Harnessing Africa: Is Neoliberalism working for Africa?

NEOLIBERALISM

The global news of black African youths in their prime being traded in an open slave market in Libya was a harsh reality. The resurgence of slave markets is probably another failure of neo-liberalism. Where liberal democracy and liberal rights should be the mainstay of a liberal society we find its proponents subverting liberal democracy by funding military dictatorships.

Modern day slave trade is a moral crisis that reveals the contradiction of lack of liberal rights in a liberal market situation. Human trafficking of disadvantaged women and children alone grosses US$150 billion annually, with sex trade generating US$99 billion, according to a 2014 International Labour Organization figures.

The skeleton of the slavery era spanning over three centuries still dangles in our closets. Despite attempts to whitewash global social inequities arising out of that abuse with offers of ethereal affirmation and liberal rights, limited democracy suffocates any progress.

 Slavery is reproduced and packaged in different forms - debt bondage, colonialism, imperialism and arms race - these conditions have transformed Africa into breeding ground for slaves. There are no specific safeguards against the vice under this monster - neoliberalism. Free market philosophy has come with its demand for unregulated labor, and it comes with increasingly precarious and demeaning exploitative jobs.

The costs associated with the hyped development under the so-called free-markets undermine the underprivileged, underdeveloped and under-resourced population setting them up for a tenuous situation for harnessing into slavery.  According to Credit Suisse, in 2017, the global richest 1% owns 50.1% of global wealth, signifying a rise from a 42.5% in 2008. Moreover, this wealth distribution and location demonstrate how the global south is peripheral – dispossessed.

In the meantime, the states are diminishing at an alarming rate, retaining a thin political authority over the liberal markets. Most of these states are captives of, and operating entirely on institutional economic framework prescribed by IMF/WB. One of their star performers (victims) – Uganda - for instance,  mediate slavery of its own people through state registered agencies that export  under-developed human resources for cheap house-help labour to Asia and Caribbean.

 The African economies seem to work only for the few transnational corporations and its turncoats - the corrupted state agents who conspire to exploit and plunder the continent.

More Africans have lost customary property – land. Many now strive to trade their labor cheaply to foreign investors, without union privileges. The World Migration Report 2015 establishes that Africa has the highest rural to urban migration where migrants poverty, discrimination, crowding, diseases, and exclusion, and so forth, form inelastic urban facilities and services.

How else could the proponents of neoliberal policies in Africa explain the high migration rates – the mass preindustrial migration from rural to urban centers? Or, the high unemployment rates, alcohol/drug abuse, and suicide among Africa's youthful population?  Are these also indicators of economic development, or under development?

  

The resurgence of slave markets may be a strong indicator of the chaotic and devastating nature of neoliberal ideology that undermines state authorities in preference for liberal markets.

Hundreds of indigent Africans flee and drown frequently while crossing the oceans to seek for decent jobs in Europe or America. Many are denied work visa on racist and inhuman grounds such as lack of previous record of travel, or inability to demonstrate strong ties to home country to guarantee their returns.

These are ridiculous visa conditions given that the very economic policies are breaking families, forcing people off their land and property, and harnessing their labour for cheap exchange.

Neoliberal policies in Africa needs a comprehensive evaluating quite urgently. The harsh realities of this economic policy seem to outwear its benefits in Africa after nearly 30 years. Africa is facing severely masked under-development socially, economically and politically. The challenge is that liberal markets without liberal rights and liberal democracy cannot flourish in Africa.

END

Muntu cannot be a Museveni spy

CONSPIRACY

Competitions tend to bring the best and the worst among contemporaries, but, attaching the spy claim on Muntu will hurt FDC the most. FDC adherents must stop labelling Muntu an NRM mole. Such labelling highlights the success of the propaganda machinery of the establishment to sow discord within the party.

Gen. Muntu is above the pettiness of spying for the NRM. When FDC opened its doors for membership, it expected that the establishment would infiltrate its ranks and files with informants. That is what a sitting regime does. There are many in there, but Gen Muntu is definitely not one of them.

We should know that negative words hurt when hurled at you, even if you ignore them. The label of spying cast against Gen Muntu socialises him in two contradicting worlds – a persistent false image against his legitimate dedications.

To reduce Muntu's to such pettiness harms the Party as it requires constant self-validating before the party supporters. Gen Muntu is not an ordinary citizen to start with. His past and present engagements with the regime are not matters of secrecy, speculation or awe. Gen Muntu, like all those honchos in FDC, have their roots in the very system that they are committed now to dismantle. Those historical ties, are both their fortunes and baggage to carry simulteneously.

In honesty, it is easy to sell Gen. Muntu as a spy for CIA, KGB, Mossad, Chinese, Mi5, Rwanda, EAC, and so forth. Spying for Museveni is an oxymoron. One would rather contract-spy for Salva Kiir at that point!

FDC as a great potential with properly nurturance. It continues to attract credible political actors with diverse experiences and high levels of maturity. FDC has held itself together in part because of these men and women who value above all, the institution before individuals. This is a rare trait in existing politics of Uganda.

We have seen those who, because of strong tribal and inane sense of entitlement, hurriedly left FDC to nurse their ambitions elsewhere. Those hopes to flourish quickly evaporated and now they have to constantly hug, and massage the fingers of the tyrant for a living.

