Museveni and the NRM are mother lodes of fool's gold to Ugandans
Key Words: Yowri Museveni, National Resistance Movement / Army (NRM/A), Uganda People's Congress (UPC), Democratic Party (DP); The Lost Counties of Bunyoro; Kabaka Mutesa II; Buganda; Forum for Democratic Change (FDC); Kizza Besigye.
Fool's gold is a sulphide mineral with a golden lustre, especially pyrite. Careless geologists can sometimes mistake it for gold. It is our view that people who supported Museveni's misadventure in 1981 and embraced the NRM in 1986, only to fall out with them later, were like careless geologists who mistook fool's gold for the real thing. Our friends in the FDC and DP, who now assert that Museveni took them for a ride to fight for a fool's paradise, fall into this category. Even the Buganda monarchy, through its young prince, then living in London, was not spared by this swindle.
Given their about-face on policy matters Ugandans took seriously, the NRM typifies a fool's gold.
First, they preached revolutionary, fundamental change through The Ten Point Programme, only to abandon it before the cock crowed even once. Second, for the support of Buganda for the war in Luwero, the restoration of the Buganda monarchy was promised, and without any national debate on its broader impact on national politics, restored in 1993 ahead of the 1995 constitution. But today, the Buganda monarchy and its proponents are barely tolerated.
Third, the 1995 constitution and 1998 Land Act invested land in the people of Uganda. However, the 2007 Land Amendment Bill seeks to overturn this.
Fourth, seeking to ride on a populist agenda, the NRM staked its democratic credentials on Presidential Term Limits in the 1995 Constitution, only to resort to bribery to have parliament repeal that provision in 2005. Now, it is rumoured that constitutional provision for 50+1 presidential electoral formula, is unacceptable for the NRM, come 2011.
These and other impending duplicitous policy actions support the view that for the last 22 years, the NRM has been a mother lode of fool's gold; and Uganda a fool's paradise.
Personal ambitions and narrow ethnic agenda do not a nation build
These policy acrobatics should not surprise anyone at all. Having come to power on a narrow, ethnic, regional and Museveni's personal ambition alone, the NRM has reached the natural zenith of power that such a non-national agenda can sustain. It is not for nothing that it has had to rely on the army and a militarised police, to retain power and maintain their grip on state institutions and government. Absent the institutions of the repressive arms of the state, and the NRM or Museveni have no political weight, no national relevance, and no credible, competitive national agenda to speak of, in an open, peaceful, free, competitive democratic, orderly political process.
People are bound to ask how Ugandans- like geologists prospecting for gold are fooled by fool's gold-got so easily fooled by the NRM.
First, Museveni unscrupulously exploited parochial Ganda animosities towards the UPC, Milton Obote, and northerners, as a result of the 1964 referendum on the lost counties that returned Buyaga and Bugangaizi to Bunyoro. Kabaka Mutesa and the Baganda resented the referendum and its outcome. Kabaka Mutesa, as ceremonial president and head of state, refused to sign the result of the referendum into law.
The fall-out between the central government and Buganda, from the 1964 referendum, led Ganda ethnic nationalists in a marriage of Bantu aristocratic, anti-northern conspiracy under Grace Ibingira and Kabaka Mutesa, against the central government, and Milton Obote, in particular. The crisis culminated into the central government troops attacking the Kabaka's palace, parliament abolishing the quasi-federal system of government, and introducing a unitary constitution that abolished the position of ceremonial presidency and replaced it with an executive presidency in 1966 and 1967.
The ensuing confrontation in 1966 led to the exile of Kabaka Mutesa, and a revisionist historicism that asserts that Kingdoms were abolished, when a quasi-federal relationship with the central government, was in fact the subject of the 1967 constitution, rather than the kingdoms. In effect, then UPC government is accused of abolishing the Kingdoms, and this particularly played well with the Baganda, who supported Museveni's insurgency, in the hopes that he would restore a full-fledged Ganda monarchy on the scale of pre-independence Uganda.
Indeed, in 1993, the NRM and Buganda, bilaterally restored the Buganda Kingdom, ahead of the 1995 constitution, and without a national debate, for political convenience, rather than any serious visionary national agenda. Museveni needed the Baganda vote in an election in 1996 that was supposed to bring to a close, the long, extended four years turned into a ten-year transition and the transformation from resistance to governance.
