Nearly half a century ago Uganda was the “Pearl of Africa,” a country that had just ended its colonial-era after receiving her independence on the Oct 9th 1962, everything was a pure bliss as the country had been carefully put on a road to democracy by its outgoing colonial administrators who had ensured that the newly independent republic had functioning political parties as a basis of democratic governance, these administrators also made sure that this new country had a robust economy one hinged on agriculture with cash crops such as coffee, cotton and tobacco being grown and exported to foreign markets to ensure that the country coffers had the depth they needed to support the locals.
Finally, the British also ensured the new leaders were notified about the need to take care of the country’s beautiful natural resources including the stunning wildlife and landscapes which had been gazetted in the splendid national parks because it was these that had the country baptized by Sir Winston Churchill “The Pearl Of Africa” n his book entitled My African Journey.
Uganda was indeed the perfect place to take an Africa safari holiday and one was assured of having the perfect Africa safari memories floating down the crocodile-flanked Nile, fishing on Lake Victoria, wandering among the elephant herds of Queen Elizabeth National Park or listening to the roar of mighty Murchison Falls.
Uganda’s unparalleled beauty also took Hollywood like a storm raging through a flat plain and in no time, Uganda sceneries was the perfect background that Hollywood needed to feature its blockbuster movies hence movies stars and producers descended on this small country to shoot films like the “African Queen” in this incredible tropical paradise.
Uganda takes a wrong turn and all hell breaks lose.
For the last four decades, Uganda has been marred in political turmoil and economic collapse that started with the bloodthirsty reign of Idi Amin (the self-proclaimed President for Life, Conqueror of the British Empire and Last King of Scotland) and ended with the religious psychopath Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army.
And it wasn’t just the people who suffered: Uganda’s animal populations declined precipitously during the troubles as the various ragtag guerrilla groups feasted on wild game.
Yet Uganda is bouncing back.
However, Uganda managed to steer back onto the right course, after all this turmoil, all thanks to the 1980-1986 National Resistance Movement guerilla war which saw the toppling of the dictatorial regime of Obote II and the enthronement of President Yoweri K Museveni to the helm of Uganda’s leadership. Although his leadership spent its first one and half decades fighting rebels in various parts of the country, peace has finally returned and now the country is working to restore its former glory.
It’s a trickle at present — the high-end travellers and backpackers who are always the early adopters — and there are very real concerns about the country’s recently imposed anti-gay laws, which threaten life imprisonment for “violators.”
But safari operators say they’re already gearing up for more visitors in years to come and this is certainly true because if you get to have a glance at the tourism statistical figure of Uganda’s tourism industry, it one of the few business sectors that has realized leap and after leap in terms of growth and its no wonder that as of today its the leading forex earner for the dear motherland as it is projected to generate close to USD 2 billion by 2020. Back in 2008, Uganda could only collect 580 million USD. In the financial year of 2010/2011 the tourism revenue earnings increased to 594m USD, 2012-13 financial year realized another leap to 805m USD, and the 2013-2014 financial year saw the country’s revenues from tourism cross the 1 million USD mark as it collected 1.003million USD form tourism. As of 2016/2017, the number of tourists visiting Uganda had also crossed the 1 million mark with 1.4 million tourists both foreign and domestic tourists making a Uganda safari to the various Uganda wildlife safari destinations of the country. In an ironic twist of fate, Idi Amin’s former torture chamber is now a tourist attraction.