Why can’t Ugandans pick a leaf from Tunisia?
By Sam A. Akaki
31st January 2011
Love him or loath him, you have to admit that Yoweri Museveni is an extraordinarily courageous and decisive man. He decided long ago that the 18th century Father Ignatius was absolutely right when he demanded that “give me my freedom or death”.
Unlike the paper-tiger Ugandans who have been indulging in futile and endless exercises and complaining for 24 years without taking any action to improve their conditions, Museveni would not have tolerated the oppressive and suffocating situations in Uganda for one day. Where is the evidence?
During the campaigns for 1980 parliamentary and presidential elections, Museveni publicly and repeatedly announced that he would go to the bush and fight for his rights if he (not court) judged that President Milton Obote had rigged the election. It would be too simplistic to say that the rest is now history.
Obote was not a self-indulging pretender to the throne who operated as a lone-ranger and therefore an easy pushover like some of his vocal counterparts like Godfrey Binaisa and Professor Yusufu Lule who were removed from power within months.
Milton, as his adoring supporters called him, was a seasoned pre-independence politician who had built an elaborate network of hard-core peasant support, mobilised through the Cooperative Unions, the Anglican Church, a section of the Muslim faith, the police, prisons, educational institutions, the civil service, and a team of politically alert intellectuals who had studied in Uganda and abroad.
Above all, Obote was backed by the battle-hardened soldiers in the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) which was dominated by his Acholi and Lango (Luo) tribesmen. The UNLA was not alone. It was actively supported by the mighty Tanzanian People’s Defence Force (TPDF) that was stationed in Uganda after helping Obote to over-throw Idi Amin. That is not all.
UNLA was also officially assisted by the United Kingdom under a programme called British Military Assistance Team (BIMAT); a euphemism for active combat support.
And to be absolutely sure of the security of Kampala and therefore his own survival in power, Obote had brought over and stationed on the strategically located Kololo Hill a brigade of heavily armed North Korean troops who did not speak any local languages but knew how to shoot to kill anyone who tried to take over Kampala.
But while other weak-minded Ugandans grumbled and meekly surrendered their rights to Obote after the 1980 election, Museveni took up arms and went to the bush with 27 men who were determined to die or regain their freedom. For five years, they endured all manner of personal and group hardships until they finally took control of the State on 26th January 1986.
Many people who blame Museveni today for clinging to power and trying to set up a dynasty would have probably taken the same route if they had made the ultimate sacrifice and suffered to remove a regime that they perceived to be oppressive.
Contrast Museveni’s strength of character and his unflinching love of individual freedom with the way other Ugandans have responded to the increasingly oppressive and suffocating situations in the country under the same Museveni for over two decades.
After the 2001 and 2006 elections in which many people lost their lives and property, elections which international observers and the Supreme Court said were rigged; Ugandans settled down but remained complaining about corruption, nepotism, unemployment, and poverty among many other things. In fact the 2001 parliamentary committee had published a report, which concluded that the vast majority of Ugandans believed their votes will never deliver change.
And yet, come 18th February 2011, the same Ugandans will knowingly sleep-walk to polling stations, well aware that there are over-lapping layers of impregnable constitutional, legal and administrative obstacles stacked up against their preferred parliamentary and presidential candidates.
Like the previous elections, 18th February 2011 will offer another welcome gift to the Movement government by legitimising a sham democratic process which will further strengthen Museveni’s grip on power.
In practice, another five years in office will further entrench and widen the division in the country between the poor and a small group of ultra-rich regime families who can afford the best lifestyle, education and health services money can buy at home and abroad.
Thanks to unfettered population growth, the most visible sign of this division is personified in street children that sooner or later will have to be shot and cleared as garbage (God forbid) as it was the case in Brazil and other southern American countries in the 80s and 90s.
Meanwhile, as surely and night follows day, Ugandans will quietly resume their wretched lives as if they were predestined to live and die in poverty. Others, including this writer, will take up their pens and continue writing articles which recycle the same catalogue of real and perceives ills which they and the country have suffered under Museveni.
At best these acres of articles are no more than a source of entertainment for Museveni. We write them knowing that they are a waste of precious time because they will achieve absolutely nothing in terms of initiating change in Uganda.
So why should Museveni care about what people write about him until kingdom come? After all, doesn’t he know the saying that only “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? No one is calling for a violent bush war revolution, a primitive option that should be consigned to the dustbin of history along with its perpetrators like Museveni.
But why can’t we as long suffering and aggrieved Ugandans pick a leaf from the gallant men and women of Tunisia who have used their bare hands to get rid of their oppressors? Is it any wonder that Museveni thinks Ugandans are docile idiots? END. Please log into www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
Mr. Sam Akaki wrote this article in his private capacity
