About three years ago, my country, Uganda made a significant oil discovery that signaled a new dawn for its people. At the time, oil was declared the economic catalyst that would transform all our lives for the better. Unfortunately, though, recent revelations about influence peddling in the sector suggest that the country may be headed not towards an oil blessing, but an oil curse. We’ve seen allegations of corruption, a lack of transparency, and gross mismanagement even before the first commercial drop of oil has come out of the ground.

In March 2011, I was elected to the Ugandan Parliament as a youth representative and thereafter I was voted chairman of the parliamentary anti-corruption forum, African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption (APNAC)-Uganda chapter. Three years earlier I had finished a term as guild president (head of student body) of Uganda’s oldest and biggest University, Makerere from where I attained a law degree. As a student leader, we were confronted by the effects of corruption on the country’s education system not simply because it reduced access to facilities for study but also how it impacted students thinking about the role of service after graduation, success in society and politics. As a Member of Parliament I was to be immediately faced with an even harsher reality, a daily interaction with evidence of gross pilferage of public resources by public servants and politicians alike during the proceedings of Public Accounts Committee where I serve as lead counsel and Finance Committee.

As a legislator at 30, my cause includes not just establishing an enabling legal framework for my country, but also serving an oversight role in the affairs that touch the plight and fortunes of our people. My goal is to ensure that every decision I take shall have a positive impact on public policy, which subsequently affects the general welfare of my countrymen and women, and influence better service delivery. Indeed, the foregoing buttresses the very reason and urgency for critically appreciating policy formulation and implementation in a developing economy with its peculiar characteristics of public corruption. In the end, it is not my years in Parliament that matter, but whether my stay improves the lives and future of the youths I represent.

I come from a humble background. My parents ensured that I got access to a modest education and fed me with hope, which I rode on to get to this place of leadership in my nation. I will never forget the multitudes of young Rwandan migrants I grew up with, the majority with whom I shared my basic materials such as food and clothing. At a tender age, my direct encounter with the biting poverty that a majority of Africans still face shaped my resolve to dedicate all my life to the service of humanity, and to the fight to change Africa.

The turning point in this life of service came to fruition at approximately 15:45 hours on October 11, 2011, when I rose from my parliamentary seat, almost overcome by fear, and exposed the shamelessness of three cabinet ministers, including the prime minister himself, who had allegedly received bribes from oil companies in exchange for a soft-landing in Uganda’s oil resources.

Armed with leaked bank account statements that documented some of these alleged bribes, I systematically walked Parliament through the details of a corrupt oil production-licensing scheme that involved nearly 100 million euros in kickbacks to government ministers and technocrats. Amidst wild jubilations and standing ovations from fellow legislators (even from the ruling party), and facing ice-trembles and rage from the implicated ministers, I suspected that the autocracy would soon after have me for “dinner.” In a subsequent parliamentary motion against corruption that uncharacteristically unified a largely partisan Parliament, a parliamentary chorus sanctioned an interdiction of the implicated ministers—something that sent shock waves through the regime of our president, Yoweri Museveni.

These days, I envision the prodigious time when Ugandans shall finally be liberated from the shackles of autocracy, kleptocracy, mal-administration, and impunity. The impact of the debate was climaxed in the president’s impromptu press conference wherein, alongside the entire technical staff of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, he castigated Parliament for “touching his anointed.”

Since then, heaven has met earth in the ministers’ tick-of-the-clock fight to explain the inexplicable, and to justify the unjustifiable. For me, the moment culminated in the recognition by the Rt. Hon. Speaker of the National Parliament of Uganda and four other honorable legislators as someone who should travel to London to oversee the oil arbitration case between Heritage Oil and Gas and the Government of Uganda. I was also tapped as someone who should obtain training in oil and gas law in the United Kingdom. As I shared my experiences with Ugandans in London, I saw clearly that Ugandans throughout the world want our country to have a responsible government, clean leadership, and transparent governance.

I believe that my spirited fight against youth poverty and institutional corruption in Uganda, coupled with two refusals of lucrative job placements in a largely corrupt and autocratic government, attest to my aspiration to create a legacy for myself as a young African who will not sacrifice the future of his nation and the good of its people at the altar of self-aggrandizement. When I am long gone, I want to be remembered as a man who stood for justice and good governance, as someone who placed the public interest above self interest, and as a person forged a path for my people across the thick jungle of uncertainty—someone who soared to great heights, but made sure that every citizen was accorded the highest possible dignity.

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