Elect Kiiza Besigye 2016 #KB2016Reloaded!!

UGELECTS2016

When the minders of the Democratic Alliance gather to select their united Presidential candidate for 2016, I will have made my choice known. In the process of making this choice, I have considered several factors, for which, a background may suffice.

On Saturday, June 27, 2015, I hosted a group of young African scholars for a sobering debate. The discussion that started with the discourse on modern tyranny in Africa culminated into debating two questions: should Ugandans forgive, trust, support, and promote JPAM if he is genuine in his opposition to President Museveni? The second question was; have we done justice in judging Dr Kiiza Besigye (KB) as a failure because he did not ascend to the Presidency in three successive elections in a period spanning 15 years?

This debate started with a scholarly dissection of the contours of Uganda's body politics in the last 40 years. Several references were made to works of renowned Ugandan scholars such as Samwiri Karugire, Oloka Onyango, George Kanyeihamba, Mahmood Mamdani and so forth. An inspiring 2011 work by Angelo Izama and Michael Wilkerson, “Uganda: Museveni’s triumph and weaknesses” in the Journal of Democracy, was handy with its analysis of Uganda’s political development from 2001 to 2011, covering Rtd Col. Dr Kiia Besigye’s 10 years of active participation in elective politics.

The AfriGroup2016 resolved as follows: In 2001, when KB declared his interest to contest against President Museveni, he had covertly mobilized a number of his comrades in the army and government. Interestingly, JPAM and the rest of the establishment violently resented the challenge by claiming among other things, that KB was jumping a queue. Besigye’s candidacy in 2001 was a shock even among the opposition and it indeed galvanized the political space, leading to a two-man contest, between President Museveni and KB. The outcome of that fierce contest remains a landmark in our recent history. It also cemented the place of KB in our political history. At the time when Dr. KB emerged, people were suspicious and doubted the real intentions of KB. The regime portrayed it as a fight over Ms. Winnie Byanyiima, and a case of a sore disgruntlement. Fifteen years down the lane, KB has won over sceptics and critics alike. His courage and resolve to cause change in the governance is uncontested.

Therefore, for 2016, JPAM should not jump the queue ahead of KB. He should support Kiiza Besigye, if elected Democratic Alliance unity candidate. The AfriGroup2016 team hereby urges Dr. Kiiza Besigye to contest for the Presidency in 2016.

The NRM propaganda machine has falsely claimed that KB is too aggressive, angry, vengeful, a serial looser of elections etc. Evidence shows the contrary.

Dr. KB has demonstrated extraordinary trait of resiliency amidst state brutality. Everyone is angry at the brutality meted against KB. Strangely, he is not! Through activism, KB has become legendary, to the levels of Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela of our times. KB may not have won the 2001 and 2011 ballots, but he won hearts and trust. #KB2016reloaded is required to rise with the momentum of enduring public trust to restore sanity in our corrupted government.

Further, KB’s activism has scored many successes; it has inspired JPAM to reawaken that NRM is taking us nowhere; now than ever, independent MPs are rejecting being "herded" like imbeciles to tow improbable Party lines; multiparty politics was redefined, with tolerance; northern Uganda has now become a game-changer, for a government that bayed to alienate it, etc.

The role of Amama Mbabazi in perpetuating corruption in Uganda requires more time for scrutiny. His sadistic ideology of tapping into people’s phones, employing preventive arrests, policing people’s private life through POMA, widespread corruption and so forth, needs reconciling.

Rtd Col Dr Kiiza Waren Besigye remains the most formidable candidate for this generation for the President of Uganda in 2016. He is ready now!

END.

Undermining Afrocentric Values

VALUING AFROCENTRICISM

Stories of cannibalism in modern days are hard to narrate in mainstream media for fears of stigma. However, in Uganda, cannibalism still exists. In fact, the Ugandan version of Cannibalism is even a less advanced form because it is inspired by poverty and ignorance. A more advanced form of Cannibalism was found among the natives of Papua New Guinea where the brains of the dead were eaten by the family members during a burial ceremony to show respect to the dead.

This article is inspired by the increasing negative attitude of young people of this generation towards Africanism. The main thesis is that anything African or traditional is backward and not worthy celebrating or referencing. To the contrary, all the western values that our people clamour for, are actually similar in content and practice but with a different presentation.

