The best thing we can do for our country

A great American leader, John F. Kennedy, once said, "Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country." The best thing we can do for our country in the next 50 years is to detest and fight evil, earn an honest living and work for the greater good.

Patriotic Ugandans raising the national flag high by living accountable lives

Accountability to self, country, and world is the only way to dissipate the darkness of general degeneration that has since independence obstructed the progress of our country. Judging by the status quo, it appears accountability from the top Ugandan to the bottom is too much a price to ask yet we must pay it if we are to achieve Vision 2040.

My ears are still smarting from hearing the president voice his determination to uproot corruption from the soil of our nation yet he still surrounds himself with implicated officials. As you read this, somebody is dying in some hospital because of neglect or lack of drugs. A huge pothole has just caused an accident on some road, and a parent is feeling embarrassed and saddened on behalf of his Universal Primary Education child who cannot correctly recite the alphabet.

All because people are sleeping on their jobs, diverting public resources and getting away with it. Few are being accountable to those they are called to serve. The meat of the country is being torn away by ravening wolves and most of the elite have turned their backs on the weak by keeping silent.

Forget the new discoveries of oil and other minerals. The future of this country remains in an agricultural economy, but there is no way we can reap without restraining our lust for free and easy riches. It is high time we took off some soul-searching time. It is after we have mopped the dust of all forms of corruption from our hearts that we can begin to heed the cry of our consciences and lead transparent lives.

Then the government can fire all the lazy bones masquerading as loyal cadres, and hire competent technocrats who will passionately and effectively push for the noble cause of this nation. Only then can the now pale Republic begin to shine again as the "Pearl of Africa."