My reader, today’s article will step on the government’s toes just to shake it a little bit and to remind President Yoweri Museveni that his cardinal duty or mandate which allows him to stay at Entebbe or Nakasero for free is to protect Ugandans.
If you haven’t noticed, Ugandans are perhaps the only people on earth who don’t need their government to look after them in terms of feeding, education of their young even healthy care. God sorted that one out and the government also knows it. That is why the world bank or western countries can take away their donations, grants and loans and no single Ugandan will starve to death or even riot.
When COVID-19 landed here, President Museveni shut down the entire country longer than any other country on earth. There was no schooling here for a full year and all hotels were closed shut including many businesses except those selling foodstuffs.
There was no food given to Ugandans in lockdown save for the ‘funny’ beans and “ugaali- maize flour”. Even this was given to about 5% of the population in urban areas. Basically we survived the lockdown and even came out looking better than before. We had become a little lean and more cheerful looking ahead to a yet another challenging episode of life.
Ugandans only want security of their properties and lives.
Even we survived Amin’s murdering regime where the dictator had destroyed all the commanding heights of the economy. Scarcity being the mother of creation, Ugandans passed through those years having given up on sugar, tea, soap, salt, no pencils and ink for schools, no chalk and no paraffin or fuel to run cars (all those apologists who think Idi Amin was a Messiah, get your heads examined. We shall talk about this in the near future).
Therefore our people need a government which takes care of their security. No stories of ADF targeting this or that; no Joseph Kony lurking in the bushes and no ‘NUP supporters’ trying to burn the country. They don’t even like the government’s foreign hegemony where their hard-earned taxes are spent in godforsaken places like Somalia.
Someone once said that defence expenditure is an investment in peace. Therefore all governments the world over have to make this expenditure irrespective of their level of development and whether they are surrounded by savage countries like in the GLR (Great Lakes Region) or sober ones like in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, etc).
At one time a BBC journalist asked President Museveni (I think it was around 1998) why he was spending nearly 25% of the Ugandan budget on defence and this was his clever answer:
“I hear the British are building a nuclear submarine (Trident class) costing around 3bn Pounds Sterling and yet Britain has no enemies…it is surrounded by water. Uganda on the other hand, is surrounded by savage countries like Congo, Rwanda and Sudan!”
Since we all agree now that defence expenditure is necessary, we must also agree that the said expenditure is not to protect insects or trees but people. The people are the supreme in all security arrangements. It is them who gives their government legitimacy therefore the onus rests on that government to keep that covenant.
In this article, I ask indeed want the government or President Museveni if you like, to go back to the basics; those small things which made him much loved by Ugandans. I think President Museveni is not being appraised properly with the security situation in the country or he is being complacent himself.
If I were Mr. Museveni, I wouldn’t have retired serious commanders the government spent millions training. One of them, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba (MK) though not retired yet, he wouldn’t be let loose to join politics. These are well-trained and hardened fighters our country still needed. The country is making many security mistakes when fighting ADF and in Somalia simply because our “Kalampenge- daredevil” fighters are now busy distributing seedlings to farmers as part of OWC (Operation Wealthy Creation).
Knowing fully the capabilities and operation readiness of some of our retired officers, albeit now aged, ADF or Alshabab wouldn’t mess with Salim Saleh, Sejjusa, Katumba Wamala, Kayihura, David Muhoozi and Andrew Gutti. Even sending highly trained military officers to serve in police is a clear case of ‘misallocation’ of resources.
President Museveni shouldn’t think, even for a minute, that he has got all figured out especially on security of Ugandans.
Don’t you sometime wonder why Coca Cola, which was founded in 1892 in Atlanta America, is still being advertised? We would think that since the product is now well-known, there is no need to still tell people about its good taste.
This is the same idea we must tell Mr. Museveni. The covenant he made or makes with Ugandans every five years, needs to be renewed every day of the week. There is absolutely no need to rest on his laurels thinking like Milton Obote or Idi Amin that Ugandans are ‘simple’ or ‘watu wajinga- hopeless people”.
