When Museveni was waging his bloody guerrilla war in the early 1980s he gave the impression that he was a uniter in contrast to his predecessors who had been viewed as dividers along sectarian lines. Consequently many Ugandans across the country sponsored his cause.
When he became president in 1986 he formed a cabinet that truly reflected his determination to unify all the people of Uganda. He even defined an economic policy that reflected accommodation of various interests. Then he announced that only individual merit would determine recruitment, assignment, promotion and awarding of scholarships. He advised that political activities would be suspended until national unity had attained a level that sectarianism would not raise its ugly head in Uganda politics. His popularity at home soared!
In May 1987, Museveni’s government entered into a stabilization and structural adjustment agreement with the International Monetary Fund and later with the World Bank. The government adopted the ‘shock therapy’ version of comprehensive and simultaneous implementation of all the elements in the structural adjustment package that was favored by the donor community. “He [Museveni] quickly became the darling of the West when he embraced the IMF/World Bank prescribed Structural Adjustment Programs, cutting down on civil service and social services expenditure and sacrificing state parastatals on the alter of liberalization” (Business in Africa. April 2001).
With structural adjustment experiment faltering in Ghana, the donor community focused on Uganda. To make Uganda a ‘success’ story and a ‘model’ for emulation by other countries Museveni’s government received generous funding. To make this experiment work Museveni was accorded all the facilities including turning a blind eye to the many things that were going wrong in the country and Uganda’s behavior towards neighbors (J. F. Clark 2002).
Contrary to rhetoric, Museveni began allocating a disproportionate share of budget resources to the military (S. Mallaby 2004) starving other sectors. He abandoned the individual merit criterion and focused on enriching his family and close relatives of Nilotic Bahima and Bahororo from southwest Uganda. “At the center of power in Uganda one finds a very high concentration [a small section] of Banyankole and a fair number of the family members of both President Museveni and his wife, Janet. Generous patronage is paid out to supporters of the regime particularly prominent multi-partyists who ‘defect’ to the movement” (J. F. Clark 2002). In the process corruption reached and has remained at an unprecedented level.
Meanwhile annual economic growth which peaked at 10 percent in the mid-1990s began to decline and income distribution became highly skewed in favor of the few already wealthy. Unemployment soared and the diseases of poverty mushroomed tarnishing the image of the ‘uniter’ and ‘economic model’ president. As in Ghana the experiment with structural adjustment model faltered, IMF and World Bank admitted mistakes in advising the government. President Museveni also admitted that things had gone wrong with the experiment and the structural adjustment model was formally abandoned in April 2010 and replaced by a five year development plan.
At the political level, Museveni applied repressive measures harassing opposition parties and their candidates. For example, Kizza Besigye’s presidential candidacy rattled Museveni and his party. “… Museveni has reacted to opposition by unleashing the worst military. When a constituency in which Museveni got 99.9 percent of the vote in 1996 election was perceived to have switched to home-boy Besigye, Museveni’s elite guard, which included his son, stepped in to wreak terror and grab voters’ cards in a house-to-house operation. One man was killed and several injured. Museveni got the vote” (Business in Africa 2001).
At the Great Lakes Region level and beyond Museveni was seen as a ‘peace maker’ and he was facilitated to carry out that mission. However his image has been tarnished by two principle developments. First, there is increasing evidence that Museveni has a plan together with Kagame of Rwanda to create a Nilotic Tutsi-Hima Empire over Bantu people in the Great Lakes Region beginning with Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and DRC and possibly beyond. This plan has been in the works for more than three decades (Business in Africa April 2001 & J. F. Clark 2002).
The looting of DRC resources involving Uganda’s armed forces and the president’s close relatives has also had a damaging impact on Museveni’s image as a peace maker. There is sufficient evidence of this exploitation including in United Nations reports to the Security Council. Researchers have reported that Congo’s resource exploitation has taken place in two phases: looting existing stock piles and extracting resources by taking over business concerns or setting up new ones. The looted stock piles included minerals, livestock and agricultural and forest products, banks, mines and factories. The extraction phase included massive harvesting of forest, minerals and other resources (J. F. Clark 2002).
Uganda and Rwanda’s invasion of DRC in 1998 from the Atlantic coast provoked Africa’s First World War and confirmed that Rwanda and Uganda’s military engagements in DRC affairs went beyond national security concerns.
In the latest poll of May 2010, Ugandans have served notice that Museveni should retire at the end of his current term. Thus at the domestic and external levels Museveni’s performance has fallen far below expectations. Hanging onto power longer will only increase repression and diminish his legacy.