its citizens. The supposition that they would give up their grip of authority on administrative operations and grant independence to the African people has for most part not been convincing enough, cos they still weren’t taking their hands out of our cookie jars! However, with the emphatic arrival of the West’s nemeses, Russia and China, at the poker table, the landscape may have been altered for the better!

The East appears to present juicier, mutually beneficial opportunities and incentives than their Western counterparts who visibly have little or no regard for African sovereignty. It’s not surprising that the recently-concluded Africa-Russia summit in St. Petersburg was the attraction of about 90% of the continent’s Heads of State. Whereas the stage has been set for a more intense economic battle on the continent between the East and the West, it’s rather interesting that the Americans have the luxury of time to indulge in sexual ideology fights with Uganda.

In the past week, the World Bank issued a notice to Uganda making known its decision to suspend credit to the defiant Ugandan administration. This, against the backdrop of anti-gay sentiments–quite popular amongst locals–that have lingered for years, but finally graduated into law in May. In a statement, the WB stated that the law contradicted its values! Oh, well, the same values are inconsistent with the values of the Ugandan people. How’s that for a good old stalemate!

The year 2022 saw the WB allocate an astronomic $5billion in financing to multiple projects in the country. In other words, they’re saying: repeal that law, or you’ll not be laying your eyeballs on a single dime! Say all you want, but that totally sounds like, ‘If you want some cash from us, the collateral shall be your butts!’. Such has been the audacity of the West: using coercion to impose ideas that are diametrically opposed to the beliefs and values of the indigenous people.

Generally, though, Ugandans are not a people of the alphabet. Therefore, while the LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ movement—God knows, in a year they might run out of letters—and it’s apologists will possibly strive some more for recognition and to establish their presence under the pretext of fostering human rights, it’s unlikely that their contagion of disgrace will spread any farther than they intended it to.

Mr. Museveni’s pushback against the WB’s position was that the country would explore other sources of financing for its budget, and that Uganda would develop with or without loans. Hate him or like him, you’ve got to give this man an ounce of credit for using his authority to quite literally save our asses and stand up to bullies! That said, with Uganda losing in excess of a staggering $2.5billion annually to endemic corruption, it’s almost laughable for the external contributors to remotely imagine that the entirety of their loans and grants to us have been trickling down to the intended beneficiaries. Newsflash: loans or not, we the people are actually fine—just in case the WB was hoping for some riotous upheaval in their support from the Ugandan citizens.

This new twist, though, is perhaps a wake-up call for us as a country, or continent as a whole, to strategize, evaluate our priorities and court benevolent development partners. For now, the WB can take their billions, lube them nicely, and shove them up their vaults(!), cos our bottoms are certainly not up for grabs, figuratively or otherwise.

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