Muntu’s ‘flies to the grave’ analogy is spot-on
By M. Suleman
13th Feb 2012: The fact that President Yoweri Museveni is the longest serving Ugandan leader is now settled. Many political analysts have correctly advanced several factors that have enabled his long stay in power. But I strongly believe that the most important factor that has sustained Museveni in power is “his” army.
Few Ugandans expected Museveni to last long. To begin with, by 1986, Museveni was a nonentity. By that time most, seasoned politicians had already cut their teeth from Makerere University Guild politics, and Museveni never went to Makerere.
Others begun their political careers as youth wingers in the post independence political parties, and once again, Museveni did not have any known background in any of established political parties. Museveni therefore rose to power without any appreciable political or administrative track record.
He used the gun to capture power, and it’s the gun that has sustained him in power. In the past, the army and people affiliated to it used the army to overthrow governments. Today, it’s impossible for the current army to overthrow or connive with any disgruntled people to overthrow Museveni.
This is because of three reasons: The first is the genetic makeup of the current UPDF and its character and ideology. The genetic makeup of the current army is basically that of the NRA. Very little has changed, apart from the name.
When Museveni launched his guerrilla war, he started with 27 men. The majority of these men came from South Western Uganda, including our brothers of Rwandese descent. Obote’s government saw Museveni’s insurrection as irrelevant and an insult to Uganda because he believed that Museveni and many of the NRA men were not Ugandans.
Because of this, Obote’s security forces unleashed a vicious campaign against the Rwandese in the refugee camps and wherever they were, forcing many of them to join the NRA. As the war intensified in Luwero triangle, the NRA recruited many children, including orphans. This was the force that eventually entered Kampala.
The composition of the force was well known by the other fighting groups, that is why the late Kayira and Nkwanga had no appetite to join hands with the NRA before the fall of Obote. After 1986, the NRA co-opted some few unemployed and marginalized Ugandans to give the force a national outlook. But that did not change the original NRA.
The army later regained its “South-Western genetic makeup” when many patriotic Ugandans who had joined Museveni’s NRA innocently abandoned it. The orphans and youth have since grown into men but they know nobody other than Museveni. This remained the case even after a substantial chunk of the NRA broke off and went as RPF to Rwanda.
With this composition, the UPDF cannot overthrow Museveni. Neither can it allow him to leave power. It simply cannot exist under any other leader or party. When he was faced with the possibility of losing power to Semogerere in 1996, Museveni made it clear that he cannot hand over “his” army to anyone.
The army also reciprocated and declared that they cannot serve under any other person except Museveni. Nothing has changed since. The UPDF is a force that was born to defend Museveni’s individual interests. And for it to survive, Museveni has to survive. That is exactly why some UPDF Generals come out spitting fire at General Muntu’s recent “flies to the grave analogy”
But the truth is that General Mugisha Muntu was absolutely right when he said some UPDF sycophants are like the proverbial flies that will follow Museveni’s rotting political corpse to the grave. END. Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.
