Trillions in Busoga gold? How about we bank oil billions first?

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush, so the English of old said. The saying is worth revisiting at this time when our imaginative ambitions and ambitious imaginations are running in overdrive in Uganda.

Seventeen years ago we struck oil in the western region around Lake Albert. If you open an Atlas printed in the 1970s it is labelled Lake Mobutu and the smaller one south of it Lake Amin, now since reverted to Lake Edward. The leaders of that time and the colonialists before them knew of the oil in that area but being of low ambition, did not pursue its exploitation, concentrating instead on other low-hanging fruits Uganda is endowed with, including a very high comparative advantage in agriculture.