US -Africa summit; Here Are The Reasons Why President Museveni’s Agitation For ITTS With America Is Shallow, Unrealistic And Untenable

 

US -Africa summit; Here Are The Reasons Why President Museveni’s Agitation For ITTS With America Is Shallow, Unrealistic And Untenable

 

Africa Needs To Clamor For Infrastructure Projects Like Railways, Airports, Power Dams, Roads, Mega Industries From The Western Powers

Early this month a contingent of African leaders went to attend the US-Africa summit. Although there were widespread petitions by several human rights bodies protesting Ugandan president Museveni’s attendance, he managed to maneuver his way to the summit.

American president Joe Biden made a passionate plea to integrate Africa in the strategic plans of his country and enticed the leaders with a 55 billion dollar outlay to kick off the renewed friendship.

This pledge shows that the American administration is willing to listen to good proposals from the African leaders but they are a bit arrogant not to ake advantage of the goodwill. For instance the Americans delivered most of the vaccines for the covid19 pandemic.

This shows that they can deliver on most of what we cannot produce.

Our (am talking about Africa) problem is that we have leaders who think they can challenge the western powers (remember Robert Mugabe, Ghadafi).

This arrogance has made Africa lose the opportunity to discus and present the real issues to the bigger western powers.

Ugandan president Museveni has tried to challenge and even openly dismiss the western powers and yet his country largely depends on their resources to make things move to a more reasonable direction.   

The western powers have spent trillions to African economies in the sectors of health, education and even security.

We should have encouraged the western powers to assist us build infrastructure like roads, railways, airports , ferries  ,power dams etc.

But because of arrogance African leaders try to impress by claiming that they don’t want aid but want to trade with the western powers.

Yet the reality is that most African countries may have the minerals and products that they can trade but there are issues that make it difficult to trade them on the international market.

This shows you why Museveni’s AGOA failed miserably.

 

This explains why this time Museveni was silent about his old song of promoting the African growth and opportunities act which had created a trade arrangement between Ugandan and the United States of America.

AGOA was a trade arrangement which collapsed on its inception because Uganda couldn’t fulfill its production potential. Although the US market was open to Ugandan products, the East African country lacked the potential to produce those particular products at a competitive level.

There was the case of the cotton fabrics which Ugandan had intended to earmark as the first product to export to the US market but ended up as an embarrassment when the Bugolobi factory closed before it could produce any cotton fabrics.

This time Museveni has again driven in the same direction of agitating for trade even when he knows that he almost has nothing to sell the American market. He came up with a very interesting acronym of ITTS (investment, trade, tourism and security) as the message he was trying to advance at this US-African leader’s summit.

When you look into his message you find that he was simply recycling the same arguments like those of AGOA.

If you claim that you don’t want aid but you want trade, do you have any products that can impress the international market?

Recent experience shows that the answer to that question is an afrimative NO.

Although Uganda has got plenty of goods that can be put on the market , they need to be upgraded to fit the international market.

For instance we have very good pineapples here , but making them qualify to the standards need a sophisticated value addition that can make them compete at the highest level.

Its true we have cotton , but we don’t have the means to make it compete with the cotton from other countries because we have failed to add the necessary vale that can advance its quality.

What does this mean?

This obviously means that Museveni should have first tried to convince the western powers to give us machines to set up industries that can add instant value to our cotton, coffee, pineapples, beef, fish ,Chicken, eggs, tomatoes , hide and skins etc.

After setting up the industries and making sure that they can produce high quality products that can satisfy the local and regional market , he would then run to the western powers to grant us the market to sell these products.

But the problem is that he putting the cart before the horse. In other words he is busy pulling the cart and praying that a horse will show up from somewhere. That cannot happen.

As a result of this helter-skelter way of doing things, we (Uganda) have even failed to match the standards on the regional market.    

Our brothers of Kenya who have a much bigger economy even slapped a ban on some of our Ugandan products because of their poor quality.

The Kenyans rejected our maize because it had toxins. Now if your maize cannot even rise to the standard of Kenya, who do you expect it to even penetrate the American market?

