Uganda, Feb. 20 -- The week found me in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam, where among other things, I spent some hours at CRDB, the country's largest commercial bank.

It has assets worth TSh 13.2 trillion (USH 20 trillion), meaning if it were a Ugandan bank it would be two field lengths ahead of the competition. The last thing I expected was to find a Ugandan connection, but there it was: the Uganda National Social Security Fund (NSSF) is the third largest shareholder in the bank.

It conjured up images of other Ugandan connections to Dar and Tanzanian lands. President Yoweri Museveni is a child of Dar. So is Prof Mahmood Mamdani, former Monitor chief and legislator Wafula Oguttu; the founding former Inspector General of Gover...