The lessons are visible – we can no longer build a tribal based political party with a narrow ethnic-based mobilising ideology; more so, depending entirely on urban based elites to galvanize the revolutionary sentiments abound in Uganda is itself, politically suicidal. Gen. Muntu might have quickly reflected on these lessons and correctly returned to the fold. Let FDC embrace and trust Muntu fully, as a priceless asset! Those undemocratic elements aspire for the "third way" politics, the ultra-hybrid politics of sitting on the fence, should try their luck.

Gallantry espoused by men like Gen. Muntu afford FDC integrity and a renewed sense of purpose. The triumph of a mature liberal democracy resides in tolerance of such diversity for the maximization of transformative ideas. It is shameful for FDC MPs from Gen Muntu's camp who have accused Dr. Kizza Besigye of being a dictator, when, in essence, they themselves, exhibit every trait of the same malady, including poor loser culture. Such elements undermine the most vital aspect of their Party structures – the election and transition processes.

Most importantly, the body and the soul co-exist, and so, the new FDC President, Eng. Patrick Amuriat should embody the physical presence of FDC, while Gen. Muntu becomes the conscience - the soul. One tactician, the other a strategist. Enough room exists for both individuals proffer. The Party needs a leader with a finishing instinct, in as much as a philosopher to engineer the structures. Only through their combined efforts shall the structures materialise. The Party shall then become stronger and appealing for the treacherous task of liberation.

END

A tribute to Dr. Kizza Besigye’s branding

TRIBUTE

A few political commentators tend to under-state the efforts of Dr. Kizza Besigye (KB) in reclaiming the political space we have today. Although bravery is a scant virtue among any oppressed population, KB's gallantry has concrete achievements. The oppressed people often adapt to their state of oppression by submitting or emulating the ways of their Oppressors. KB's successes in resisting all these mechanism are monumental.

Oppression tends to deform its victims – compromising their senses of reality, self-worth, and imaginations by impeding both mental and physically developments.

You can identify oppressed people by their dependency, timidity, and low confidence when navigating their environment – many become socially obscure, coarse, and duplicitous in their dealings.

To appreciate KB’s achievements, one has to understand such environments and obtaining circumstance where untruth operates as the truth and violence as state symbol. After three decades of systematic oppression, people become weary, aloof, and distrusting. Gallant men like KB only sustain their paradoxical existence of hope/hopelessness.

The anti-KB sentiments represent those on the side of hopelessness. It is a prerequisite for holding a pie from the state's breadbasket.

The internalization process of oppression is appealing because it attracts such rewards as Presidential appointment. Interpret the terse environment in an imperceptive manner helps to validate their failures to thrive independently, and thus, accosting providence.

In that way, KB is a unique brand – a self-sacrificing living legend with a vision for good governance and equality for humankind by breaking the traditions of oppression. 

However, after decades of oppression, any prospects of obtaining a state of liberation is daunting to the oppressed. They have never known freedom - how to live free of state patronage. To them, every aspect of life's glimmer arises from the "glorious" benevolence of the tyrant.

There are Ugandans who, without reservation, claim that KB's activism has not moved Uganda far. Some even claim that KB is a spent force because he has not dismantled the dictatorship. There are many strange explanations in dismissing KB; all compromised versions of the truth, all of which help to rationalize the ascendancy of the tyranny.

These apologists never confront the social, political, and structural imbalances and commonplace restraints mounted against a free society - the very conditions upon which they are meticulously dominated, exploited, and oppressed.

There is imperceptible fear to recognise sham rituals such as fake elections, corruption, over-zealously militarised police, and personalised armies, all of which conflate to the perpetuation of unequal society and oppressive states.

How can an army or police forces that are functionaries of dictatorship become professional?

The KB success story cannot be told as a singular narrative isolated from the complex and adverse political context in which it obtains. The roles of his colleagues and institutions they built, without which, they could not have claimed the political space that we have today must also suffice.

KB tested and exposed the lack of professionalism in the various personalized institutions that hold the tyranny in place and found them all wanting. The army is a personalized instrument of power of Mr. Museveni, culpable to the highest levels of nepotism, sectarianism, and corruption in as much as the Police, and other departments in abeyance with that regime.

The Kayihura Uganda Police, I think, is modeled after Adolf Hitler's notorious Gestapo.

Profoundly, KB exposed the Museveni’s gibberish talks about constitutionalism and rule of law – revealing that the people control neither the power nor the will to decide on how they want to be governed.

And, KB exposed two contradicting societies – one that is above the laws with command over every resources; and the other, constructed in the sub-state zone under oppression and exploitation. It experiences egregious laws requiring the state to decide for them when to associate, talk to each other, laugh, play, and make merry or gloomy.

END.

Uganda: State undermining suffering Workers

UNDERMINING UNIONS

The doctors opted to strike over poor remunerations, which compromise their work ethics. The doctors’ plight is understandable. Doctors in public facilities earn on average, about US$300 per month.  This abuse is unheard of anywhere in the world. In Kenya, the recent doctors’ industrial action ended with a decent settlement where interns earn US$ 1,900 and the highest consultants earn about US$5600 a month. The state’s insensitivity to income inequality and widespread rent seeking signifies deliberate undermining of labour and their unions.