THE WAY FORWARD

As stated earlier, we should have pushed the western powers to help us build powerful things like the railway line from Kampala to Cape Town, Kampala to Kinshasa and beyond. Build power dams, airports and ports etc.

Other words, agitating for trade and tourism with the western is simply a waste of time because our products are too poor to compete in the international market.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a researcher, policy analyst and blogger;kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

WORLD CUP; Fifa Should Increase More African Teams And More player Substitutions At The World Cup

 

WORLD CUP; Fifa Should Increase More African Teams And More player Substitutions At The World Cup

The 2022 world cup Exposed The Racist Tendencies Of Ugandans Who Considered France More African Than Morocco  

At last the world cup came to an end this weekend concluding what has since been dubbed the best of all world cup tournaments in history. This world cup has, however provoked some of us to come up with some innovations that can make it more competitive

 When critically observed, of all football competitions, the world cup is the easiest tournament to win. Why? There are very few games a team needs to win at the world cup. Because, first of all, on average, a given team needs to win seven only games to win the world cup

 In fact Argentina managed to play Saudi Arabia, Poland, Mexico, Australia, Netherlands, Croatia and France to win the world cup.

Secondly, you need to also realize that you can be fixed in a group with very weak teams like Qatar, Saudi Arabia or even china.  

 

On the contrary, you need to play and win over thirteen games to win the European club champions league.

Therefore, I think it would be better to add more teams to expand the world cup teams that play in the tournament so that a given team plays at least ten games to win it. And since morocco has managed to play to the last four (semi finals), Africa deserves some two more slots to expand the tournament to a more competitive tournament.

Another suggestion concerns the number of substitutions made in a given game. I think five substitutions are very few in a given game.

Remember a world cup team comprises players selected across the globe to play for the national team. Now it’s not fair that you select 24 players for the tournament and only revolve around using only eleven plus five substitutions.

This is national team football which requires a given team to use as many players as it can to exhaust its full potential. Simply allow the team to select from the 24 players for a given game.

In most games we saw how teams would play games into extra time and you could see that even players who had come on as substitutes were completely exhausted.

A case in point is Japan which pushed Croatia into extra time and eventually to penalties. If you observed critically, it was evident that the Japanese players couldn’t lift their legs to take the penalties. If there had been a provision to change, it would have necessitated making some changes to enable fresh players finish up the game in extra time.

Therefore allowing the team to make substitutions to the whole team harms no one because it reflects the full potential of a given team. Those innovations can go a long way in making the world cup a more entertaining tournament.

The limitation on the substitutions made some teams appear weaker than they are. Teams like England and France have lot of talent that they cannot be limited to five subs only.

Because of the limitation in the number of subs, most coaches made errors in selection which cost their respective teams. A team like England had very good players that it was practically difficult to fix them into one eleven.

You could name two elevens of the English team and they all give you a value for money performance. For instance England has players like Alexander Trent , who is considered the best right back in the world but he never got a single minute of world cup football!

Because of the limitation on the number of subs, managers made mistakes which could have been avoided if they had room to make more changes.

For instance the French coach couldn’t field talented players like Eduardo Camavinga and Kinsley Corman in most matches.  But when he got the chance to field them in the final against Argentina, they changed the game, which France was losing 2-0 and forced it into a 3-3 draw after extra time and into penalties.

With England you can accuse the manager Gareth Southgate for having the wisdom to play Rushford, Grealish and Alexander Trent from the start or after half time. But you can also argue rightly that a flexible provision of more subs could have given him the space to give them playing time.

UGANDANS ARE RACISTS

Another observation about the Qatar 20 world cup was the level of sectarianism that was exhibited by Ugandans. When morocco went on to play the semi finals, most of the Ugandans made blunt racist remarks that the Moroccan team was not African by appearance.

And as such most Ugandans made lots of noise when France beat our African brothers from North Africa in the semifinals. They rooted for France simply because it has typical black skinned Africans!

These are the same people who complain about the racism by the white people in the Diaspora. While we are agitating for African unity of whole continent, most of our people still consider our Arab brothers as foreigners residing on the same African continent.

While we claim that football is a uniting force, this world cup also demonstrated that it can also evoke terrible divisions in society.

