Tag Archives: president

Kale Kayihura can’t impose Museveni as president of Uganda

In 1993 Museveni declared that if the people who are the sovereign force don’t want their leader, then he/she should go. He added unambiguously that the role of the army is to guard borders and maintain internal peace. “The army should guard what the people want, not do what the people don’t want”. The police force also has responsibility to maintain law and order.

Following the massively rigged elections of February 2011 with some five million Ugandans disenfranchised and many foreigners brought in to vote, the people of Uganda have rejected the results of these rigged elections at the presidential, parliamentary and local levels. They want to exercise their right of peaceful assembly and freedom of speech to denounce the results and stop the formation of an illegitimate government. International instruments and Uganda’s constitution allow peaceful assembly and freedom of speech. Kayihura cannot violate these rights and freedoms with impunity.

By banning planned demonstrations under the pretext that they will be violent, Kale Kayihura is in effect imposing Museveni as president of Uganda. This imposition goes against Museveni’s own understanding of the will of the people as he articulated in 1993 namely that security forces should guard what the people want, not do what the people don’t want. The people of Uganda have rejected the February 18 elections so Museveni cannot be president without their consent. Millions of them were disenfranchised.

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President Museveni’s scary statement should be opposed

President Museveni’s speech delivered at Hoima on June 11, 2010 is very scary indeed. Ugandans and their friends must not allow his scary remarks to be repeated or put into action.

When President Museveni, a head of state and chairman of the ruling party, talked about cutting someone’s head for entering his olubimbi (territory) was he saying, for example, that:

  1. opposition parties cannot aspire to form a government in Uganda with a new president
  2. poor people cannot aspire to become rich
  3. illiterate people cannot aspire to be educated
  4. women cannot aspire to inherit their parents’ properties
  5. women cannot aspire to work outside of the home and earn an income
  6. raw material exporting countries cannot aspire to industrialize?

If our understanding of his message is correct, then President Museveni is advocating a static division of labor or comparative advantage which is very difficult to accept. For example, Uganda cannot and should not accept to remain a producer and exporter of raw materials because we do not want to enter the lubimbi or territory of industrialized countries. This lubimbi concept explains why under Museveni’s leadership Uganda has de-industrialized.

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President Museveni must have been tired

After reading President Museveni’s two-part interview with Daniel Kalinaki, Monitor Managing Editor which was posted on the website on April 11 and 12, 2010, I contacted Monitor readers – Ugandans and non-Ugandans – for their assessment. They all agreed that the president’s performance fell short of expectations especially as he prepares for 2011 presidential elections. Two main reasons were given – either he was tired or he is no longer on top of developments in Uganda. They even wondered why he did not praise his government for controlling inflation, maintaining a high level of economic growth and per capita income, reducing poverty and providing universal primary education which has been extended to secondary education because these have been areas of NRM’s strength. Let me make some observations selectively because Uganda newspapers restrict my articles to around 700 words.

First, on the issue of democracy, President Museveni has allowed presidential and parliamentary elections to take place every five years because development partners have made them a condition for foreign aid and technical assistance. Since 1996, President Museveni’s popularity has declined with each election. This is not the kind of information the President would want to share with Ugandans much less with the outside world which has given him much support particularly for macroeconomic stability.

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President Museveni endorses the institution of intermarriages

I was very pleased to learn that while attending a wedding function in Uganda the President endorsed the institution of intermarriages which I have been promoting in my writings and speaking engagements for quite sometime now.

In societies – in time and space – that are relatively stable there have been intermarriages both ways – both ways in the sense that men from different ethnic groups marry women from different ethnic groups thereby ending ethnic exclusieness. It has been reported that societies in northern and eastern Uganda, Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro and northwest Tanzania are relatively stable because two way inter-ethnic or inter-tribal intermarriages have taken place there.

In Southwest Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Eastern DRC where intermarriages have been one way (Bahutu and Bairu men marrying Batutsi, Bahima, Banyamulenge and Bahororo women whereas Batutsi, Bahima, Bahororo and Banyamulenge men are not marrying Bairu and Bahutu women) there has been constant conflict that contributed to the tragic events of 1972 and 1994 in Burundi and Rwanda respectively.

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