There has been talk of using force to get rid of NRM government which has disappointed Ugandans and neighbors that had counted on Museveni to champion peace, security, stability, prosperity and good neighborly relations. It was hoped that through multiparty democracy, NRM would be unseated through free and fair elections but that hasn’t happened because of electoral fraud and suppression of opposition parties.
New developments regarding formation of Tutsi empire using Uganda as a base and the recent decision by Uganda and Rwanda delegates to terminate colonial borders has raised eyebrows and fear that Uganda could disappear as we have known it. In addition the prime minister’s statement that peasants should be replaced by large scale farmers without indicating where he would put them has created tremendous anxiety.
Regarding elimination of national borders, it is possible that Uganda and Rwanda parliaments which are basically rubber stamp institutions could be instructed by Presidents Museveni and Kagame to pass legislation for merging Uganda and Rwanda into a single state and erase national borders through legislation. These developments should be taken seriously and prevent them from happening because once they have happened it is very difficult if not impossible to reverse them peacefully.
Some people are suggesting that democracy isn’t working and NRM won’t go away peacefully. They are calling for a military revolution to uproot NRM and embark on a new beginning. This may sound easy but revolutions begin as simple efforts to extract some relief from government like providing better services or help ease inflation, unemployment and food shortages but end up in revolutions and subsequent protracted civil wars. The revolutions in France in 1789, in Mexico in 1910, in Russia in 1917 and in Ethiopia in 1974 started from the same premise of demonstrations demanding relief from high inflation, joblessness and landlessness and food shortages. In all four cases, the situation ended up in revolutions and subsequent protracted and destructive civil wars.
I have studied revolutions for some time and hesitate to recommend it for Uganda by military means. I am on record for resisting a guerrilla war because war begets war and military government begets another one. One military president leads to another one and soldiers are by and large not trained to deal with civilian population and development challenges. They see challenges as enemies to be destroyed and opposition to be crushed. That is why in Uganda the governments of Field Marshall Amin and General Museveni have given top priority to strengthening security forces to compress people into permanent silence instead of constructing civilian institutions and infrastructure to help people meet their basic needs.
I have advised Ugandans to avoid electing another military leader. If we do then we haven’t learned anything from the lessons of Amin and Museveni leadership that has crippled the nation and her people. It saddens me to see Ugandans deformed by jiggers, go to bed hungry, dropout of school because government refuses to support school lunches while exporting mountains of food to earn foreign exchange that is used to care for the luxuries of the rich. NRM is not a government for the people: it is for the few rich families that are not ashamed to continue accumulating wealth mostly though corruption while their neighbors wallow into abject poverty. As someone observed if you want to understand why some people are poor begin by examining why and how the rich got there. The two are connected in an inverse relationship.
I believe removing NRM government from power is relatively easy. All we need is to pool the efforts of opposition parties and groups together and in the hands of capable leaders. The people of Uganda are ready. They only lack leadership. Leaders of opposition parties and groups need to shelve their personal ambitions and pool their financial and human resources and form a formidable alternative to NRM. Development partners shouldn’t be expected to abandon Museveni and NRM when there is no credible alternative. Let us form one with impeccable and tested leadership with unquestionable character. And the rest will be relatively plain sailing and Uganda will avoid a destructive revolution and the associated civil war.