But my ultimate prayer is that FIFA should adopt those aforementioned suggestions of adding at least two more slots for African teams and also allowing teams to make as many as eleven substitutions to exhaust the potential of the teams.

Fred Daka Kamwada Is A Researcher, Policy Analysts And Blogger ; kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

  

 

 

 

 

Ugandans Should Interrogate What President Museven Is Doing With 146 RDCs, 139 Advisors, And 83 Cabinet Ministers

 

Ugandans Should Interrogate What President Museven Is Doing With 146 RDCs, 139 Advisors, And 83 Cabinet Ministers

 

 

·        The Mantra Of Small-Government-Big-Business Is A More Critical Than Merging Government Agencies  because you can merge and remain with a bigger workforce

 

In the last two to three years the NRM government has paid lip service to the inevitable need to cut down on the unnecessary and avoidable expenditures.  They have exuded the art of a man whose heart is willing but the body is weak to undertake a given task.  Some few months ago the media was awash with suggestions that government was in advanced stages of merging all agencies that were duplicating roles or blowing resources.

From the look of things however, it seemed that the government was concentrating all the energies in pursing the option of merging government agencies at the expense of other measures that can lead to a sizeable reduction on the cost of administration.

A few months ago (around August) state minister for public service Hon Mary Grace Mugasa presented a report to the NRM Parliamentary Caucus which revealed that  that government had resolved to retain 88 government agencies and merge, mainstream, and transfer the functions of 69 agencies out of 157 that had been reviewed in 2018.

This was intended to streamline government architecture to enable efficient and effective service delivery and mostly address wasteful expenditure and challenges of duplication of work, conflicts and mandate overlap.

The immediate implication was that Uganda was to save up to UGX 649 billion ($167,148,846) annually from the rationalization, merging, and mainstreaming of agencies of 53 government agencies and functions according to the Ministry of Public Service.

This move deserves a clap or standing ovation of some sort.

We honestly applaud the move to trim public expenditure by taking on the rationalization reform to merge several of these autonomous which were agreeably created without clear justification, some being pseudo-government projects, while others have had their mandates overtaken by events.

However there are justified claims that these agencies were formed to increase efficiency in service delivery but the problem now portends on whether an appraisal has been carried out to determine whether the desired objectives have been achieved or not before undertaking the merging process.

AN APPRAISAL

There are those that have lived to their expectations and indeed delivered while others have been practical failures. The obvious should have been to simply trust the mainstream agencies to deliver to their expected mandate rather than creating new ones. For instance the state house anticorruption desk is doing what the IGG is supposed to do.

The Multiplicity of these government agencies should have never happened to begin with because the Ugandan taxpayer has been overburdened by an over-bloated public service. These bourgeoning agencies have over time become a major strain on the national treasury at the expense of efficient service delivery.

Despite of the fact that it is a good move to embark on the merging and streamline of these agencies, it’s not enough. More needs to be done to cut down on the cost of public administration.

THE FACTS

The 2021 Auditor General’s report shows that only 13 out of the 26 public corporation and state enterprises evaluated were profit-making.

In august this year President Museveni supported the decision and accused most of the government agencies for not working but rather spending the money allocated to them from their mother ministries and implored the NRM MPs to back the rationalization reform

 He also said apart from research and farmer institutions only profit-making parastatals should be spared while money-eating parastatals should be gotten rid of in order to save government billions of shillings.

But the president did not elaborate on whether the bigger cabinet, bigger parliament of 520 MPs, a hundreds of presidential advisors and RDCs, which are not known to make any profit to the state coffers.

 

At 71 ministers strong, Uganda has the third largest cabinet in the world after North Korea and Kenya. This is in circumstances where the global average of ministers is 30 while average for Sub-Saharan Africa is 40.

 Rwanda has got a cabinet of 27 and Burundi 29 ministers but you can justify that by saying that they are much smaller countries with a smaller population than Uganda to necessitate a bigger cabinet.

But it’s shocking that much bigger countries have smaller cabinet than Uganda. For instance Nigeria which is five times bigger with a population of 211 million people has only got 54 cabinet ministers.

