Youth Unemployment Gap: Call for a collective response

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

I read an interesting analysis in the Daily Monitor of 31/10/2018 by Charles Onyango Obbo from his Oslo escapades with the #PeoplePower platform. Charles demonstrated his grasp of the social and economic pitfalls in Uganda that has made young people unrestful, unemployed and generally distrustful of the current regime.

In that analysis, Charles outlines the failures of universal education system as foundational to youth unemployment today for delivering substandard quality.

Everywhere you go in Uganda, the poor quality of university and college graduates reflects a weak early educational foundation they received. When we evaluate the gaps in universal education, we examine a constellation of factors – from policy, financing, structure, content, the quality of those who manage and deliver it, to the conditions under which the education is delivered. 

Numerous reports indicate that graduates and teachers of UPE and USE hardly have basic literacy skills in language, logic, critical thinking, history and arithmetic. The disparity is glaring between urban and rural settings – the education system, far from its inherent flaws, is not equitable. Thus, the high rates of drop out in rural and among female students.

Even then, the distinction between College and University remains nebulously explained. In Uganda, College path is deemed for failures, yet Colleges provide the necessary hands-on skills needed for entrepreneurship and employment.

Universities may have been traditional spaces for knowledge and ideology production, but the colonial colleges were places for skills acquisition.

Most countries where youth unemployment is kept low have invested in high quality education and early childhood development. These countries adhere to education as a pathway to reproducing high quality labour in all areas of its economy. For instance, in German, there is an emphasis on appetenceship as a form of education. In the United States, and Canada, community colleges provide students with needed skills for employment.

Previous Uganda Census data confirm that over half of Uganda's population comprises youth, under the age of 29; Labour statistics estimates that 86% are unemployed, under-employed and or at the level of getting to employable.

Moreover, of the unemployed youths, those who become unrestful have education but lack skills and competence to work efficiently – even basic skills such as to show up at work daily and on time. For an economy that is strange to meritocracy, well prepared youths tend to be excluded from gainful employment and opportunities.

There is a big incongruency between the National Youth Policy and National Development Agenda since both are politically inclined rather than labour focused. We see money for politicizing these and not for honing youth’s skill or financing transition programs from school-to-workplace through internships, mentorships and other forms of professional socializing essential for entry level employment.

The large pool of unemployed graduates may reveal that the economy is actually shrinking rather than expanding. In 2016, UBOS found that 90% of all Ugandans under the age of 25 had no job; 58% of all Ugandans were unemployed and a whopping 65.2% of women and 47% of men were unemployed. The sanitized UBOS reports in 2018 may present a different case, but here are some of strides that Uganda must pursue urgently to integrate more people in productive work.

     a)   Invest in soft skills and digital jobs as pathways for harnessing youth energy productively. Youths have taken up social innovation using apps and communication through social media to participate in the digital revolution.

     b) Responsible taxation policies to stimulate and encourage innovation.

     c) Apprenticeships and work-based learning programs for youths to socialize early to work place settings. The graduate training program at Uganda Revenue Authority and the Partnership between Ministry of Gender and the UN Volunteers could provide models for policy makers.  Work-based apprenticeships should become the face of universal education.

     d) Young people involvement in research – a tradition of systematic inquiry; and high level of creative writing for publishing.

     e) Create a fluid skills-focused education system where a person can change career at least thrice in a life time as it is in developed countries. Current system is too rigid to allow people change career.  

End.

Torture in Uganda: From Panda Gari to Panda Kamunye

STATE TORTURE

Insecurity in Uganda today brings back frightening memories of our bloody past complete with its “ganda gari” traits. Except that for this one, it is panda Kamunye – matatu used by plain clothed state operators to kidnap victims of its violent arrests.

 We should be frightened that the state operators, rather than criminals are selecting gross violation of human rights, torture and all forms of incivility as a political tool contrary to all international treatise against torture and inhuman treatment that Uganda is signatory.

This torture video clips that confront us every day, such as that of Yusuf Kawoya, arrested of persons for hosting opposition leaders, and many others, only loops us back to the Idi Amin’s days of horror.

Uganda is on its path to a catastrophe because soon this insecurity will engulf the nation as people will start to roll back their cooperation with the state. For now, the population seems frozen in fear of this iron fist totalitarianism. At its climax, people will unfreeze and become insurgent to the state as they did to Amin and dictators elsewhere.