The doctors are seeking for equitable pay and improved work conditions. Public resources should not only fund political expediences. The decaying public institutions need fixing, too. Too much politics of self-aggrandizement has deteriorated critical social services.

Ugandans are dying too often from conditions caused by social inequities.

Industrial actions are commonplace these days and perceived to target the state actors, rather than the private sector employers (corporations and businesses).  This is largely because the Ugandan liberal market is under-developed, and atypical. The market-labor relations are equally atypical due to patrimonial indulgences by the state and sub-state actors who constantly distort the markets.

David Booth and Frederick Golooba-Mutebi studied the formation and influences of developmental patrimonialism in Rwanda where state’s legitimate interests in the market helps to shape the direction of the economy, reduces devastating rent seeking tendencies, and spur real economic growth as measured by reduction in poverty rates . How does patrimonialism shape Uganda’s liberal market?

Interestingly, the Uganda’s market economy is not the main employer of the fledgling youthful labour force. Therefore, externalities (concentrated political interests), rather than the market, regulates and moderate labour- capital relations. According to the 2016/17 Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS), the general unemployment rate was high, 9.5%, to signify that the economy was probably liberalizing fast without expanding, or diversifying in proportions to the growing labour force; and, about 60% of Ugandans are employed informally.

The high-end investors in manufacturing, agro-processing, Information technology, banking, energy, tourism, infrastructure development, and mining avoid chaotic Uganda. The local or crooked investors have come and run out of business due to political patronage, pervasive rent seeking, restricted liberal rights and freedoms, making Ugandan market highly risk-prone.  The political instability signals high potential for large-scale disruptions of the market, risks that investors avoid.

Today the major institution of the economy is not the market – rather, the state – the Presidency and political class who live off rent seeking. In this sense, the Ugandan economy is atypical in the real sense of a liberal economy as those shaped under ideologies of neoliberalism. 

Incidentally, the state tends to distances itself from social spending, especially in critical areas of childhood development, education, health, agriculture, and social securities. For instance, the budgetary allocation to social sector has declined from 37% in 2002/2003 to 19% in the 2017 budget. This expenditure is far below the global and emerging marketing standards where health social coverage remains as low as under 3.0%.

The striking civil servants fall in the social sectors where the state has reneged on its fiscal obligations. The state wishes to cede social service obligations to the private sector or liberal market.

Evidence shows that working and living conditions are far better in economies with high labour union densities.  Where unions thrive, pay inequities and poverty are reduced, and the sense of social justice supersedes that of economic justice. However, where the market is the dominant force, liberal rights are enforced but labour unions are suppressed. The objective of the capitalist class is maximization of profits by paying low wages and limiting benefits.

The 2014 Uganda Labour market profile identifies 40 workers unions, covering only 440,000 workers, or 3% of the labour force, constituting 13% of workers in the formal workforce.

Therefore, the state deliberately undermines labour and their unions just as it does to any forms of social and political rights.

END 

Are we Museveni's commodities?

BUYING UGANDANS

The manner in which Mr. Museveni has commercialised politics and perfected the art of buying Ugandans or selling them abroad for money needs highlighting. The NRM has built a mindset, and practice of bribing for political power. Incidentally, if they cannot buy your loyalty, then they will sell you to the Arabs or hoard you out of your country. Ugandans are gullible, impoverished, exploited, deceived, repressed, deprived and commodified.

The money culture has eroded important traditions and social capital, the very foundation upon which citizen elected credible, sensible and caring leaders. Before this regime, Ugandans believed in, and practiced nationalism, integrity and accountability. Today, Uganda politicians lack integrity, honor or a sense of patriotism and are political commodities. Uganda is deprived of impeccable and credible leaders who could resist selling their conscience. The better quality leaders were those elected when this money craze was still at infancy. Back then, society had a sense of pride, relevance and purpose about its collective visions. Today, leadership is for personal gains; bribery is like a jackpot. We have leaders who are crooks, who sell the country and its resources far cheaper than Judas Iscariot sold Jesus!

The social, political and economic transformation that will buttress the NRM legacy is the monetization and militarization of politics, ethnic stratification, commanded by strong sectarian positioning, and rent seeking. These also herald the transformation of National Resistance to National Robbery Movement.

Generally, the transition into the money nexus is Uganda's undoing as it spurred inflation in costs of nearly every social aspect of life. People want to work less, delivering lower quality for inflated labor fees; Thinkers and planners are unable to deliver results, but demand for colossal thinking fees. Jobs and community services that used to get done on camaraderie or on social co-operational basis are now defunct. Villagers cannot fill a pothole potion of the road in front of their homestead because they need bribes or pay. People are living in isolation even within homes, and suspicious over each other's source of fortunes.

But, the drive towards money nexus also exposes the widespread socio-economic inequalities along ethnicity considering the manner in which the economy is tightly controlled by the regime and its cronies. This control has ensured that the top 20 per cent wealthy and powerful, are of monolithic nature, and control 80 per cent of the wealth, power and privileges. The masses are accorded very sparse unequal opportunity to share in the overall wealth of the nation.