Two weeks ago, Andrew Mwenda wrote an article in the Independent News-Zine challenging our beliefs that valorizes anything western and subvert anything Afrocentric. He observed that we undermine and place no value in the conducts of our leaders, and praise western leaders for dramatized acts of valour, even if it were for gaining political capital. Likewise, there is no culture or ritual in the world which is distinctive and separate from the other but we value western cultures over ours. Whether it is burial, marriage or observances. All these cultural process and traditions mimic each other but with various modifications to suit different circumstances. Culture is fluid.

Now, there is this cheap and misplaced talks that sorcery and witchcraft are evil acts, and that, any African tradition, whether belief systems, medicinal practices, or traditions of marriage, etc., are backward and evil. People only feel contented when married in church, in total disregard for traditional marriages; It is now normalized to seek treatment in a biomedical setting; praying to Jesus and western Gods are the only validated spiritual nourishments. At school, facts about Africa as a continent, and those attributable to each country have remained largely unchanged in textbooks since the collapse of the colonial administration, even with glaring developments, such as  the advent of globalization and internet.

By dumping African values and traditions, Africans have learned what we call self-helplessness. That socially learned inability to care for the self and continent; to reason as autonomous being and to decide on course of action. Every major decision for Africa is made in London, Washington DC, Paris or Beijing. From the basics of soil analysis, mineral evaluation, oil prospecting, to major decisions like invading a foreign country, changing government, and whether to industrialize, or not.

Witchcraft and sorcery are not bad practices at all. In fact, any trade in which the human mind and body are subject to agents for external intervention, such as chemicals or psychic manipulations, can be devastating in equal dimensions if not regulated rigorously by moral agents. In my study on cultural practices, I have concluded that Africans are in their predicament because they live in self-denial, pretence and self-condemnation, a violent and yet subtle form of self-affliction that immobilizes.

Further, because we are scared of our natural existence, we have developed fractious emotional processes that perpetuate conflicting realities of us in the world order. Emotions and identity are cultural constructs that pertains to normative social values. Without a firm cultural identity, we become incoherent and appear reduced.

As such, we have allowed our African identity to be expunged. Without a cultural identity, we are empty.  As such, we place little value in what is ours, but steal to afford alien innovations, resources, and values. For instance, western medicine, devoid of stringent ethical/moral requirement and measurements, is as culpable to abuse as African traditional medicine. In that regard, we fall short on many fronts; African lacks the concept of measurement, accuracy, timing, consistency and above all, moderation, which characterizes western medicine.

Whatever passes as a dangerous traditional practice, simply lacks in rigor, measurement, quality control, understanding of side effects, moderated dose, and consistency of prescription.

Otherwise, how do we explain that most of the western medicines have major components extracted from common plants that naturally grow in Africa? How come the Mzungu exploits the fibrous African mango for weight-loss while we suffer from obesity and hunger? How can we explain the difference between the highly valued Psychologists and Priests, from the estranged African traditional medicine man? To me, it is just rigour, moderation, consistency, science, quality control and presentation.

End.

The effects of challenging an African despot

CHALLENGING A TYRANT

The headline section in every Daily in Uganda today is dedicated to the ongoing contest between President Museveni and his long-time confidant, and former Prime Minister, Amama Mbabazi (JPAM). The declaration of JPAM since Monday June 15^th, via YouTube video should be seen in a positive light since it exposes the undemocratic values that anti-NRMO campaigners previously identified.

JPAM's candidacy has injected shock waves through the core of the establishment since President Museveni is yet to face a challenge by his very closest insider. After this contest, NRM will not be the same. For now, it is like a pancake being ripped through by its bakers. If President Museveni was the face of the NRMO, JPAM was its very manifestation – the active ingredient that that people felt about NRMO. JPAM's candidacy therefore, is something personal to many in the establishment who now realizes that their guaranteed privileges and power are genuinely threatened.

In the coming days, few stern actions will salvage the integrity of the NRMO; one of it is to expel JPAM and his entire "clique" out of the NRMO. By so doing, President Museveni will strive to isolate JPAM and amputate his tentacles within the NRMO enclave to consolidate his sole command within Party ranks. Naturally, with the trying moments, “Peters” will deny JPAM more than thrice in the coming months; some will be acting with an absolute obscurantism to secure their places on the high table and in the yellow bus.