In Tanzania  following the late president John Pombe Magufuli's reelection in the 2020 he unveiled his new cabinet of 23 ministers yet Tanzania is about 4 times bigger than Uganda.

President Museven has the tendency of hoodwinking Ugandans by showing that he has got the spirit to spirit to improve things yet the on the contrary the reality is completely the opposite.

As we speak, Museven has got more advisors than any known president on earth with 139 of them siphoning state resources with impunity.

YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THIS;

In January this year the Office of the President of Uganda reported a funding gap of sh5.1 billion to enable the purchase of vehicles for the newly recruited presidential advisors that included new ones like former prime ministers Hon Amama Mbabazi , Ruhakana Rugunda and former vice presidents Edward Sekandi and Prof Gilbert Bukenya. Another sh4.23 billion was also needed to facilitate investiture ceremonies and procurement of medals, while sh7 billion has been budgeted for construction of office space for Resident District Commissioners (RDCs.

According to research we found out that the NRM government deployed a total of 146 RDCs and 107 of these are renting, 15 are in government-built houses and 24 are in houses owned by districts. Some of the government constructed houses are in the districts of Lamwo, Abim, Amuru, Kiryandongo, Kamuli, Buhweju, Bundibugyo, Lwengo, Rubirizi, Butaleja, Adjumani, Butambala, Otuke and Luuka.

According to reliable sources the office of the President constructs only one office accommodation each year. This implies that it would take the Office of the President 110 years to construct houses for all RDCs!

With all this, you don’t need a rocket scientist to show you were Ugandan tax payers money is being wasted.

THE WAY FORWARD

 Ugandans should interrogate what president Museven is doing with 146 RDCs, 139 advisors, and 83 cabinet ministers?

Before he postures to rationalize and merge government agencies he should first justify the cost of administration in regard to officials that work directly for him.

Fred Daka Kamwada Is A Policy Analyst, Researcher And Blogger

kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

 

THE BANYARWANDA CONUNDRUM; The Banyarwanda-Phobia Sentiment Is Generated By Haters, Weaponized By Opportunists And Believed By Complete Idiots

 

THE BANYARWANDA CONUNDRUM; The Banyarwanda-Phobia Sentiment Is Generated By Haters, Weaponized By Opportunists And Believed By Complete Idiots

·        Ugandans should not succumb to tribal blackmail that was also imposed on the Acholis by labeling them as killers

 

For the last forty years the issue of the Banyarwanda has been one of the most contentious in this country. It’s the most delicate issues on the landscape that evokes very serious emotions. But when subjected to sober analysis, you will find it to be very simple and straight forward. It’s a classic case of tolerance clashing with intolerance.

One of the most dangerous sentiments that has gained currency in the recent years has been the suggestion that the Banyarwanda are an endangered race that faces direct persecution in the region, well as not. While it has led to the creation of M23 in Congo, it’s growing slowly in this country.

The Rwandese have a unique but turbulent history behind them that started in 1959 when Gregory Kayibanda toppled king kigeri that precipitated the influx of Rwandese refugees to Burundi, Congo and Uganda. As a result of this, many of them settled in Uganda and managed to integrate freely in parts of Ankole and the Buganda sub region in south western Uganda.  

When they settled in, they managed to inter marry with most of the Bantu speaking tribes mostly in south western Uganda and even made efforts to forget their background by taking names and clans of the indigenous Ugandans.

At that time and mostly before 1959, only extremely wealthy Ugandan men could manage to marry a Rwandese woman because they of their beauty. It became a tradition that every Muganda chief had to marry a Rwandese woman to prove his worth in the community. In fact Buganda kings including Kabaka Muteesa and even the current Kabaka are known to have delivered children with them. This same trend has continued to spread to most parts of Uganda.

Throughout that time towards Uganda’s independence and beyond President Idi Amin, there was no problem between Ugandans and the Rwandese. In fact there are serious allegations that Gen Idi Amin had so many Rwandese in the various government departments.

In fact, no single Ugandan was known to mention the word Rwandese in a derogatory manner because they were living in harmony with all Ugandans.