To ascertain these state of inequities, one needs to examine the nature and motives of crimes in Uganda.  Major crimes are petty - associated with basic survival such as stealing food, clothing (under-wears); grabbing or depriving others of their properties (display of power); and rape and murders (passion). The alternate indicator of inequities is the height of adults in a region, compared with those of same age a decade or two ago, or of their parents. Repressed Ugandans are generally shorter, unhappier, dehydrated, malnourished, and fearful. These are symptoms of pathologies of power.

 Mr. Museveni has prioritized his political expedience above all aspirations of the people of Uganda. He has garrisoned the country's resources for personal use - bribing adversaries, undermining national institutions, and lavishing lobbyist abroad.

Since the focus of economy is to finance Mr. Museveni's political vision and excessive lifestyle, investments in public goods and services have suffered neglect. Public servants are poorly remunerated, making work places precarious. Pay inequities between political cronies and frontline public service providers are simply glaring and unacceptable.

We are a generation of deeply commodified – deprived, undermined, impoverished, exploited, and bought. We are also sold to the Arabs. Either way, we are either wholly or partly a commodity to be sold and bought in the free market with the very money we produce.

End.

Togikwatako Campaigners are truest friends of Mr. Museveni

Togikwatako

The intent to remove Art 102b from the 1995 Constitution to pave way for life-long presidency should be halted for the good of Uganda. There is no excuse for Mr. Museveni to prolong his rule. After 35 years, if Mr. Museveni has not accomplished his aspirations as a leader, then he will never.

In the last couple of decades of Mr. Museveni's rule, Uganda has experienced declines in social service delivery, social investments and in public institutions. Corruption, nepotism/sectarianism and deceptions rose exponentially. The Presidency has concentrated all the powers, prestige and privileges, leaving the masses and those at the periphery deprived of fundamental rights, and excluded from the mainstream where national development agenda is discussed.

Museveni's adherents are blinded to the glaring social inequities deliberately. The personalisation of state, and individualism have superseded the call for collective commons. People think in silos and everyone dies to grab for personal aggrandisement what should be shared nationally. As such, the spirits of nationalism and patriotism have faded. Ugandans are bitter, exhausted and frustrated with this regime.

I have observed that indigenous Ugandans have ceded their birth rights, and the various incontrovertible rights to the state. A continued Museveni's rule will do all of us in, worse – such that our citizenship will depend on loyalty to the cult leader that Museveni has become; our rights to property, land; and basic services, quality health care and education are already inaccessible.

The last thing we all need as Ugandans, is another year of a Museveni's rule past 2021.

Recently, the military Police arrested criminal suspects, a job that the Police should perform. This phenomenon was unheard of until now. The arrest of Mr. Gashumba and his brother, Kasumba over suspicion of extortion and fraud demonstrate a total collapse of the Uganda Police, under Gen Kale Kayihura. Concurrently, the onslaught on Kayihura's "Generals" within the Police is an indication that the Police, far from being a civil force that should have exercised its mandate of maintaining peace and tranquil, protecting the law and reigning in on criminals, itself, became culpable to syndicated crime.

The presence of Military Police, symbolises a vote of no confidence in the Police. The crooked Police force needs urgent cleaning and rehabilitating.

Nonetheless, we must read the political pulse right. The socialising of Military police with a civilian institution is an indication of how our society has become militarised. Kayihura militarised the Police but also politicised it way too much to align it as an instrument of NRM power brokerage.

Ugandans should worry of the take-over of policing work by the men with red tops. It is clear that in an event of defeat of the President's agenda to rule for life by the Togikwatako campaign tide, we are likely to experience a repeat of the February 19^th, 2016 scenarios in Kampala – a military takeover.

The Togikwatako movement is indeed a challenge to Museveni and yet his truest of friends. A new pattern has emerged where traditional opposition leaders are surpassed by the Togikwatako wave. This movement has set a clear divide between the state (read, Museveni) and the masses. Many NRM adherents recognise that this removal of Art 102b is the most unpopular political move that could end in a revolution to topple this government. However, they are too deformed by dishonest to advise the dictator to retire.

The people on the Togikwatako side are people who mean well for Mr. Museveni. They are asking him to retire at the end of his zenith term in 2021 so that his legacy and lifelong work benefits those who value it. This is a noble request because Mr. Museveni has a chance of setting a new record, as the President who served for so long, retired and found solace inside Uganda.

END

Kayihura's Police was a captive force

CROOKED POLICE

Now that tables are turning on Gen Kale Kayihura, I  see social media posts praising the notorious Kayihura's Police as professional. Such considerations are for the deluded, and perhaps those strange to professionalism, them being crooks or duplicitous. 

The circumstances under which Gen. Kale Kayihura operates are understandably crafty and murky – a crooked political and legal environment. The laws of a country are the laws enacted by the ruling class, to secure their social, economic and political interests; and to maintain status quo - dominance.

The Police's performance under such a regime is defined by the nature of the political actors in power, and their inherent interests. When the regime is crooked and repressive, the Police will also enforce their crooked and repressive laws.

The Police is an instrument of power.

