Sam Kakuru

Many are the afflictions of a nation. One of them is sitting on iron ore and clapping while foreigners smelt it into steel, build their skylines, their railways, their armies, then sell it back to us ten times the price. Another affliction is borrowed hands. We import contractors to build our roads, our dams, our power lines, even our homes. We hand them our money, they hand us back the receipts, and we call it progress. We even cut ribbons on projects we did not build, and boast as if dependency is development. History laughs at us. No nation ever became strong on imported steel or borrowed hands. Not Britain. Not Germany. Not America. Not China. Strength is always forged at home. It cannot be imported, borrowed, or donated. Nations that tried to buy it with aid or outsource it with foreign contractors remained weak. Uganda must learn fast. Our ore must become our steel, our hands must raise our bridges, our minds must design our future. No one will hand us dignity wrapped in charity. What we need is vision to see beyond the raw stone, faith to believe in our own capacity, and courage to sweat for our destiny. Because a nation is not given. It is forged. And only Ugandans can forge Uganda.