OBOTE’S ANTI-RWANDESE SENTIMENT

But everything changed after the fall of President Idi Amin and the emergence of the UPC government of president Apollo Milton Obote who started to orchestrate a hate campaign against the Banyarwanda by asserting that they were refugees who had to go back to their country.

Obote’s anti-Rwandese sentiment was orchestrated by two factors.

One was that Obote believed strongly that the Rwandese had worked in Gen Idi Amin’s notorious security agencies like the state research bureau for the 8 years he was in exile in Tanzania. Incidentally Amin had managed to recruit so many non-Ugandans from Zaire, Rwanda and with the majority from southern Sudan in the Ugandan security agencies.

When Amin was overthrown by the TPDF, a whole chunk of Zairians like the notorious Brig Maliyamungu, and a whole bunch of the Sudanese all fled the country, but the Rwandese did not leave the country. Obote was of the view that they had to also leave the country just like the Sudanese and the Zairians.

The reason why the Rwandese couldn’t leave was because the majority of them had intermarried with the Ugandans and secondly they had been a few ‘lucky ones’ who had worked for Amin’s government. Unfortunately for them, Obote couldn’t understand the dynamics of their continued stay in Uganda because he considered them as traitors who had worked with Amin.

The second bone of contention had also arisen from the fact that during the struggle to oust Amin, Obote had a military faction known as Kikosi Maluum which was bitterly opposed to another an anti-Amin military faction known FRONASA led by a young man called Yoweri Museveni.

Although these two military factions were not necessarily a threat to Amin but they were putting up a fight to remove him from power. Since they had no military capacity to overthrow Amin by force of arms, they luckily co-opted Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere in the direct fight against the Ugandan dictator. During that war from 1972 up to 1979b when Amin fell , they were competing for attention from president Nyerere.

Because Fronasa was led by Yoweri Museveni who had co-opted some young Rwandese boys in his ranks , Obote made a blanket accusation by accusing Museveni of being a Munyarwanda who had to leave the country , the same way the Sudanese and Zairians had done after the fall of Amin.

Museveni himself had been part of all the post Amin UNLF governments led by president Yusuf Lule And Godfrey Binaisa where he served as minister of defense and later on rose to become the vice chairman of the military commission that was led by Paulo Muwanga that eventually oversaw the 1980 elections’. Ordinarily, unverified sources claim that Obote’s kikosi maluum had to share power with Museveni’s Fronasa, but obote declined to consent to that arrangement.

President Museveni actually writes in his book The Mustard Seed that most of his Fronasa boys like the late fred Rwigyema , Paul Kagame and others were disqualified from the army and denied a chance to go for further military training on grounds that they were not Ugandans.

When Apollo Milton Obote managed to maneuver the 1980 elections and assume power, he embarked on the grand scheme to first of all dismantle Fronasa by disarming them completely. The late Gen Elly Tumwine revealed that the reason why they attacked Kabamba in 1981 was to retrieve the guns which had been removed from them by Obote’s UNLA.

 The second mission was to expel all Rwandese from Uganda and assigned this heinous duty to one of his most trusted minister by the names of Chris Rwakasis and another one called peter Otai. Rwakasisi actually managed to purge Banyarwanda from most parts of Ankole before he attacked the Luwero triangle to enforce the same mission.

President Obote did not know that these xenophobic attacks were going to cost him the power that he loved the most.

Meanwhile Yoweri Museveni who was his arch enemy had gone to the bush the declared war on Obote’s UPC government in 1981. This development of the Museveni bush war compounded matters for the local Banyarwanda because they all became branded rebels who had to be hunted down and most of them were killed in the process. As matters degenerated from bad to worse, most Rwandese in the Luwero triangle areas had no option but to join Museveni’s rebel group in the bush war against Obote.

When the war was going on these Rwandese boys excelled in the fight against the UPC government and assumed powerful military positions.

As time passed by, it was inevitable that these boys had to fight the Rwandese government which had expelled their parents in 1959.

So they eventually organized an attack on Rwanda in 1990 which culminated in their victory in 1994. But before they could achieve victory the Hutus had orchestrated genocide on the Tutsis that horrified the world in 1994 genocide where an estimated million Tutsis were killed by the Hutu extremists.

