When I joined Cabinet in July 2022, I resolved to suspend my weekly column in the Daily Monitor. But wait a minute, I need to tell the story of my efforts to master the writer’s craft. I hasten to add that the mastery is still a work in progress. Even the greatest of writers admit that. But even before I share the journey on the writer’s path, I have to say something about the title of this column. Why have I decided to call the column ‘Wait a Minute.’?
One evening, I was sitting with Ms Anna Reismann, the country representative of the German Foundation, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, and we were talking about writing in many ways. How one acquires the skill and also why Norbert Mao hasn’t published his memoirs. About the latter, I will say nothing for now. Then I started narrating my story with ‘Wait a minute.’ Anna interrupts and says, ‘Wait a Minute? That is a great name for a column.’ I swore that I would write something the next week. The week became months, and the column was not written. Anyway, life happens.
Last week, we met again over dinner and we talked (again) about the column. I had even forgotten what the title was to be, so we had to jog each other’s memory until a eureka moment erupted and the name came out of the recesses of Anna’s mind. Again, I vowed that I was going to resume the column. Long before I became rich and famous (I feel my tongue pressing my cheek because the fame is like being famous for being famous and the riches are those of the heart rather than material opulence), I discovered the essence of human value. Experts have now given names to the four cornerstones of human value: education, experience, skills and connections. Blessed are those who have all four or at least most of them.
Fortunately, nobody lacks all. Unless one is sleepwalking through life, they are bound to have some experiences that can translate into some value. One is also likely to have some valuable skills, even if it be the one of Charles Dickens’s Artful Dodger! And the winding road brings me to what I promised earlier. I have to admit that by nature, I’m a talker, not a writer. Only that I hadn’t thought about it. Let’s say it hadn’t seeped into my conscious mind. How did a talker become a writer? It started in 2002 when I realised that I was more of a talker than a writer, and I needed to improve my writing skills.
I became strongly aware of the mismatch between my speaking and writing skills. It is easy to overlook one’s deficiencies when you’re being lauded for your other capabilities. At that time, I was in my second term in Parliament. I was also on the International Board of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank. This was an organisation founded in 2000. Its inspiration was the Millennium Development Goals. Its goal was to unify parliamentarians worldwide to influence the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Thanks to Ms Winnie Byanyima, I had come across two books that I still often refer to. One was Art Buchwald’s memoir, I’ll Always Have Paris. The other was Harvey MacKay’s Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty. The former will teach you how to be serious and interesting in your writing, and the latter will teach you how to build a network. I’ll be the last to claim to be self-made. At every major turn in my life, some people gave me a hand up.
Through Jean Francois Rischard, the World Bank’s vice president for Europe, I learnt of the World Fellows Program at Yale University. He encouraged me to apply and gave me a recommendation. I needed two other recommenders. I turned to Prof Mahmood Mamdani, an academic colossus whose lectures attracted overflowing audiences in Makerere University. My other referee was Patrick Merienne, a Frenchman who then worked with International Alert. With that, I landed a spot in the second cohort of that programme. Of course, I had to field questions from interviewers half a world away.
At Yale, I enrolled on a semester-long writing course taught by Fred Strebeigh. The course he taught was curiously called Environmental Writing, and it consisted of three-hour seminars and writing workshops. I can never forget how we dug into John McPhee – in my opinion one of the best nature writers – a modern Henry David Thoreau if you ask me. That course turned me into a writer.