By Charles Onyango-Obbo

More by this Author

On October 9, Uganda marked its 61st anniversary of independence. There were no triumphant marches and skies filled with fireworks.

Like many countries in Africa, Uganda is suffering from major independence panic attacks. We started seeing this in the early 2000s, as several African nations marked their 50th independence anniversaries. We were free from colonial dominion, but hadn’t made much progress – some countries had even regressed.

Still, at 50, leaders could argue that in the first 25 years they were still trying to overcome the ruinous effects of colonialism. After that, well, there was neo-colonialism, the harmful Cold War, and the international system that was hard on developing countries.

However, as countries made 60, those excuses began to wear thin. And, to complicate matters, some countries like Botswana, Mauritius, Senegal, and even Morocco, had fairly good report cards. They had built up representative government and avoided military coups. They were not mired in corruption and violence. Their prisons were not full of political prisoners.

Read: OBBO: Nyerere, Mboya, Obote and Adde meet over 'chai' in 2065

And, even where it was a monarchy, like in Morocco, the economies had performed reasonably well, and the state was delivering basic services.

In East Africa, Tanzania and Kenya had muddled along, avoiding coups and civil war, though reckoning with political repression and election violence. There was now renewed pressure for countries to get their stories straight, drop the excuses, and make a grown-up accounting of their record.

A difference of up to 25 years in life expectancy between African countries, which were at the same level in the early 1960s, could no longer be explained by blaming a cruel colonial governor.

For some, a sense of inadequacy and failure crept in.

If a single object explains the varying fortunes of African countries post-independence, it is roads; both their absence and presence. It is a point better appreciated by harking back 32 years.

Namibia had gained on March 21, 1990, from South African white minority rule. Many African leaders, especially those who considered themselves progressive, descended upon Namibia to see Sam Nujoma being sworn in as president. Among them was Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, then a freshly minted “civilian” president, having come to power in 1986 after leading a five-year guerrilla war.

Read: OBBO: On integration, EAC can't fake it till it makes it

Upon return from Namibia, Museveni held a press conference, which I attended. Speaking on his impressions of Namibia, he hailed the heroism of the freedom fighters and said many Pan-Africanist things.

Then, very casually, he said he thought the Namibians were overwhelmed by having so many people coming to their Independence Day. The reason, for it, he reasoned, was that the country only knew how to cater to a few white people. It didn’t know how to do things for many, and it would have to learn that. He thought Comrade Nujoma was up to the job.

It was a remark that didn’t make the headlines, and some media ignored it in their stories. But I found it so powerful, that I have never forgotten it.

Doing things for the few, or the many, has been the defining issue for Africa. Roads have been the platform that has determined success or failure there.

Take, for one example, the Democratic Republic of Congo; the centre in Kinshasa didn’t build roads or railways to and from the far-flung provinces. It had a disastrous impact on delivering the goods and services that would have lifted the vast majority of the people from poverty. The failure, instead, decoupled them from the state, breeding secessionist and rejectionist forces, that ultimately stalled the nation-state project.

The DRC is Africa’s second-largest country by land size after Algeria, and apologists have made the case that it is too huge to be tamed. Yes, except Algeria, which is bigger, has paved highways from border to border. Its six-lane $11 billion East-West Highway, at 1,216 kilometres, is one of the largest public works projects in the world. And DRC has far more natural resource wealth than Algeria.

Read: ULIMWENGU: We either fix our problems or prepare to perish

On the other hand, there are a couple of countries where impressive paved highways snaking into once-remote areas have been built over the past 30 years. You travel around Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, to name a few, and you can’t help but tip your hat to the roads.

In parts of Uganda, you drive on marvellous roads for kilometres and you are the sole motorist. The upsurge of economic activity they were expected to spur hasn’t happened. In frustration, President Museveni once complained that he had built roads for Ugandans and instead of utilising them to trade, they were used mostly to “carry rumours”.

He was flippant, yes, but there was a crumb worth following in his remarks. Roads have brought the cities closer to once-remote areas. The marginalised people there see the glitzy cars, the well-fed shiny city folks clinging desperately to their bottles of mineral water lest they drink from local sources and die. They have become more acutely aware of their deprivation.

In return, the roads, mobile phones, and the internet bring their demands to the capital. Additionally, many hitchhike on the next lorry or pick-up to the city, to look for their share of the national cake and promise of independence. The capital, its politicians and the elite have met their new demands with scorn, and when they agitate, they are tear-gassed, jailed, or shot dead.

As Museveni saw in Namibia in 1990, so is it still today. Most African capitals and their politicians only know how to provide for a few. Damn the many.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the "Wall of Great Africans". X@cobbo3