The Honourable Ministers who are here, starting with the Minister of Education and Sports, and all the people in attendance:
First of all, I want to extend our condolences again to His Highness the Aga Khan on account of the death of your late father who was a very good friend of ours and who had been here, not so long ago. We are very sorry that he died, when he was still making wonderful contributions to humanity.
Secondly, I welcome you here to Uganda, and members of your family, especially coming on this occasion of commissioning the University. Most welcome.
Thirdly, it seems the prayers of the Ismaili are stronger than other prayers, because you brought the rain. We’ve been waiting for rain, and I have been quietly praying, but it seems the Ismaili prayers may be stronger.
Yesterday I told His Highness of my first experience with the Ismaili in Ntungamo, my area there. We had a few Indian shops, we call all of you Indians, we don’t know the difference. We had four Indian shops in Ntungamo, apparently, they all belonged to Ismailis. Now those Indians used to hang pictures in their shops, I told him yesterday. There were pictures of three people. Queen Elizabeth was on top, because we were under the British Empire at that time. Then, on the right there was an old man, an Asian old man. At that time I didn’t know who he was. And then on the left, we had the King of that area, Omugabe. Now in 1957, we were told they changed the picture of the old Asian man, and they put a new young boy there. You could see from his face that he was young. And they said, this is the new King of the Indians. This was His Highness the Aga Khan. At that time, we thought all the Indians were all Ismailis. So that’s when I started knowing about the Aga Khan Ismailis and so on. When I came to the Government here, I started working closely with him. I, therefore, want to salute the Aga Khan community for really being development oriented.
In 1959, when I left my small village, where we had our four Indian shops and two Arabs, I went to the district town of our area, in Mbarara. This was 1959, and there was a big secondary school there called Aga Khan Secondary School for children of Asians, but other children were also going there. That place is quite far from Kampala, it’s like 200 miles. But at that time, 1959, there was already an Aga Khan Secondary School – I think it was a Junior Secondary School, or something like that. When I came to Kampala here, there was a big school, I don’t know whether it’s still there, in the Mengo area. It’s called the Aga Khan Secondary School. Is it still there? Big school there – Aga Khan Secondary School, and then other projects.
As I told His Highness yesterday, there was some setback in the 1960s, caused by policy confusion. In the anti-colonial movement, there was some confusion about the role of the private sector. Some of the anti-colonial fighters were thinking that the private sector was linked to colonialism. So, if you wanted independence, the government must control the economy. And that’s how our governments here, in East Africa, especially here and some other places, disrupted your programmes.
I remember that building, I don’t know whether it’s still there, the IPS building in the centre of Kampala, and in Dar es Salaam, very nice buildings at that time.
But some of those properties were taken over by the governments of our area here. It was called nationalisation – in Swahili they were calling it kutaifisha.
The good thing, as I told His Highness, yesterday, is that some of us from 1960, continuously, have been part of the struggle for Africa’s independence. So, when we studied more, we found that there was a mistake in the thinking. It is true that the anti-colonial fighters yearned for independence and for strength. But how do you become strong? You cannot be strong if you don’t have a strong economy. And then the question is, who can help you build a strong economy?
And that’s how, by I think around 1975, we were now clear, I was clear myself, that there was really no problem with the private sector; that the private sector is the one which can help you to be stronger, to have a strong economy at a low cost … with their own supervision, and more innovation so that our full potential is fully utilised. Therefore, by the time we came into government in 1986, that confusion was clear in our heads. … We still have some [parastatals], like the National Water Corporation, but we privatised much of the economy. So therefore, that’s how when we resumed our relationship with His Highness, it was with that clear vision. We returned all these properties of the private citizens which had been taken over by the government but also, the properties of the institutions like the Aga Khan. So, where we stand today, I want to assure His Highness and everybody concerned, that on the policy side, the freedom fighters in Africa are now clear.
And the good thing is that some of us had good authority. What Africans don’t like are puppets of foreign interests. If they think you are a puppet of foreign interests, they will not be happy with you, because puppets have caused a lot of problems here, but, that was the advantage we had, everybody knew our history, who we are. And when I gave you the speech, which I gave in parliament here, when we were really having a strong argument about the way forward, what do we do? Is this good? Is this bad? Everybody’s now clear that the private sector is the correct way of building an economy. The government can come in here and there, but the main efforts should be by the private sector.