The ripple effect of violent arrest and torture of Hon. Kyagulanyi with 33 others from Arua's by-elections should have restrained this belligerent regime from its extra-judicial domains. The state may have monopoly over violence and coercion, however, there must be sufficient justification for applying that brute force. Mass arrests and torturing supporters of #Peoplepower or murdering those Muslim clerics will not solve Uganda’s woes. The problems we face today – the agitation, violence, criminality, corruption and dereliction of duties by state and non-state actors, have roots in the pervasive economic inequality and entrenchment.  

Recently, I asked a People Power adherent whether she had heard of Panda Gari. She had not. I concluded that she must be one of the “Bazukulus” (grandchildren or the bushwar). I asked if she is familiar now with Panda Kamunye, the Yusuf Kawooya situation, and she frowned. Reality had hit her. There was no need to explain what panda Kamunye was, except the parallel with Amin’s operations.

Hon. Winnie Byanyiima once twitted that Museveni’s regime is a mixed basket of good and bad. The bad are the episodes of those old dark days of violence when human life was easily dispensable, human where mere biological substances, and security was a variation of insecurity.

 The last two years were unique for Museveni in his effort to undo Amin’s days of terror and horror. It has been a near daily experience that Ugandans are violently arrested, harasses, kidnapped and killed in broad daylight. The helplessness on the faces of those who watch these atrocities, or the ones who have to bear the agony of their lost ones are even more horrifying.

Nowadays, people get frozen – powerlessly watching impunity unveil before their eyes. They even leave and return to their homes more disempowered, demoralized and dehumanized. The way people fear to be victims of crime is nearly commensurate with the fear to witness crime. It leads to immense psychological suffering which becomes embedded in transgenerational trauma and mental illness. Fear is disempowering, and to watch a fellow citizen die, humiliated, reduced like an object conjures a profound sense of powerlessness for law abiding citizens.

Interestingly, dictator Museveni normalizes, justifies and encourages such impunity as an act of self-defense.

Ugandans are, by any means, a very resilient people that have encountered many traumatic episodes since independence. However, the abuse of the citizens, and the havoc that the Museveni regime is wrecking on our people, the economy and whatever residual public institutions left, must be halted.  

Uganda is certainly an unsafe destination for tourists, investors, researchers – not even for Ugandans in the diaspora already shortlisted for arrests upon arrival at the airport for demonstrating against savagery of the state.

No one should panda kamunye for holding opposing ideas in Uganda.

End

Bobi Wine: Fraternizing the Uganda Opposition

SOLIDARITY LIBERATION

For decades, young people have listened to people in government talk passionately about "Liberation", "Freedom fighting", and the most misused term, "revolution", as in NRM 1986 revolution!

 

While we agree that these reactionary concepts pertain to removing human conditions that are considered unbearable, repressive, oppressive, exploitative, and therefore unjust or unfair, to set humans free, the concepts of liberation, freedom fighting, and revolutions have now mutated to different meanings.

 

For Museveni, freedom fighting, liberation and revolution are all about himself - advancing his ideas for the success of his children and grandchildren.

 

Museveni's position contrasts sharply from that of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Dr. Obote, Julius Nyerere and such thinkers in their epoch. To these ideologues, freedom fighting, liberation and revolutions were not an opportunistic vehicles, they were akin to legitimate self-sacrifice for popular causes. There was a unanimous agenda – that of freeing the masses from the trappings of oppression and repression; from colonialism, imperialism, including the consequences of their exploitative social, economic and political formations.

 

The difficulties that confront us in recycling these concepts is that they have lost their ideological and traditional meanings. Karl Marx and his adherents would object to the Museveni definition of "revolution" on the account that it is self-serving, and immediately reproduces the very conditions of oppression and repression upon which the oppressed must desire to eliminate.

 

In fact, the extent to which the Museveni regime has buttressed itself as an oppressor, exploiter, and imperial agent, calls for nothing short of a true revolution, in its traditional meaning.

 

However, for a revolution to obtain, the opposition ought to organize studiously, persistently and vigorously to build that wave towards a critical mass. Favourable conditions are now abound, at home and abroad. Without a critical mass, a peaceful revolution becomes a phantom.

