When a Nation Walks on Roads It Didn’t Imagine: A Discourse on Tarmac, Power, and the Poverty of Local Genius

 

By Isaac Christopher Lubogo

> “They built roads for us, but not towards us. And so we drive fast into a future we do not own.”

 

Uganda is not without tarmac. No. Uganda bleeds black with the gleam of foreign-funded asphalt. Yet with each highway unveiled, with each roundabout lit like a European fountain, a quiet truth stirs in the red earth: the nation is being paved into erasure. The problem is not roads—it is ownership. Not contracts—but the spirit behind them. We are not walking towards sovereignty. We are being driven, in foreign machinery, into imported imaginations.

And somewhere along that smooth colonial sequel, our engineers stand, clipboard in hand, supervising a country they are not allowed to design.

I. 🧾 The Legal Treason We Signed Ourselves

Every contract begins with a law. And herein lies the first betrayal: our procurement law does not protect Ugandans. Under the PPDA Act, the conditions of “transparency” become a masquerade for exclusion. Only firms with multi-million-dollar portfolios, international certifications, and ISO ghosts are permitted to bid. Kiira Motors? Disqualified. Local engineers? Subcontracted. Domestic welders and steelmen? Reduced to suppliers of gravel and tea.

We write laws that are allergic to local success. And then call it international best practice.

> “He who writes the procurement law controls the economy. And Uganda, like an obedient student, still writes in British ink.”

 

Let us be done with neutral-sounding betrayal. We must amend the PPDA Act to favour our own, the way other nations do. What good is a Constitution if it builds roads that only others profit from?

II. 🎓 The Universities We Castrated with Silence

Where is Makerere in all this? Where is Kyambogo? Why is it that no Ugandan university has ever been commissioned to design a national road standard? We treat our universities as ceremonial brains—good for graduation photos, useless for structural sovereignty. Our professors publish. But their knowledge never enters the Ministry of Works.

And worse, our own government prefers blueprints emailed from Dubai over ideas born in Mbarara.

> “If your engineers only mark attendance, your development will always wear another man’s overalls.”

 

We must establish a National Infrastructure R&D Hub—one that merges law, engineering, design, and finance under the authority of our universities. Let the roads begin in the classroom, not in consultant boardrooms abroad.

III. 🏘️ The Villages Flattened by Modernization

Development is not just about what is built—it is also about what is destroyed. In Gulu, Lubowa, Buliisa, and Kamwokya, families have been evicted with survey marks, not justice. Bulldozers arrive before the conversation. Our roads are laid over people. Not with them.

A nation that evicts to modernize is no better than a landlord with a masterplan for tenants he never consulted.

> “Progress that crushes communities is not progress. It is polished oppression.”

 

We need rights-based infrastructure law. Every major project must include:

Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for local communities.

Community Benefit Sharing agreements.

Environmental and Social Impact Statements translated into the languages of those affected.

Until then, the word “development” will remain a euphemism for dispossession.

IV. 📉 Debt as Tarmac, and Taxes as Chains

Every kilometre of road costs us millions of dollars in debt. Uganda’s public debt-to-GDP ratio has now crept past 52%, with external debt repayments crowding out education, health, and agriculture. We pave roads today that our unborn children will pay for.

Worse, these are deals signed without citizen oversight. No impact statements. No generational audits. Just press conferences and ribbon-cutting.

> “You cannot drive into freedom on a road paid for with the soul of the nation.”

 

Let us demand a Fiscal Justice Clause: Every foreign-funded infrastructure contract must:

Declare its full debt burden.

Reveal repayment timelines.

Show which ministry’s budget will suffer.

Transparency is not just about knowing what is spent. It is about knowing what is sacrificed.

V. 🎨 Of Roundabouts and Colonial Aesthetics

Look around. Why do our roads not feel Ugandan? Why are our bridges Eurocentric? Why do our parks resemble brochures from Geneva? Every curve of the road, every monument in a roundabout, every streetlamp whispers: This is not your story.

This is aesthetic colonialism. Imported identity in concrete.

Our ancestors built paths of laterite, raised footbridges with banana-fibre ropes, carved roads through forests using wisdom—not machinery. There was an African design philosophy—organic, regenerative, sacred. Where is that in today’s highways?

> “You can erase a people not just by destroying their history, but by paving over their imagination.”

 

We must mandate Afrocentric design law in public infrastructure. Let our roads speak our stories. Let every roundabout carry Busoga ironwork, Bunyoro regalia, or Acholi woodcarvings. Let the spirit of Uganda live in every bend of concrete.

🧠 Conclusion: From Roads to Republic

It is not roads we lack. It is the will to own what we build. We must stop being a nation of clerks and start becoming a Republic of creators. Infrastructure is not neutral—it either advances sovereignty or deepens servitude.

So let this be the new charter:

Reform the law to protect local firms.

Fund our universities to build our blueprints.

Shield our communities from bulldozer tyranny.

Audit every foreign loan with moral clarity.

Design our roads with cultural memory.

Because development is not when you can drive fast. Development is when you know who gave you the keys.

> “Uganda, take back your tools. Take back your standards. Take back your future. Or you will wake up one day and find you have built a country you are not allowed to live in.”

Suigeneris