To evaluate the performance of the Kayihura's Police as professional or unprofessional, one needs to analyse the crookedness of political actors in power. In these lights, the Police has been quite predictable, and a reflection of the dishonesty of the dominant political actors.

This force was effective in assuming the political responsibility of protecting the Museveni regime in power. The Police even revised the purpose of its founding under the advent of colonialism. That is, to protect the colonial establishment and its imperial agenda.

This Police is exceptional in its' mission of protecting the Museveni establishment and Museveni's "imperial" agenda.

Gen. Kale Kayihura is member of the political and ruling class. He has to share the spoils of their time by serving a function, however diabolical it is to the people's aspirations. In that line, the Police, as political tool is overly militarised, politicised, and effectively repressive.

Since the regime in power is also crooked, it enacts laws that undermines fundamental liberties - the enjoyment of unalienable rights. The Police must act to constrain Ugandans that way, by controlling all avenues of mobility – freezing Ugandans into their throats and spots. Duct-taped and immobilised.

Ugandans cannot talk, associate or move freely without Police sanctions.

Our phones are tapped, private conversations are recorded, media outlets are switched off air the moment its panellists disagree with status quo, persons are jailed for airing anti-establishment views.

When your rights to associate must be permitted by Police, then you are in police custody – jail. The Police is an effective instrument of repression in this manner.

In essence, any semblance of a civil force withered with the departure of Gen. Wamala. Gen Kayihura brooded a militant political police in the realms of Nazi's Gestapo.

It is a little wonder that the Inspector General of the Police acts as the de facto Political Commissar of the ruling Party. This Police is a captive force, serving a rogue regime.

Few proposals for immediate revamp, post-Musevenism.

First, I propose that the Police recruitment and administration be decentralised such that each district administers its own Police department, suitable to its size and local purposes.

Second, the functionality of continued quality assurance, integrity and training be left to a small highly specialised National Police at a Directorate, or the National Police Bureau, under a suitable Ministry. In addition, this crème de la crème force should handle intelligence and superintends over investigations of complex cases as well as coordination or regional and international policing matters.

Third, each district or amalgamated policing region should be mandated to promote its exemplary officers to the highest possible ranking of IGP, so that there shall be National Conferences of IGPs that discusses, examines, and harmonises crime reduction and other policing matters.

Under this Museveni regime, the political circumstances that the Police and other security organs must operate, discourages professionalism. There is nothing professional in undermining the constitution, extorting,exploiting or torturing Ugandans.

To set the police free, we must first remove this regime.

End.

Mwenda, reading too much junk does not make one intelligent

A Post Card to a Fool

Many right thinking Ugandans will agree that Andrew Mwenda’s condescending and patronising attitude towards Ugandans should end, henceforth.

Mr. Mwenda must not be left to his own vices; else his intoxicating self-deception will most likely inflict upon him an irreparable damage, and also may corrupt the minds of the gullible.  

For years, we have allowed Mwenda to lurk in his foolishness unchallenged. That free public space Mwenda enjoys, accustomed the person of Mwenda to his noises.  The Mwenda we have now is close to a fraudster or a desperado- lunatic.

Not that anyone is bothered with Mwenda's slurs and condescension towards the opposition. What is more pressing is that Mwenda needs an urgent rescuing from himself, from his delirium to re-orienting to Uganda's common man realities. We would hope that if Mwenda becomes acquainted with such common  truths, he may shut the dink up!

Interestingly, intelligent people are measured, sensitive, self-assured, toned-in, and never starved of public attention to announce themselves like Mwenda. Their deeds and dispositions speak aloud.  

Intelligentsia do not permit shouting when making a point in a civil conversation, nor do they hide in cooked-up statistics to score cheap points. Intelligent people stand out as genuinely interested in public discourses – and they appear gathered and intelligent from the onset.

In that light, Mwenda appears as an intellectual fraud, imbued simply with traits of intellectual obesity - someone over fed on a monotone of fake news, textbooks, and statehouse revisions. This "super-intelligence" posturing without common sense affirms that reading too much does not translate into intelligence.

In reality, Mr.Tamale Mirundi - his humanly limitations notwithstanding - deserves larger public space that Mwenda. Personally, I would rather suffer listening to Nadduli or Kasirye Ggwanga than tolerate Mwenda’s condescension and utter posturing that lacks depth, character, and style.

 Uganda is not short of intelligentsia, who, when given the right space and time, would expose Mwenda’s mediocrity, consigning him to the ranks of carpetbaggers or head boy of court jesters.  

Ultimately, insulting the intelligence of the entire nation is more than we should permit. People who read books written in western capitals do not give up their homegrown mannerism and wisdom. No matter how read one is, if you cannot relate that knowledge with wisdom and common sense, then you become a mere effigy - symbol of extant enlightenment, an alien obscurantist. It leaves you erudite but unrefined, aloof and foolish all the way.

When colonialists came to Africa, they rode on the backs of Christian missionaries to lay claim to vast lands of Africa; upon their capture of territories, these colonialists abused and exploited Africans in all manners possible. When Museveni came to power, he reproduced the same colonial modes of operations complete with colonial laws and a steady rise of the born-again Christian.

The sum effect of these religious organizations served to soften the cruelty of the repressive regimes.