During the promulgation of the 1995 Ugandan constitution, the constituent assembly legislated the Rwandese as one of the tribes of Uganda, mostly due to the historical connections we have labored to explain in these pages.

Now as things stand, some opportunists are trying to create a rift between the Rwandese and Ugandans who have lived in harmony for very many years. These opportunists are hawking a suggestion that the Rwandese are being targeted violently by other Ugandans, something that is diabolically not true.

Meanwhile another set of opportunists are playing a hate card similar to that of president Obote by claiming that the Rwandese have mismanaged their country , Uganda , and should therefore return to their motherland. These opportunists groups are making the diabolical mistake of linking these Rwandese to the NRM government and president Museveni in general.

 

THE REALITY

All these two versions are being spread by a set of haters and being advanced by complete idiots. Some Rwandese may be enjoying positions in government but it doesn’t make all of them NRM or Museveni enthusiasts.

In fact most of the NUP supporters who were kidnapped in the aftermath of the 2021 elections were Ugandans of Rwandese origin.  These heinous tribal sentiments must be resisted by all right thinking citizens.

This Rwanda-phobia is being advanced by haters, weaponized by opportunists and being spread around and believed by complete idiots. It’s the same tribal sentiment which had been imposed on the Acholis by inciting other Ugandans to regard them as killers, well as it’s not true at all.

It’s not true at all that ordinary Ugandans are against the Rwandese and Ugandans shouldn’t succumb to such tribal blackmail.

Fred Daka Kamwada is a researcher, policy analyst and a blogger; kamwadafred@gmail.com

WATCH OUT; President Museveni’s Government Is Just One Stupid Mistake Away From Complete International Isolation

 

WATCH OUT; President Museveni’s Government Is Just One Stupid Mistake Away From Complete International Isolation

·      Forget Elections, It’s The UPDF Military Investments In The Region That Have Created International Relevance And Consolidation Of Power For Gen Museveni

President Museveni has been line up to meet American president Joe Biden at the US- Africa leaders’ summit slated for next month December 2022 amidst protestations from many quarters.

This meeting comes after several letters from the Chairperson of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Robert Menendez petitioning Biden to withdraw Museveni’s invite. Menendez’s letter was informed by another petition from opposition leader Hon Robert Kyagulanyi accusing Museveni of gross

violation of human rights.

Menendez argued that Museveni has twice changed the constitution to suit his needs, impeded democratic processes, turned a blind eye to rampant corruption, and subjected civil society, and political leaders to illegal detention, violence and torture with impunity.

He, therefore, asked that Museveni be regarded as an outcast with the USA and that several dealings with him should be ceased, starting with his invite to the December summit.

THE DRAMATIC U-TURN

Following Menendez’s letters against Museveni, United States Representative to the United Nations (UN), Linda Thomas-Greenfield paid a courtesy visit to Uganda and held discussions with the President, reassuring him of their continued need for coordination.

 Greenfield insisted that the USA still has a “strong partnership” with President Museveni and also confirmed that they had received several requests against inviting President Museveni but she insisted “inviting President Museveni was a good opportunity

to engage”.

She was obviously trying to seek out the Uganda president on the regional issues, especially the volatile Congo where the activities of the M34 rebel have created a storm in the region confirming the widely held view that the most prominent issue that keeps Museveni in the good books of the international community is derived from the military investments he has made in Somalia, Congo, Central African Republic and Southern Sudan.

These security engagements make president

Museveni an important player in the

geopolitics of the great lakes region. –which explain why Greenfield was insisting on engagement with Museveni especially with the current volatility in the Congo.

Without these UPDF engagements in the

region, Museveni would be an irrelevant item

to the international community and would

easily be isolated and face probable indictment.

This is because there seems to be no African country with the military capacity to make those military investments on the continent.

Contrary to what most people think, elections

are no longer the avenue for Museveni’s

continued consolidation of power.

 

If Democracy in general and elections in particular had been the main conduit to legitimize his grip on power, he would have lost power a long time ago. Why?

