The FDC Party has failed to govern local governments in northern Uganda
Local leaders of Acholi District Councils in Gulu, Pader, and Kitgum were massively given a mandate by the people of these respective districts, on very clear non-NRM policy agenda. Their voting for a DP chairperson in Gulu (Mao) and FDC Chairpersons in Kitgum (Ogwok) and Pader (Odok) signaled a necessary policy change in local governance and the majoir issues of importance to the lives of the people in this region.
Personal security and general peace, through a peaceful and negotiated settlement was one of them. Dismantling of the concentration camps and resettling people in their ancestral homesteads was another. Rehabilitation of social and economic infrastructures; schools, dispensaries, water wells and boreholes, roads and anciliary services were among popular policy themes on the lips of our people and in the manifestos of the opposition parties that got themsevles elected to lead Acholi district councils.
However, all of these leaders without exception; Mao in Gulu (DP); Ogwok in Kitgum and Odok in Pader, both (FDC) have thrown away their respective party's manifestos and have governed like movement henchmen, without any marked and tangible policy shift to reflect the wishes of their constituents who voted in the hopes for radical policy departures from the NRM's in the last general and local governent elections in 2006. This is even more damning for the FDC, considering that they took northern region in presidential and local government votes; moreover, the leader of the opposition, the hapless Ogenga Latigo, who seems to speak with his foot in his mouth on key policy issues, is from this region, and Pader, to be exact. Is it any wonder that Ogenga Latigo should think the major sticking points on the road to peace via Juba are roadblocks thrown by the Acholi in the diaspora? Hon. Latigo, you are a Johnny-come-lately to the long and protracted struggle for a negotiated and peaceful settlement of the northern Uganda conflicts. The Acholi diaspora were in these trenches since Jan 25 1986. When did you report for duty, sir?
During the last elections campaigns, those of us who were on the political hustings acknowleged and respected our people's intelligent sense of the crucial issue of the moment: get rid of Museveni and the Movement and everything else should be a piece of cake. And in their best judgement which we in the UPC, respected, they believed and heeded the FDC campaign that the issue of the moment needed a general, or a military man who could also rattle his epulets and go toe-to-toe with Lt. Gen. Kaguta. Moreover, they believed the FDC militant politics, trusting that, should the ballot box fail to get rid of Kaguta, they would activate plan B; which was no secret that it meant an armed struggle or insurrection. And they believe the man of the moment who could execute such daring feat was Col. Kizza Besigye of the FDC.
Although our own understanding and sense of effecting change was clear on the role of the individual in hisotry and on the fact that social change does not depend on one individual, and that progressive change is not often an episodic cataclycism, but a long and protracted, deliberate interplays of coordinated, tactical and strategic actions at various structures of society; cohered around a clear, inspiring and aspirational vision and leadership that reflects the specific needs and yearnings of the people; laced with an uplifitng picture of a better and just tomorrow, we did not reject the people's belief and faith in the potential of one man with one agenda, to accomplish such a task. However, we elaborated on the challenges and shortcomings of such positions, by also highlighting the strengths of collective efforts and resolve when entrusted to an institutional political entity such as the UPC, whose position on the charlatan Museveni dictatorship from day one was clear and unwavering; and whose history and character as a friend of the Ugandan people was unassailable.
Therefore, we respected and accepted our people's political prudence, which was to get rid of Museveni and the Movement, rather than a rejection of UPC as our detractors and opponents have simplistically interpreted it. In fact, many declared that they were party members but the moment called for supporting a military man to face a military man. For those who were sold on the FDC militancy, the question to us was: what would we in the UPC do if we won or lost the election but Museveni refused to hand over to us? For such strand of FDC militants, and perhaps the general impression FDC ideologues in Acholi impressed upon the people, win or lose, Besigye and the FDC had plan B to deal with Museveni and Movement electoral malpractices and recalcitrance. As we all know, this has not come to pass.