However, the use of rogue scholars enabled stereotyping of Africans that lessened their human value as uncivilized, savages, unbaptized etc, in light of European civilization at the time. That kind of rogue intellectualism gave relevance, and justified colonial rule. In modern parlance, Mwenda is the equivalent of those rogue colonial scholars. His paid mission is to shape the structures that would regenerate relevance, and justify Museveni’s life presidency project.

However, quasi-professional obscurantist like Mwenda aggravates the dichotomy that already exists between a Uganda molded in the realms of “NRM truths” or untruths, and that organic truth, which emerges out of every day struggles of the common man.

The NRM’s duplicitous narratives of having restored peace in Uganda, championed democracy, restored economy stability leading to a middle income status; that corruption is good for the economy, and so forth, falls flat on its face when carefully scrutinized from the common man's standpoint -hogwash! The NRM’s truth exists in the shadows of every day truth of trials and tribulation of profoundly exploited, disempowered, and impoverished Ugandans.

When Mwenda tries to stupefy the nation, that a continued Museveni dictatorship is enviable and inevitable after three decades, you frown given their agenda to grab our land. Certainly, reading too much does not equate to being intelligent, does it?

 The deception that power belongs to Ugandans, and that these disempowered people can use their power as they so wish, appeals mainly to deluded minds. How would one console themselves with such nuisances, given the overly militarised, policed, and constrained socio-political spaces?

In sum, the conservatives who have ignored Mwenda, have done him a disservice. Mwenda needs constant reminding that his voice has reached a saturation point far beyond a threshold. No one takes him seriously anymore - not even himself.  Mwenda also exemplifies a fact that reading too much anecdotal materials does not make anyone intelligent. Instead, it stupefies. Mwenda is such a captive, and a man deeply ensconced in a vicious midlife crisis. Let Mwenda deal with his personal inadequacies without projecting it on others – let him suffer alone with his stupefying intellectual obesity.

The End.

Pathology of dictatorship: How Museveni’s rule has deformed Ugandans

PATHOLOGY OF DICTATORSHIP

 To understand the Museveni’s mindset, we have to listen to the verbiages and scorn of regime corollaries like Hon. Anite, Abiriga, Opondo or Naduli. The Museveni’s regime speaks more articulately through persons with dissociated characters.  These are people are permanently deformed by the Museveni powers.  

The unwarranted deployment and heavy presence of various instruments of state repression at Parliament this week has exposed the UPDF. It justifies the utterances by Hon. Anite on the position of UPDF in the life-long ambitions of their founder.  This is not about national security.  The UPDF is the real face of this regime.

The major achievements of the over three decades of Museveni’s rule, is the total transformation of Uganda through a systematic process of mortification and degradation. By mortification, Museveni has broken down the social identities of Ugandans, creating an environment in which he became the sole proprietor of societal stability, laying personal claim over the nation’s resources, taxpayer’s money and now fixing his gaze on the last possession - land.  To benefit fully and personally from the mortification, Museveni must rule perpetually infinitum. Unfortunately, Article 102 stands on his way.

Many Ugandans who resisted the mortification process fled the regime’s excesses and found a safe sanctuary abroad. These former victims have now become the sources of income with enormous remittances to sustain the regime’s rogue economy.

However, the regime still finds it appropriate to deprive these Ugandans in the diaspora, their citizenship rights byy selling to them dual citizenship rights at a colossal fee. This money is unaccountable for in services to the diaspora population. We shall revisit the issue of diaspora repression in light of this development later.

 However, dual citizenship for Ugandans who are citizens by decent should have been waived as a privilege.  Progressive societies encourage dual citizenships for economic gains. For instance, the economic triumph of China is the spread of Chinese communities that import Chinese made goods all over Europe and North America.

The real agenda behind this illegality of selling dual citizenship is to deprive indigenous Ugandans their citizenship rights, and to equalize the rights of aliens who have taken over citizenship of Uganda by force. 

The question of citizenship is central in the mortification process because it alienates Ugandans from their cradle land. This serves for political coercion and renting loyalty.

The second achievement is degradation, or internalization of their mortification. The degradation proceeded started since 1980s propaganda that dichotomized and problematized past leaders and old political institutions, rending any formal social activities dysfunctional. On the other hand, it propelled the ruling military regime as liberators. The sustained ideological manipulation also unfortunately deified the person of Mr. Museveni, who has, himself internalized his power and got deformed by it.  

The systematic degradation ritual includes the repeated violation and disregard of electoral laws – always using state machinery to undermine the democratic process, and state inspired corruption. Prof. Moses Khisa succinctly highlights a number of these mechanisms in his seminal 2016 article, “Managing defections in Museveni’s Uganda: a lesson from 2016 elections”.

Dr. Khisa identifies three major mechanisms through which degradation occurs: state patronage using elite inclusion and co-optation as political baits; coercion and repression using military, police and various intelligence agencies that kidnaps, tortures and “disappears” dissenters; and use of informal social networks and endowments (brown envelops, useless medials, and praise of opponents).

 The objective of this degradation has Ugandans dispossessed of the self (identity), leading to distorted identities and expectations; resigned to fate (retreatism) and accepted their conversion, as repressed, powerless secondary citizens without alienable rights in any spheres of life.