Today, the monarchy and the central government are once again at loggerheads. The smokescreen and propaganda that the problem in 1966 was the UPC and Milton Obote, benefited the NRM / A mobilisation and organisation in Buganda in the 1980s while they were insurgents. Faced with the realities of governing a plural nation after coming to power, they seem to forget where they came from, and now proclaim without shame that the problem is Mengo .
What a difference transiting from insurgency to governing makes. We now hear Museveni and his cohorts proclaiming that there is no government in Mengo, but only one government, the Uganda government. This reminds us of late 1960s UPC perception of One Country, One People, and One Parliament, for which Milton Obote and the UPC, continue to be excoriated.
Subsequently, a new constitution was promulgated in 1995. The positions on land and presidential elections and powers, as is back peddling on the monarchy, are telling. On presidential elections, the NRM had introduced direct elections, almost modelled on the American system. It meant that, the Westminster parliamentary system was no more. Its populist utility was in the posturing that, now for the first time, Ugandans would directly cast a vote for the man or woman they want to lead them, rather than indirectly through the party with the most parliamentary seats picking the head of state. This was milked as a new dawn of democratic political process and departure from the past for its maximum propaganda purposes.
However, we ought to have by now realised that the NRM, lacking any real national agenda than the ambitions of a clique of its leaders bent on political and economic self-aggrandisement, are now troubled by the increasing political consciousness and sophistication of Ugandans to know what is good for themselves. As the popularity of the man has decreased, so have their democratic desires and appetite for direct, competitive presidential elections. It has become increasingly clear that, the NRM and Museveni, are no longer saleable commodities anyone would be enthusiastic to buy even at steep discounts.
Back to the future with "NRA" without the "M".
The NRM / A can only continue to hold onto and retain power through relapse back into its military origins and social base shorn of the façade of a political wing, and engage in constant constitutional manipulations. First, it was term limits. The second one directly linked to retaining power, will be the 50+ 1 formula for presidential elections. The third, and plausibly not the last, will be scrapping of direct presidential elections altogether, and a humble return to the Westminster parliamentary democratic system. While the ends sought by these changes is Museveni’s incumbency, it is also a political tactic to hide the embarrassing unpopularity of the man-once viewed in messianic terms-behind a slate of NRM/A candidates who may still for one reason or another, command support in their local areas more than the off-season NRM/A or Museveni brand would.
The other contentious policy area is that on land. Both the 1995 constitution and 1998 Land Act, invested land in the people of Uganda. These documents were both enacted under the superintendence of the NRM and Museveni. But today, part of the fallout between the NRM on the one hand, and Mengo and the rest of the country-particularly eastern and northern Uganda- on the other, is the state's attempt to wrest control of land away from the people of Uganda and invest it in the central and local governments, the political prostitute of a land minister and corrupt, appointed and unaccountable officials.
When it served the NRM's populist posturing in 1996 and 1998, these policies were acceptable. Now that the demands and aspirations of the people of Uganda are at variance with the personal and self-interests of Museveni and a small tribal NRM/A clique, the people do not count for anything in policy matters. As expected, the NRM/A land policy about-turn, has stirred a political hornet's nest for the Museveni and the NRM/A in Buganda, eastern and northern Uganda, and the rest of the country. Although the land amendment bill has been slowed down in parliament, the state is still bent on changing land laws so it can grab control of this resource.
Land is the only national asset left that is not completely under the control of corrupt NRM /A cliques and their international financial and commercial conduits for graft, corruption, and kickbacks. The pending land amendment bill, intends to change that. Given oil and other mineral prospects, the land issue will not lack for high stakes showdowns and drama btween state elites and local communities.
Whenever the curtain call on this drama is made, one thing is certain: the dramatist will begin his soliloquy with the proclamation and affirmation that, the NRM/ A, was indeed, a mother lode of fool’s gold. He will add that, former heroes of Luwero war, as well as Ugandan political parties and their leaders who bought into the NRM/A bullions, had purchased fool’s gold. As for the ordinary Ugandan citizens and voters, he will with chagrin, confirm what we should have known all along-but were in self-denial because UPC and Milton Obote were the ones saying so-that we have all along lived in a fool’s paradise, coated with fool’s gold by the NRM/A.