The second and most strenuous will be for the establishment to clamp down on the sources of income that is fueling JPAM. Never in the history of Uganda has any Presidential candidate hired 500 lawyers. Lawyers don not come cheap, even if they were on a retainer basis. JPAM's money will be a subject of scrutiny since the NRM Youth Chairperson, Namara has already hinted on it.

The third stage of the JPAM onslaught will be to try to identify and isolate JPAM from external influences. It is guaranteed that money will be spent in London, Washington DC, and The Hague, or even Beijing, to try to stave off a potential policy shift or empathy in favour of JPAM. Lobbyists at these foreign capitals don’t come cheap either. Sadly, the cost of a JPAM candidacy will have to be loaded on the taxpayers.

The fourth stage, or an anticlimax will be a propaganda onslaught on JPAM at home. Here, the NRMO publicists will try to embark on portraying JPAM variedly as a dangerously ungrateful person who is monstrous and disruptive; power hungry etc. We already saw these strategies employed on Col Kiiza Besigye in 2001.

However, the anti-JPAM will find it onerous to develop an effective propaganda that does not drag their President into the same greasy sink. After 40 years of symbiotic relationship, it is hard to distinguish between Museveni and JPAM. As such, it will be tremendously hard to pin JPAM on the cross of political impurities without nailing Mr. Museveni along.

In fact, with a good PR strategy, Team JPAM could ride off unscathed from a media onslaught. In fact they could benefit even more from an offensive. Recall that while JPAM was actively serving the interests of his master,  JPAM’s image was cultivated as "Mr. Clean", "Not a businessman" etc. When the public cried foul of the highly corrupted tendencies that followed JPAM everywhere he was posted, the President gave him a clean bill and promotions.

The downside of this political storm is that the Opposition has been sidelined and denied media attention. They will have to wait for a little longer for the storm to settle. But even then, there is an urgency for the Democratic Alliance to galvanize the spaces that is being created by the rift in the NRM. They have the opportunity to demonstrate and reiterate that indeed, change away from JPAM or Museveni is now inevitable.

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The exercise of power when disempowered

EXERCISING PEOPLES' POWER

The Chameleon are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of old lizards. All the species of this animal survive the harshness of wilderness by camouflage. Naturally, the newer species are even better at surviving than older species. In real social life, the chameleon lifestyle of changing colours is associated with being volatile, deceitful, exploitative, and untrustworthy.

Unfortunately, these are also the traits that characterise the operators of our contemporary society.

The contest for NRM chairmanship and subsequent President of this country has revealed to us many interesting facts. If Ugandans have never learned from the perils of leadership that is built on personality cult, then this is the time to examine this phenomenon. Personality cults absorbs power from the people and concentrates it in the hands of the tyranny and its agencies.

NRM is in many aspects like UPC. Both Parties have led and dominated the politics and leadership of this country with glaring tragedies. It is even accurate to state that the leadership and tricks of the current regime were hatched and bred in the old UPC. Perhaps, this explains why the current leaders have perfected the art of survival, important facets of politics that UPC took for granted.

The truth is, just as UPC under President Milton Obote was cold to internal democracy; NRMO, under President Museveni, is simply averse to the idea. It is certain that no one would have guessed when Dr Obote would have voluntarily vacated the Presidency had he not gotten torpedoed by coups. Evidently, Obote died as Party President, like Kamuzu Banda and Mobutu Sese Seko. Likewise, no one can predict when Museveni will leave power voluntarily.

It is the stasis, rather than the lack of democracy, that irritates the people. NRM cannot claim to champion democracy to the public when they are starved of it internally. In life, you only give what you have, not what you don't have. Not that President Museveni has not performed. He has. However, he has become the problem for which he was a solution about 30 years ago.

President Museveni is a victim of his heroism and cult power.

Having dominated the minds and controlled spaces of his contemporaries, President Museveni sees himself as a person of high superiority, while everyone else around him is inferior. And it is apparent that Museveni's loyalists do suffer from inferiority complex which has led to pervasive learned helplessness.

The existence of such a society signifies the devastating impact of patronage and repression. It inspires learned self-helplessness where everyone becomes unsure of themselves, or their abilities to make decision and to act, without depending on the goodwill of their cult leader. The longer the situation persists, the more we start to see the effect of individual learned helplessness taking a toll on public institutions; Corruption, paranoia, incompetence, low self-esteem and lacklustre mannerism that are compensated by aggression, arrogance, violence, and fatalities.