Idi Amin Dada would go swimming almost daily at the Kampala International hotel (Sheraton) or get involved in motor rallies really thinking that Uganda would take care of itself. He left his illiterate soldiers, most of them Sudanese, to mistreat Ugandans. Milton Obote on the other hand, was fond of hanging at the Uganda Club (now National water headquarters near Nakasero state lodge) playing scrabble; chain smoking and drinking Vodka. Slowly but surely his deputy, Paulo Muwanga, took away his powers while Museveni and his NRA ‘kadogos’ were silently moving closer to Kampala.
The problem for those men was delegating work to their useless soldiers and unpatriotic civil servants.
Idi Amin had a class of high-tempered men like Musa Ayega, Ali Fadhul, Kassim Obura, Pangalasio Onek, Dusman Sabuni, Col. Goli and Isaac Maliyamungu. These men had it all including the power to walk into anyone’s home and take away whatever they desired including life or one’s wife. While Milton Obote on the other hand depended heavily on Major Gen. David Oyite Ojok. When Ojok died in a chopper crash in 1983, Obote had no option but to depend on a young soldier called Smith Apon Achak who had very little knowledge of how to command an army.
Then an idiot called Bazillio Olara Okello and an illiterate general called Tito Okello Lutwa overthrew him (sorry Hon. Oryem). The Okellos had their own idiots like Sgt. Sam Sokolo, Col Eric Odua, Major Kiyemba and Col.Ogole.
All the men mentioned above are dead and now facing the wrath of God. He is asking them why they murdered Innocent Ugandans!
Thank God Museveni hasn’t gotten such soldiers yet.
The closet he ever reached to having such men was Herbert Katungi “suicide”, Sula Semakula “mwanamwana”, Herbert Itongwa, David Tinyefunza now Sejjusa “Flat foot” and perhaps Wasswa Kasirye Ggwanga Fogo “omwaana womuntu”. Fortunately Museveni was always quick to check their excesses. He reshuffled them around or retired them before they caused any further mayhem.
There was a notoriously high-tempered Affande in the NRA called Julius Chihande. At one time this man spit in my face with some tribal diatribe but President Museveni has deliberately kept him away from Uganda. Though he is among the 27 armed rebels who attacked Kabamba on February 6, 1981, when launching the NRA revolution, very few Ugandans have seen or heard of him.
Former police boss, Gen (rtd) Edward Kale Kayihura was one Ugandan officer who tried to overstep his jurisdiction or usurp his powers. He was humiliated when Mr. Museveni relived him of his duties unceremoniously and even threw him behind bars.
Gen. Kayihura had other notorious officers like Agasirwe who somehow forgot that they were not serving in Idi Amin’s regime. All were humbled by Museveni and sent to jails or retired to their villages to tend to goats and other small remnants like rabbits!
If it wasn’t for the ‘smallness’ of man, no other military or police officer would have behaved badly again. Police officers clobbering journalists? I don’t think President Museveni is for that idiocy!
Irrespective of your political belief, you cannot fault Museveni for failing to crack a whip on aberrant elements in his government.
Have you ever heard of an idiotic man called Muhammad Kitata or a “kifeesi- masked thief” called Sobi?
This Kitata character tried to become another ‘Sokolo’ moving around beating Ugandans and carrying a gold pistol. He had forgotten which government he was serving.
One day, after President Museveni was fed up of Kitata’s nonsense, they grabbed him like a chicken thief and stripped of all little powers he thought he possessed and sent to Luzira. They blamed him for being in possession of “illegal” guns the government had actually issued to him. I am sure Kitata is now a reformed man who will never mess with state power.
At one time this small man said openly: “I fear or respect only two generals in Uganda: Gen. Museveni and Kale Kayihura!”
Poor thing. ‘Cadre’ Kitata had forgotten that there was a great general residing in a Luweero bush at Kapeeka. It was actually the same mistake Kale Kayihura had made to ‘think’ that he had overtaken the Kapeeka general in the pecking order.
If your name is not Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho aka Salim Saleh, you are nothing to President Museveni. So my friend, don’t become very enthusiastic serving him.
I remember following an episode of “Frontline” on NBS and Mr. Ofwono Opondo (OO) boasting about being close to Mr. Museveni. Then Dr. Miria koburunga Matembe looked at him puffed up with conceit and commented thus:
“You Ofwono knowing Museveni? I am sorry for you!”
President Museveni, whether you are helping to ‘keep’ him in power or on some personal vendetta, he will ‘throw’ you out with the birth water. Gen. James Kazini who is dead now would have told you how uncompromising is President Museveni when it comes to mediocrity.