It is now clear, how the faultlines of the next campaigns run like a relief grid. The DP local government leadership in Gulu, and the FDC local leaderships in Kitgum and Pader have failed and betrayed the trust and aspirations of our people for change. While they campaigned for change, they have become the most eloquent and ardent proponents and implementers of no-change and movement policies in Acholi. As a political party, the FDC duped our people in the last election and have rewarded their trust and vulnerabilities with cynicism and ineffective local and national leadership that is all rhetoric even when they should control local governant agenda in Gulu and Pader, where they should have showcased their own policy initiatives. Instead, movement minions such as Todwong and unelected sycophants such as Walter Ochora are the ones, driving local government and regional policy in Acholi.
These are warning shots on the bows of our opponent's and detractor's political ships in Acholi: What happened to the Key? What have the Colonel's epulets done, after the elections were won, lost, drawn or Museveni refused to quit? Let us, each political party return to the people and acquit ourselves accordingly the next time.
Finally, a political party is not a building or a name; it is the people who lead it and are committed to its ideas and policies and dreams for the society it operates in. And its strengths and weaknesses also largely dependent on the social, political, economic, intellectual and democractic enviroment of the society it operates in, and the relative level of social, material and intellectual development of such a society. Therefore, a political party is as bad or as good as the people who lead and shape its policies and the society from which such people are drawn and for which they must dream. Accordingly, it is disingenuous for us to delude ourselves that our social and political problems as well as institutional pathology could be solved by forming new poltical parties or such other organisations each time there is an ideological or policy impasse. Recourse to such easy but in the long term, deceptive and inffectual solutions betrays a degree of impatience, inability to focus on problems and painstakingly and systemactically seek and find solutions to them within their context.
In my opinion, agitation for new political parties as solutions to the problems of society or old political parties is a cope out, and a short-cut only the intellectually lazy and ideologically immature and socially unconscious can flirt with. This is not to say once there are other political parties, new ones cannot be founded. Not at all; the point is that there must be exceptionally fundamental ideological, policy and political reasons that outstrip the capacities and institutional and aspirational structures of subsisting political parties to address, so that new socio-political outfits better suited to respond to such particular problems, become necessary.
This and other views on topical issues can be found at:
www.northernugandapost.blogspot.com/
In Patriotic Solidarity,
Okello Lucima
Personal security and general peace, through a peaceful and negotiated settlement was one of them. Dismantling of the concentration camps and resettling people in their ancestral homesteads was another. Rehabilitation of social and economic infrastructures; schools, dispensaries, water wells and boreholes, roads and anciliary services were among popular policy themes on the lips of our people and in the manifestos of the opposition parties that got themsevles elected to lead Acholi district councils.
However, all of these leaders without exception; Mao in Gulu (DP); Ogwok in Kitgum and Odok in Pader, both (FDC) have thrown away their respective party's manifestos and have governed like movement henchmen, without any marked and tangible policy shift to reflect the wishes of their constituents who voted in the hopes for radical policy departures from the NRM's in the last general and local governent elections in 2006. This is even more damning for the FDC, considering that they took northern region in presidential and local government votes; moreover, the leader of the opposition, the hapless Ogenga Latigo, who seems to speak with his foot in his mouth on key policy issues, is from this region, and Pader, to be exact. Is it any wonder that Ogenga Latigo should think the major sticking points on the road to peace via Juba are roadblocks thrown by the Acholi in the diaspora? Hon. Latigo, you are a Johnny-come-lately to the long and protracted struggle for a negotiated and peaceful settlement of the northern Uganda conflicts. The Acholi diaspora were in these trenches since Jan 25 1986. When did you report for duty, sir?
During the last elections campaigns, those of us who were on the political hustings acknowleged and respected our people's intelligent sense of the crucial issue of the moment: get rid of Museveni and the Movement and everything else should be a piece of cake. And in their best judgement which we in the UPC, respected, they believed and heeded the FDC campaign that the issue of the moment needed a general, or a military man who could also rattle his epulets and go toe-to-toe with Lt. Gen. Kaguta. Moreover, they believed the FDC militant politics, trusting that, should the ballot box fail to get rid of Kaguta, they would activate plan B; which was no secret that it meant an armed struggle or insurrection. And they believe the man of the moment who could execute such daring feat was Col. Kizza Besigye of the FDC.