Ugandans are not thieves, or that they appear bogus when compared with their neighbors by chance. It is because their daily narratives of subjugation have seeped across and dominated their psyche to render them feeble. And yet, when extracted from that environment, Ugandans become the opposite of what they are under the tyranny. They become able leaders, competent, assertive, articulate, zealous and above all, enthusiastic about everything in life, including personal, interpersonal and professional life.

The future of Ugandans is in moving them forward. The establishment drags them through the horrors of the past to subvert a change process. This allows an interpretation of change in governance as something possible only by brute force or coups.

Further, the collective ability to initiate change while rejecting coercion are a concrete evidence to demonstrate the true exercise of power as proscribed in the 1995 Constitution. Without the orgasmic experience of change, the extent of the exercise of people's power, its benefits to society, and to human liberties, will remain unknown.

END

African challenge of accountability

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IRREGULARITIES

The revelation of a lucrative photocopying business in Pader district local government, in Northern Uganda, where a page of A4 papers were photocopied at a whooping cost of 108,000/= each by health officials, left many of spectators jaw dropped. The mockery of system was made even more apparent that staff paid themselves per diem for visiting a health centre which is half a mile away from the district headquarters.

These inhuman practices call for scorn and mockery indeed, since the government cannot punish the culprits. Pader is a remote rural district where children still die of preventable diseases before age of five, many are stunted, schools struggle for first grade, and; maternal mortality rate at pregnancy remains staggering.

This revelation, while damning, reminds us of the termites of Abim that ate the vouchers meant to account for Shs 900millions of district funds. Public servants in these districts have become that termite, not only in Abim.

I spent the beginning of 2014, in Pader district and I left that place with a half heart, given the potentials of that district. I was irked the most by the state of some of the roads and the urban planning or lack thereof. I kept wondering the utility of those roads during the rainy season. My concern was more about whether the district officials understood the intricate relationships between road infrastructures, social service delivery and economic growth. There was little evidence.

I was particularly irked by one road in Lapul which connects Pajule to Acholibur-Gulu road, inadvertently named “nodding road” by the locals’ enduring experience. The poor quality of that road should have claimed the practicing licence of the Engineer who sanctioned it! This road has some of the worst humps and culverts imaginable. At one or two spots, the culverts were built 2 meters away from where they should actually be. Still, I understand that the district bureaucrats praised this kind of shoddy and unprofessional work. These roads do not support emergency health needs (Emoc) for pregnant mothers or children at all. They simply show a discrepancy in the level of imagination of those officials.

Incidentally, the people in charge of these constructions are all indifferent and highly sensitive when pressed to account. I recall putting my concerns to the district engineer about the state of districts roads and the poorly constructed school structures. Apparently, my issues were received with utmost animosity as a form of “affront”, “accusation” and “because I come from Canada”. I understand that because I challenged the Engineer, someone was supposed to “silence me”.

This mafia like solidarity has been entrenched in these rural districts that seems to be at the blind-spot of he IGG. The attitude only help to alienate the disenfranchised locals from local government authority and services because civil servants feel intractably invincible.

It feels exonerating to hear the filth in these districts being unearthed by the Statehouse Health Monitoring Unit, albeit late and with no serious consequences.

In the maladies of Pader and Abim districts, resides the grim picture of filth, public theft, mediocrity, corruption, and a dense network of civil servants accustomed to plundering public resources with impunity. Public servants manning these rural districts are worse than scavengers; tight in their eating networks like the termite and indeed, they eat even the vouchers.

Mr. Kaziba’s revelation only represents the tip of the iceberg. Those “termites” that eat vouchers should be understood in that context.

There is need to strengthen the mechanism of accountability and the effectiveness of the structures that support accountability. Local government administration has alienated the locals from government by creating this overarching environment of deficits.

The people in the rural countryside are marginalized and alienated by a small elite civil servants who shape the narratives of deficits by abusing public trust. Desired services are always either deficient, lacking, delayed, absent, denied, or poorly resourced. People associate hospitals with poor services and lack of skilled staff/no medicine, so they choose to die at home from preventable ailments; schools are overcrowded, manned by poorly motivated teachers leading to decades of below average performances; roads are perennially impassable – either under water or infested with potholes. People in rural communities starve and die of malnutrition even when they live in arable land where foods is grown.

But surely, the termites of Abim and Pader keep eating the voucher papers and growing fat!!

END