The final submission to Museveni’s colonization now manifests by people like Abiriga, Anite, and others striving to incorporate themselves fully into the lifelong ambitions of the dictator. I think Hon. Ibrahim Nganda referred to these power-deformed people lightly as fortune hunters.

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Museveni's land grab scheme only invites legitimate resistance

MUSEVENI LAND GRAB

When you read the article by Kiira Municipality MP, Hon. Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda in the Observer  (See:  When Muzee goes, people will understand we never had a govt”), you get a clear sense that it is bureaucratic lapses in planning and budgeting, that causes unnecessary delays and cost over runs in government projects. Not that citizens are refusing to give land. 

These corrupt NRM cadres plan, budget, approve, and secure loans on government project way before gazetting and settling land negotiations with landowners. Why is Museveni not addressing these glaring internal flaws, tightening his government, and making it lean and efficient?  

Whereas former Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin expelled Asians from Uganda, Mr. Museveni is determined to expel indigenous Ugandans from Uganda, if not resisted. Already, this regime is selling back birthrights at a walloping US$400 to Ugandans who fled its earlier violence. These are signs that Ugandans are on track of losing their to their land and property rights. 

The vested interest of Mr. Museveni in amending land acquisition laws is suspicious and calls for public scrutiny. Mr. Museveni’s own Party’s legislators have rejected the proposed amendment.  Why is the President becoming so obsessed with usurping land from Ugandans?

 This Museveni land usurpation scheme has shifted the boundary of trust and patience among Ugandans. Imagine that former regimes implemented every national development without grabbing land from citizens. Historically, the traditional land tenure systems have existed in various parts of the country and yet Dr. Obote built schools and hospitals, Amin built hotels, presidential lodges and Mpoma Satellite station without grabbing the land.

 The contentions in the proposed Land Amendment Bill is the agenda to acquire lands deemed necessary for public interests forcefully, and then later consider a compensation value for its owners.  Moreover, there is no guarantee for fairness and transparency in the land valuation processes. 

Additionally, the compensation is based on what the government decides, and the evacuated victim of such land grabs cannot refuse or negotiate.  If there were to refuse, government would dump the compensation package at a nearby courthouse.

By any measure of sense, this proposal is frivolous, dehumanizing, and heinous. Museveni wants to deprive Ugandans of their rights to land and property, and such should invite legitimate resistance nationwide.

 Mr. Museveni should know that his regime is not trusted with its reputation of unrivalled corruption.  Mr. Museveni;s own declaration that he is not anyone’s servant, and that he is pursuing his own ambitions has change public opinion of him, making this land amendment is rightfully suspect.

 Mr. Museveni should attend to the current investigations of dubious land deals learn why the public has little faith in his proposal. If this land amendment is imposed on Ugandans, the reality of mass displacement, unjustifiable suffering, and dehumanization due to homelessness, famine, and conflict for subsistence space will overwhelm this country.   

In developed capitalist societies where governments are the sole authority over land, the challenges of housing and homelessness are a hallmark. Any sensible Ugandan will never support this land amendment proposal. Let Museveni take the land by force like they have done in Amuru. 

It is up to Ugandans to give up their rights to their land under these dubious schemes.  Otherwise, Museveni should allow a legitimate land acquisition process, consistent with current laws and market rules to prevail.  His priority should be ending corruption and inefficiencies within the planning and procurement divisions in government. The National Development Plan should reflect future government projects allowing a planning space of 20-30 years. Such a plan would allow preservation of lands for national development in advance. Where citizens are affected, the state should respect property rights, and apply social justice principles to compensate citizens at an agreed market price.

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Bashing Besigye's Radicals only justifies Elite's "Do not disturb" sign

ELITE DRAMA

Many Kampala–based elites have indulged in a rendition of bashing Dr. Kizza Besigye’s brand of politics and labeling his avid supporters as intolerant, radicals and people blinded to loyalty.  I wish these elites could reflect on their own contribution to the change agenda in Uganda.

This anti-KB slur-train originated from an unscrupulous section of elites who turn to bashing Besigye to whitewash their tainted conscience and justify the "do not disturb" attitude toward change and matters of accountability. People who use uncharitable slurs to describe Besigye and his impassioned supporters should first pass credibility test. How less radical are they?

Recently, these sordid commentators enjoyed the two-second fame that accompanies celebrity bashing. In the process, they exposed their ulterior motives and hanged their gullibility on the wire.  A recent such cynical attacks in the media cautioned people to flee town from an advancing KB’s radicals.

Uganda is full of such jokers. These are elite who may be socially conscious and yet political adolescents and blinded by their morbid powerlessness. The ambivalence of such groups always resulted in betraying the change agenda. In fact, most of the so-called Besigye radicals are average Ugandans whose sincerity and love for their country subordinate elite’s parochial pursuit for affluence.  This group threatens the marginal elite for their uncompromising resolve for change in the socio-political environment.

In the contrary, it is a fact that traditional Besigye-bashing party are known for their propensity towards brown envelops and affluence. They could not gain rent from status quo without excelling in this enterprise.