Although our own understanding and sense of effecting change was clear on the role of the individual in hisotry and on the fact that social change does not depend on one individual, and that progressive change is not often an episodic cataclycism, but a long and protracted, deliberate interplays of coordinated, tactical and strategic actions at various structures of society; cohered around a clear, inspiring and aspirational vision and leadership that reflects the specific needs and yearnings of the people; laced with an uplifitng picture of a better and just tomorrow, we did not reject the people's belief and faith in the potential of one man with one agenda, to accomplish such a task. However, we elaborated on the challenges and shortcomings of such positions, by also highlighting the strengths of collective efforts and resolve when entrusted to an institutional political entity such as the UPC, whose position on the charlatan Museveni dictatorship from day one was clear and unwavering; and whose history and character as a friend of the Ugandan people was unassailable.
Therefore, we respected and accepted our people's political prudence, which was to get rid of Museveni and the Movement, rather than a rejection of UPC as our detractors and opponents have simplistically interpreted it. In fact, many declared that they were party members but the moment called for supporting a military man to face a military man. For those who were sold on the FDC militancy, the question to us was: what would we in the UPC do if we won or lost the election but Museveni refused to hand over to us? For such strand of FDC militants, and perhaps the general impression FDC ideologues in Acholi impressed upon the people, win or lose, Besigye and the FDC had plan B to deal with Museveni and Movement electoral malpractices and recalcitrance. As we all know, this has not come to pass.
It is now clear, how the faultlines of the next campaigns run like a relief grid. The DP local government leadership in Gulu, and the FDC local leaderships in Kitgum and Pader have failed and betrayed the trust and aspirations of our people for change. While they campaigned for change, they have become the most eloquent and ardent proponents and implementers of no-change and movement policies in Acholi. As a political party, the FDC duped our people in the last election and have rewarded their trust and vulnerabilities with cynicism and ineffective local and national leadership that is all rhetoric even when they should control local governant agenda in Gulu and Pader, where they should have showcased their own policy initiatives. Instead, movement minions such as Todwong and unelected sycophants such as Walter Ochora are the ones, driving local government and regional policy in Acholi.
These are warning shots on the bows of our opponent's and detractor's political ships in Acholi: What happened to the Key? What have the Colonel's epulets done, after the elections were won, lost, drawn or Museveni refused to quit? Let us, each political party return to the people and acquit ourselves accordingly the next time.
Finally, a political party is not a building or a name; it is the people who lead it and are committed to its ideas and policies and dreams for the society it operates in. And its strengths and weaknesses also largely dependent on the social, political, economic, intellectual and democractic enviroment of the society it operates in, and the relative level of social, material and intellectual development of such a society. Therefore, a political party is as bad or as good as the people who lead and shape its policies and the society from which such people are drawn and for which they must dream. Accordingly, it is disingenuous for us to delude ourselves that our social and political problems as well as institutional pathology could be solved by forming new poltical parties or such other organisations each time there is an ideological or policy impasse. Recourse to such easy but in the long term, deceptive and inffectual solutions betrays a degree of impatience, inability to focus on problems and painstakingly and systemactically seek and find solutions to them within their context.
In my opinion, agitation for new political parties as solutions to the problems of society or old political parties is a cope out, and a short-cut only the intellectually lazy and ideologically immature and socially unconscious can flirt with. This is not to say once there are other political parties, new ones cannot be founded. Not at all; the point is that there must be exceptionally fundamental ideological, policy and political reasons that outstrip the capacities and institutional and aspirational structures of subsisting political parties to address, so that new socio-political outfits better suited to respond to such particular problems, become necessary.
This and other views on topical issues can be found at:
www.northernugandapost.blogspot.com/
In Patriotic Solidarity,
Okello Lucima
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