SHAM ELECTIONS

Because it has come to be known worldwide

that While Uganda holds regular elections, their credibility has deteriorated over time, and the country has been ruled by the same president since 1986.

The ruling party, the National Resistance Movement

(NRM), retains power through the manipulation of state resources, intimidation by security forces, and politicized prosecutions of opposition leaders. Uganda’s civil society and independent media sectors suffer from legal and extralegal harassment and state violence

 

All this is contrary to what Museveni promised when he came to power 36 years ago, when the then rebel leader Yoweri Museveni asserted that his group was more politically refined than the past leaders and would lead Uganda through a sustained Democratic path.

As a matter of fact, the NRM had a draft document known as the ten-point program in which point number one stated the restoration of democracy through regular free and fair elections would be conducted.

The then rebel chief turned president was

very clear that dictatorships were a thing of

the past leaders like Apollo Milton Obote and

Gen Idi Amin who consolidated all state power in

their respective hands.

But with the passing of time things have turned contrary to the powerful messages of 1986.

POWER

 

Today the whole situation has turned full

circle as Power is concentrated in the hands of president Museveni, who retains office through deeply flawed electoral processes.

Although there is parliament operating under the rule of law, the Ugandan Lawmakers have little practical ability to influence legislation in which the government has a particular interest, though there is more consultation on ordinary policy matters.

 

The executive has secured passage of key legislation through inducement, harassment and intimidation of the legislative branch.

 

CIVIL LIBERTIES

Although the president was very unequivocal

on matters of civil liberty and freedom in the

first years of his coming to power 30 years ago, today

things have changed for the worst.

The Ugandan media features many independent outlets, but their journalists face arrest, harassment, intimidation, and assault in reprisal for their work.

Authorities routinely raid and shut down radio stations and other outlets, and will take away accreditation from journalists in retribution for their reporting.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a press

freedom watchdog, reported that over the

years, several journalists have been harassed

and attacked by police and members of the

public while covering presidential elections.

 

Having reneged on the issue of Democracy, and civil liberties the Ugandan regime is facing a very tight situation with the international community.

When U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a visit to Africa he went to Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa and deliberately left out Uganda.

Leaving out Uganda from his schedule seemed to confirm the growing perception of a diminished geo-political stature for President Yoweri Museveni.

Last year the US Department of State announced a blanket travel ban on Ugandan government officials who they say were involved in gross human rights violations and undermining democracy during and after the January 14 general election.

The US Department of State also said the presidential polls in which incumbent President Museveni was declared winner with 58 per cent while former National Unity Platform (NUP) party flag bearer Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, polled 35 per cent of the votes, were "neither free nor fair."

 

Blinken was focused with African countries that had fulfilled the promise of democracy and he referenced Afro-barometer surveys that show Africans are largely against authoritarianism.

Blinken acknowledged that delivering on the Democratic dividends and the peaceful transition of power were fundamental requirements for any country to register the necessary legitimacy. These issues are set to be the subjects of the US-African leader’s summit which is slated to take place in December 2022.

Having failed on all most all the aforementioned areas, Museveni will be faced with a hostile contingent from the US at the summit.

In December 2020 the former chair of the US House of Representatives committee on foreign affairs, Mr Elliot Engel, recommended several Ugandan military officials for sanctions, including the commander of Land Forces, Lt Gen Peter Elwelu; Maj Gen James Birungi, the then Commander of the Special Forces Command (SFC); Maj Gen Don William Nabasa, a former commander of SFC and now commander of Ugandan troops in Somali; and Maj Gen Abel Kandiho, Chief of Military Intelligence.

Others were former Deputy Inspector of General of Police Maj Gen Sabiiti Muzeyi, Commissioner of Police Frank Mwesigwa, and the Director of Crime Intelligence, Col Chris Sserunjogi Ddamulira.

 

CONCLUSION

All indications are that Museveni is just one stupid mistake away from getting completely isolated by the western powers.

Having failed on delivering Democracy and civil liberties, Museveni’s remaining source of legitimacy now revolves around the UPDF military investments he has made in Somalia, Congo and southern Sudan. Without them he is practically finished.

 

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a

researcher and policy analyst;

kamwadafred@gmail.Com