So therefore now, the investment climate in Uganda is good. There’s some corruption, be careful there! And the weakness is that the investors don’t report these corrupt people. I normally find out myself later on. So, the investors, please expose these corrupt people, the ones who want money from you, the ones who want shares in companies for which they don’t have any contribution – expose them! Otherwise, we are ready, and we can work very well together.
We are also working with our brothers in Africa on the issue of market integration, because you cannot have an economy or production without a market. Where do you sell your products? For a long time, we have been struggling with the issue of market integration and we are really more integrated. There are still some problems, but they will be overcome because logic is on the side of rationalisation, and part of the rationalisation includes market integration in Africa.
So therefore, I’m very happy to be here with Mama and with His Highness to commission this University Centre. Congratulations Aga Khan, and I thank you for building this world-class centre where the classrooms are digitally connected and they’re using high tech for education so that you don’t have to do all the other manual things we used to do in the past.
We’re also happy about launching the hospital, groundbreaking, which we’ll start building, that will also help in health care. Whenever I would be in Tanzania or Kenya, I would hear, I never went there, but I used to hear Aga Khan Hospital. Even now many Ugandans go to Nairobi to the Aga Khan Hospital. So, I thank you and congratulate you for those two institutions, the University and the Hospital. I want to thank the Germans, I didn’t know the Germans were involved. Germans, bravo! Thank you so much.
On the issue of health care, I want to inform you and the world that our people here are beginning to make good contributions to humanity. What of course many people don’t remember is that human beings have been here for the last four and a half million years, and these human beings started here in Africa. So, all you people, Asians, Europeans, Chinese, whatever, you are all former Africans. I always regard you as African diaspora. Now, what you had missed is that, so you are the diaspora, we are the ‘stayees’ who stayed here. … You can see the climate is good for the human being – much better than many parts of the world. When I’m in Europe, it’s very miserable there. Very cold, whenever I go there, I want to come back quickly. But this climate has also been good for our enemies. Good for us, but also for our enemies. The mosquitoes, the tsetse flies, the bacteria. That’s why, originally, you, the diaspora, multiplied more than we, the ‘stayees’.
Until recently, the population of the whole of Africa has been smaller than the population of India. India has had a population of about 1.4 billion people, but until recently, the total population of Africa was fewer than the population of India. Yet Africa is 12 times bigger than India. You can fit India in Africa 12 times, but yet they had a bigger population. We have now overtaken India for the first time. We are now 1.5 billion, and in the next 30 years, we shall be 2.5 billion – we shall be a quarter of the human race. Now this is because at last, we have been able to control our enemies here; the mosquitoes, tsetse flies, the bacteria which were inhibiting the increase of the population here. But in that time, four and a half million years, we have gained a lot of knowledge about human health, which outsiders did not know. And when the Europeans came here, they came with a lot of arrogance, they sort of suppressed our great knowledge. But now, we have come up now. Our scientists are coming up and we are discovering a lot of solutions for human health.
Our people seem to have discovered medicine for diabetes for the first time, where diabetes can be cured, for the first time. Diabetes has been a big problem for humanity. Our people seem to have discovered medicine for cancer, all these cancers which have been causing problems. Our people seem to have found medicine for malaria in addition to quinine, which was found long, long ago in South America. Our people now have a solution different from quinine for malaria. Even myself, I know quite a number of solutions for human health and I’ve been telling the government to take them up.
So therefore, since you are interested in health, I thought I should let you know that, if you want, we can cooperate on that side also if you’re interested in that area of this indigenous knowledge, working on it to turn it into modern forms, which can help the whole of humanity and do it cheaply and decisively – not being on drugs all the time, so, you get total recovery from those sicknesses.
Finally, when our late brother His Highness the Aga Khan was here, I gave him medals. I would now like to give similar medals to His Highness. And I now call, you go on the microphone and make a citation on how we should give medals to His Highness and members of the family.
I thank you and wish you good luck.