Incidentally, our elites have remained indifferent to calls for change. Instead, this group scorns change agents while sitting on their hands on top of the fence.  When the call for action beckons at them, they quickly flush the “Do Not Disturb” sign at change agents.

Uganda is weary of the monopoly of Museveni and it only debases us for an elite nation we are, to exist in three decades of a one “visionary” rule. The elite should be debating the requirements of the change process and materialising a post-Museveni Uganda instead of demoralising change agents. Unfortunately, you find these elites too engrossed in their narcissistic mindset to see the public utility of such efforts.  

The people’s president, Dr. Besgye has built for himself a reputation that attracts trust and he has been reliable through endurance and self-sacrifice against tyranny. Many of the elites have benefited from political spaces that the regime has unwittingly conceded due to KB’s activism.

However, the elites will not fight constraining laws like POMA but Besigye. Instead, they are critical of Besigye while unbothered about the collapse of public institutions. In fact, their opportunistic posturing is to conspire towards collapsing these institutions.

The ballot, prayers, and compliance shall not defeat a three-decade establishment of Museveni’s system of repression. This realization is the cause of the fault line between defiance and compliance that has emerged in FDC. These ideological positions have merits, and should face the rigors of sober contemplation and testing without throwing each side in the greasy sink.

Lastly, the KB attacks are not value free. First, it serves the state agenda to dislodge KB from the body politics of opposition in Uganda for Museveni to obliterate opposition by 2021. Mr. Tamale Mirundi recently called that “renting the minds of the elites in opponents”. Second, whenever change is about to occur, the forces of inertia emerges, complete with its torque. The closer the change is, the stiffer the resistance. Third, our unpredictable and unreliable elites who treat life as mere theatricals tend to resist change the most. They claim a level of sophistication upon which to frown upon the inconveniences of change and change processes. This lot remains conveniently unconscious of the widespread social inequalities and the political undercurrents that have radically transformed our society from a progressive, liberated and optimistic nation into a den for thieves, doom and pessimism.

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Museveni's role in forced displacement is understated

FORCED DISPLACEMENTS

Africa with a landmass of 30m Km², twice the size of Europe, and with a population of 1.2billion inhabitants, is also the continent most afflicted with preventable incidences of violence, and natural disasters that cause displacements. The consequences of violence alone, on displacement and human life are remarkable. The 2017 Global Report on Internal Displacement indicates that of the 6.9million internal displacements caused by conflict worldwide in 2016, 2.6 million people were displaced in Sub-Sahara Africa.

Uganda recently enjoyed a spotlight over its unique refugee integration policy by the UN Secretary General, Mr. António Guterres. While Uganda may have the best refugee integration policies, the role of Uganda in causing mass displacement in the region was unfortunately understated.

The UN deserves apprehension over its traditional reactionary responses to situations of conflict and violence in Africa. Uganda, under the 31 years of dictator Museveni has involved itself in unacceptable incidences of violence, leading to mass displacements and suffering- in DR Congo, Rwanda, Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda. In all these instances, the UN stood by and watched, while intellectualising whether genocide were occurring or not.

The UN seems specialised to be present after the facts of conflicts and disasters. One wonders, which other world organization is there to help the wretched of this world averting conflicts and preventing the destruction of human kind and human environments.

The sight of displaced African people and malnourished children with flies on their faces in this twenty-second century is embarrassing. African people deserve better!

Everyday news from Africa is that of tragedy, nothing novel about ground breaking discoveries, world class acts of human excellence or a major scientific breakthrough by an African. Since independence, Africa’s narratives stalled – poverty, war, disease, disaster, dictatorship, malnutrition, high child-maternal death, unemployment, human rights violation, etc. The stories are so usual that people from western hemisphere prefer tourism of Gorillas than waste time on African people.

The UN praises these dictators, in the process it covertly abets the proliferation of the continent with arms, allows predatory trade agreements, and trades in stolen African resources while legitimate African products are excluded from the lucrative global markets. What really is in the UN for the ordinary African people other than relief aid?

The real traitors of Africa are the greedy and unconscionable African leaders who come to power as “liberators” and turn to conspire against the African people as predators.

There is no justification for a leader to stay in power for three decades. Patterns have emerged where such leaders have abandoned the causes of their African people. Many stay in power as captives of foreign interests to exploit Africa by dehumanising Africans.

The longer they stay in power, the more foreign debts accumulate, poverty and disempowerment are entrenched, and human rights violation becomes the mainstay of their hold on power.

The loot exacted on the Gambia by its former deranged despot, Jammeh is one such evidence. However, the wealth of African leaders accumulated at home and those stashed abroad, shows that contemporary African leaders are worse than former colonial administrators. At least, the colonial administrators were clear with their intention to appropriate African resources to feed European civilization. They never pretended to liberate Africa for Africa.

Most disturbing is the effect of displacement in Africa on its economic progress. Displacement immobilizes, confines and destroys labour.  Displacement denies Africa conditions for its labor to harness its resources and feed its children. The armed conflict dehumanises and further alienates Africans from their land and natural resources. Transient state of displacement furthers the vulnerability of children women and persons with disability to diseases and death. Under the current breed of African leaders, living conditions are made impossible such that resourced, educated, skilled and strong Africans must flee the continent to benefit other continents.

END