So my comrades, especially in security, don’t over-step your mandates. The president is not interested in your toughness because he has a country to learn and he knows how ‘clever’ his subjects long became. One aberrant security officer mismanaging a police station even in an obscure place like Katakwi can act as a catalyst to collapse a regime.
He knows too that with social media, every move bad or good, is recorded and can be beamed to the entire world in seconds. So comrades, he won’t be there for you if you ‘foolishly’ follow orders. Just be professional and everything will be fine.
Before he even started on his revolutionary journey, Yoweri Museveni was aware that Uganda’s myriad of problems emanated from a single source: soldiers who thought were untouchables perhaps due to little education. Then he encouraged graduates and professionals to join the forces. Now there is no excuse not to perform diligently and in tandem with the laws governing the country.
With the previous armies, it was all systems go. For instance Oyite Ojok had a son called Simba who would park his motorcycle in the middle of a busy Kampala street. Amin’s son, Moses (is it this Lumunba fellow?) would even promote and demote military officers whilst he wasn’t a soldier himself. Milton Obote somehow tried to control his children but Akena Obote, UPC president, still brings out the rudeness of being once a first-son. If you doubt this talk to Dr. Olara Otunnu in confidence.
I think Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba (MK), the president’s son, remains a reasonable man given his senior rank and position of his father. It is only novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaijja who singles out MK for having supervised his torture. Other than that, he remains a very sober person who might play a prominent future role in our country. You will never find Muhoozi packed in the middle of the road charting with friends or going to a night club and beats whoever is there.
Yoweri Museveni is an intelligent man who studied us in infinitesimal details. He advised his brother Salim Saleh to go back to school and sent his wife, Maama Janet, back to Makerere to study. Which other leader has done that? Why would an ‘entire’ African First Lady, with powers to summon the Central Bank boss and order him to deliver a truck-full of cash, go back to school for?
I have always told my friends, especially those in the opposition, that rather than expending much of their energies on plotting how to remove President Museveni from power, they should instead study him. Why and how is he a complete leader almost like Mao Zedong?
Look my friend, Mr. Museveni has three young brothers: Michael Nuwagira Kaguta aka Toyota; Godfrey Aine Kaguta aka Sodo and Shadrack Nzeire Kaguta. These ‘boys’ are very humble who cannot even hurt a fly. I am just wondering aloud if I were to become the president, how my own brothers would behave? How would Bobi Wine’s family: Chairman Nyanzi, Nubian Li, Eddy Mutwe, Eddy Yawe, name others, behave if he became the tenant at Entebbe State House?
I know many Ugandans are beginning to tire with Museveni’s leadership especially of overstaying in power. I think it was the Bible which said: “it is better to stay with a fool you know than an angel you don’t know,” using this quotation advisedly.
Besides President Museveni hasn’t ruled us for 37 years (42 if you’re from Luweero) because he is a foolish man. To the contrary. Museveni has ruled us for this long because he is a genius. Using a yardstick marked 1 to 10, he scores somewhere between 6 and 8. Folks you don’t get such a leader everyday.
But not everything is perfect with the security of Ugandans and now tourists. The picture is not all that rosy. This is what we should tell President Yoweri Museveni.
No one, I mean nobody, should die in Uganda because he or she is not supporting the government in power. Supporting a government in power and being patriotic are two completely different things. I know some people who would willingly go to the DRCongo and fight the ADF rebels but completely uninterested when asked to vote for the NRM or Mr. President.
Beating opposition people is very wrong indeed because Mr. Museveni was the senior supervisor during the writing of the 1995 constitution and also the person who singlehandedly allowed a return to the politics of multipartyism. Why then jail anyone for exercising what the constitution allows?
The Museveni I know is a very thoughtful man who understands fully why God created day and night. He knows that he is the president of Uganda an oath and pledge he undertook to serve all those who dwell here. Yes his actions may be wrong because he has many advisors with ulterior motives, but he remains steadfast and wishes good to all Ugandans.
Last word is from a Baganda saying: “Wadde gwase gutya, naye kakiro tabulamu- no matter how bright the moon is; you will always tell that it is night!”
Adam Kamulegeya
adamkam2003@gmail.com
0779 104 336
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