It is true that this world is down on its knees. Millions have succumbed to Covid-19. Empires have crumbled. Here in Africa, our former funders back in Europe and America are also today busy solving their own problems back home. The war is extremely difficult now. You should continue fighting anyway.
You wonder when you look at the world today. I thank the proprietors and the entire editorial team of this publication who have too now joined the growing queue of newspapers that have fallen in love with our style of writing, created to lift the wailing world up.
I am so humbled and excited. We hope to do and finish the huge job here too, given to us. This newspaper focuses its eye on what is happening across the country, in more than 130 districts. We shall inspire you here too. We are ready.
We hope to bring to you all the reasons why some people in third world countries are extremely poor yet the remaining few are extraordinarily rich.
Having started my writing career in the slums of Kampala and every day spending hours in the streets of Kampala looking at the important and less-important people in the country, I have learnt my own lessons. You will become what you are about to commence thinking about all day long.
Streets beggars scattered across the center city are people like you and me. It will shock you to discover that the majority of these people are not mentally disturbed.
A beggar knows very well that not every one that passes by where he sits will toss to him a coin. These people are like the majority of dictators in Africa. A long-serving leader’s business is to rule. He never minds what they say.
Not all people will believe in you the first day you will tell them that you are ready and determined to change. I was ridiculed when I announced it to the then idle world around me that I was going to leap from where we all slept poor and frustrated, to places where the mighty and powerful sat. I was mocked. There is nothing impossible.
You are important. Someone will, along the way, believe in you. After a big struggle, they will hold your hand, to drag you to the destination you will be craving to see.
Street beggars beg on a daily basis. They know that heartless men and women and kind ones mingle at the same time in the streets where they (beggars) sit to beg.
Establishing a successful business in a developing country is hard. You all know. I am shocked to the core when I see once successful tycoons now struggling to keep their business standing.
I would like to today caution you against giving up. Once you start doing something, please, be determined to fight on. Covid-19 is real. Many have succumbed to the pandemic. Millions of people are today jobless. You are not alone.
The lethal virus has thumped this world so hard that senior citizens in my country have got extremely afraid. Under pressure, important people in Uganda are dropping dead week in, week out. They are succumbing to heart complications. You will win. Stand.
Despite this world’s efforts to defeat you, never quit. I will later this week explain to the large audience I will have gathered here why you cannot stop a politician once he or she has started testing the sweetness of the seat he was endorsed to occupy. Street beggars in Kampala amaze me.
They are beggars and they may never stop begging. Begging (of any kind) is very bad but, see how persistent these people are always! Why don’t you today begin learning something from a beggar you meet in the street?
Some are young men with brains to think. They are people like you. The only thing that distinguishes you from them is that they are never afraid of what people will say or think. They love money more that even the life they possess.
Pariahs in Kampala streets teach us that once a person discovers the real source of true bread, he never spends a day without sipping from the source that brings true life to him.
Beggars are afraid of rain but sunshine never stops them from looking for what they crave for. Beggars are so observant and organized that they can know it when a passerby or motorist will not toss a coin to them.
Beggars are so cold-blooded that they can even hurt a man or woman who may to stand in the way to bread. Like dictators who rule in spite of being hated by their fellow country men and women, beggars are selfish. There comes a time where selfishness should be among the paths to get there.
A beggar is fearless. They were told that during this regime, no one can become successful before embarking on cheating others. This is how they think, so they are.
It is normal to them, to beg. A street beggar thinks. Beggars are addicted to sitting where they are fed by the world that sympathizes with them.
Things are really difficult in the beginning. What I today ably do was really impossible in the beginning. A beggar wakes up every morning to seek for daily bread. Your intention and the way taken are quite different from the beggar’s but, please, learn from these people.
The way they (beggars) persevere and persist impresses me.
Reach a decision today. It will be difficult in the beginning but as time rolls on, things will begin to be easy to you. Beggars persevere and, are persistent. Learn from them.