Fool's gold is a sulphide mineral with a golden lustre, especially pyrite. Careless geologists can sometimes mistake it for gold. It is our view that people who supported Museveni's misadventure in 1981 and embraced the NRM in 1986, only to fall out with them later, were like careless geologists who mistook fool's gold for the real thing. Our friends in the FDC and DP, who now assert that Museveni took them for a ride to fight for a fool's paradise, fall into this category. Even the Buganda monarchy, through its young prince, then living in London, was not spared by this swindle.
Given their about-face on policy matters Ugandans took seriously, the NRM typifies a fool's gold.
First, they preached revolutionary, fundamental change through The Ten Point Programme, only to abandon it before the cock crowed even once. Second, for the support of Buganda for the war in Luwero, the restoration of the Buganda monarchy was promised, and without any national debate on its broader impact on national politics, restored in 1993 ahead of the 1995 constitution. But today, the Buganda monarchy and its proponents are barely tolerated.
Third, the 1995 constitution and 1998 Land Act invested land in the people of Uganda. However, the 2007 Land Amendment Bill seeks to overturn this.
Fourth, seeking to ride on a populist agenda, the NRM staked its democratic credentials on Presidential Term Limits in the 1995 Constitution, only to resort to bribery to have parliament repeal that provision in 2005. Now, it is rumoured that constitutional provision for 50+1 presidential electoral formula, is unacceptable for the NRM, come 2011.
These and other impending duplicitous policy actions support the view that for the last 22 years, the NRM has been a mother lode of fool's gold; and Uganda a fool's paradise.
Personal ambitions and narrow ethnic agenda do not a nation build
These policy acrobatics should not surprise anyone at all. Having come to power on a narrow, ethnic, regional and Museveni's personal ambition alone, the NRM has reached the natural zenith of power that such a non-national agenda can sustain. It is not for nothing that it has had to rely on the army and a militarised police, to retain power and maintain their grip on state institutions and government. Absent the institutions of the repressive arms of the state, and the NRM or Museveni have no political weight, no national relevance, and no credible, competitive national agenda to speak of, in an open, peaceful, free, competitive democratic, orderly political process.
People are bound to ask how Ugandans- like geologists prospecting for gold are fooled by fool's gold-got so easily fooled by the NRM.
First, Museveni unscrupulously exploited parochial Ganda animosities towards the UPC, Milton Obote, and northerners, as a result of the 1964 referendum on the lost counties that returned Buyaga and Bugangaizi to Bunyoro. Kabaka Mutesa and the Baganda resented the referendum and its outcome. Kabaka Mutesa, as ceremonial president and head of state, refused to sign the result of the referendum into law.
The fall-out between the central government and Buganda, from the 1964 referendum, led Ganda ethnic nationalists in a marriage of Bantu aristocratic, anti-northern conspiracy under Grace Ibingira and Kabaka Mutesa, against the central government, and Milton Obote, in particular. The crisis culminated into the central government troops attacking the Kabaka's palace, parliament abolishing the quasi-federal system of government, and introducing a unitary constitution that abolished the position of ceremonial presidency and replaced it with an executive presidency in 1966 and 1967.
The ensuing confrontation in 1966 led to the exile of Kabaka Mutesa, and a revisionist historicism that asserts that Kingdoms were abolished, when a quasi-federal relationship with the central government, was in fact the subject of the 1967 constitution, rather than the kingdoms. In effect, then UPC government is accused of abolishing the Kingdoms, and this particularly played well with the Baganda, who supported Museveni's insurgency, in the hopes that he would restore a full-fledged Ganda monarchy on the scale of pre-independence Uganda.
Indeed, in 1993, the NRM and Buganda, bilaterally restored the Buganda Kingdom, ahead of the 1995 constitution, and without a national debate, for political convenience, rather than any serious visionary national agenda. Museveni needed the Baganda vote in an election in 1996 that was supposed to bring to a close, the long, extended four years turned into a ten-year transition and the transformation from resistance to governance.
Today, the monarchy and the central government are once again at loggerheads. The smokescreen and propaganda that the problem in 1966 was the UPC and Milton Obote, benefited the NRM / A mobilisation and organisation in Buganda in the 1980s while they were insurgents. Faced with the realities of governing a plural nation after coming to power, they seem to forget where they came from, and now proclaim without shame that the problem is Mengo .
What a difference transiting from insurgency to governing makes. We now hear Museveni and his cohorts proclaiming that there is no government in Mengo, but only one government, the Uganda government. This reminds us of late 1960s UPC perception of One Country, One People, and One Parliament, for which Milton Obote and the UPC, continue to be excoriated.
Subsequently, a new constitution was promulgated in 1995. The positions on land and presidential elections and powers, as is back peddling on the monarchy, are telling. On presidential elections, the NRM had introduced direct elections, almost modelled on the American system. It meant that, the Westminster parliamentary system was no more. Its populist utility was in the posturing that, now for the first time, Ugandans would directly cast a vote for the man or woman they want to lead them, rather than indirectly through the party with the most parliamentary seats picking the head of state. This was milked as a new dawn of democratic political process and departure from the past for its maximum propaganda purposes.
However, we ought to have by now realised that the NRM, lacking any real national agenda than the ambitions of a clique of its leaders bent on political and economic self-aggrandisement, are now troubled by the increasing political consciousness and sophistication of Ugandans to know what is good for themselves. As the popularity of the man has decreased, so have their democratic desires and appetite for direct, competitive presidential elections. It has become increasingly clear that, the NRM and Museveni, are no longer saleable commodities anyone would be enthusiastic to buy even at steep discounts.
Back to the future with "NRA" without the "M".
The NRM / A can only continue to hold onto and retain power through relapse back into its military origins and social base shorn of the façade of a political wing, and engage in constant constitutional manipulations. First, it was term limits. The second one directly linked to retaining power, will be the 50+ 1 formula for presidential elections. The third, and plausibly not the last, will be scrapping of direct presidential elections altogether, and a humble return to the Westminster parliamentary democratic system. While the ends sought by these changes is Museveni’s incumbency, it is also a political tactic to hide the embarrassing unpopularity of the man-once viewed in messianic terms-behind a slate of NRM/A candidates who may still for one reason or another, command support in their local areas more than the off-season NRM/A or Museveni brand would.
The other contentious policy area is that on land. Both the 1995 constitution and 1998 Land Act, invested land in the people of Uganda. These documents were both enacted under the superintendence of the NRM and Museveni. But today, part of the fallout between the NRM on the one hand, and Mengo and the rest of the country-particularly eastern and northern Uganda- on the other, is the state's attempt to wrest control of land away from the people of Uganda and invest it in the central and local governments, the political prostitute of a land minister and corrupt, appointed and unaccountable officials.
When it served the NRM's populist posturing in 1996 and 1998, these policies were acceptable. Now that the demands and aspirations of the people of Uganda are at variance with the personal and self-interests of Museveni and a small tribal NRM/A clique, the people do not count for anything in policy matters. As expected, the NRM/A land policy about-turn, has stirred a political hornet's nest for the Museveni and the NRM/A in Buganda, eastern and northern Uganda, and the rest of the country. Although the land amendment bill has been slowed down in parliament, the state is still bent on changing land laws so it can grab control of this resource.
Land is the only national asset left that is not completely under the control of corrupt NRM /A cliques and their international financial and commercial conduits for graft, corruption, and kickbacks. The pending land amendment bill, intends to change that. Given oil and other mineral prospects, the land issue will not lack for high stakes showdowns and drama btween state elites and local communities.
Whenever the curtain call on this drama is made, one thing is certain: the dramatist will begin his soliloquy with the proclamation and affirmation that, the NRM/ A, was indeed, a mother lode of fool’s gold. He will add that, former heroes of Luwero war, as well as Ugandan political parties and their leaders who bought into the NRM/A bullions, had purchased fool’s gold. As for the ordinary Ugandan citizens and voters, he will with chagrin, confirm what we should have known all along-but were in self-denial because UPC and Milton Obote were the ones saying so-that we have all along lived in a fool’s paradise, coated with fool’s gold by the NRM/A.
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