 

The task of removing the repressive regime of President Museveni lies in organizational capability of the Opposition groups. The group vying for power must show better qualities than the group in power. In the process, the Opposition should be aware that Museveni's instrument of repression does not go to sleep. These are well-entrenched, polished and financed enthusiasts with monopoly over means of violence and legitimation of it. If anything, the fate of the tortured #Arua33 is a testament that the Museveni's regime is more lethal than past colonial administrators they emulate.

 

The colonial administers knew their mission and limits when suppressing natives, partly for fear of a backlash at home. Colonialists also knew that Uganda was a Protectorate that would at some point revert to Ugandans. The Musevenists have no such conscience or limits. They are simply fused with the state. To them, separation from the state is unimaginable.

 

Therefore, Opposition groups have to spend a portion of their time studying the characteristics of the enemy just as we studied plants and animals in agriculture or botany. The struggle in pushing the frontiers of liberating Ugandans therefore, is both scientific and artistic. It is also a human service calling for absolute self-sacrifice among its leaders. The opposition must become elastic, to self-replenish without capitulating over internal contradictions.

 

Thus, the excitement among certain quarters of the Opposition pitting one leader against the other is unwise, and unproductive. It is self-defeating and militates against the mutual interest of liberation.

 

The struggle against Museveni will take longer if it is reduced to a personal struggle, a struggle to become a presidential candidate or president. This is a protracted struggle that aimed at overhauling this mangled-up society.  We need all resources and tools to liberate ourselves against a well-entrenched and resourced enemy of the people.

 

The opposition is a fraternity, a stream, not an individual zeal or process. When we individualize the struggle, we become vulnerable to compromises, either by will or coercion, and destroyed in earnest.

END

Handle Kyagulanyi's (aka Bobi Wine) generation with care

 TYRANNY UGANDA

The high handedness with which the state has handled Kyadondo East MP, Hon. Robert S. Kyagulanyi and Mityana Municipality MP, Francis Zaake moved Uganda to a new level of tyranny. MP. Zaake is hooked up on life support, in a medical vegetative state. Only the grace of his Makers save Zaake's life!

Museveni needs to be reminded that Uganda has matured through many decades of state violence and rough tides. In the heart of each and every Uganda there is a craving for peace a good government. This is primarily why Ugandans have not picked up arms to fight against Museveni's autocracy. People have respected Dr. Besigye for not opting for the armed insurrection despite provocation from this rogue state.

There was a time when politics in Uganda was known to be a very dirty game. Many people rightfully feared to indulge in politics because it was the fastest route to dying, being killed.

These conditions should have gone with the many bloody contestations for good governance. Instead, we are now back to the dirt where one is tortured and killed for participating in an election.

National stability is not defined solely in the interest of Mr. Museveni. The agenda of annihilating Ugandans considered a threat to their stale ideology is a sign that violence, rather than conviction has become the ideology.

Certainly, this tyranny is not a profitable manner for a progressive society to harness its intellectual wealth. In a country of nearly 40 million, you cannot have one singular dominant thinker such that 39,999,999 people who feed and protect that one person are treated as infinite fools.

When we return our politics to the regressive era of 1970s, we end up with more desires for violence. Violence begets violence.

This is why Museveni should handle Hon. Kyagulanyi and his colleagues very carefully because the youthful population, who is the majority in Uganda,  has a propensity for violence. The reaction from this section of the population that the youthful Hon. Kyagulanyi commands may be more than what the nation is ready to handle.

In 32 years, the dictatorship has suppressed two generations of Ugandans and subverted their indulgence in seeking for fair governance of through rigged elections.

There was the generation that became of age by 1986 when Museveni took over power. That generation was dispensed as post 1970s hangover  and Oboteists. They paid the price for the ills of the 70s and early 80s through retrenchment, HIV/AIDS and Siasa/hate politics. Now in their 60s and 70s, this generation looks back hopelessly at their predicaments.

Then emerged our generation of the 90s and 2000s, bred and groomed within the NRM dominance, violence, genocide, corruption, nepotism and more hate politics. We were sidelined by bush-war historicals, their children and grandchildren.

The generation of Hon. Kyagulanyi, that Museveni cynically calls his grandchildren,  is the embodiment of the failures of NRM ideology. If chronic repression deforms a society, then the BW generation is the socially deformed generation. This group is not very trusting, and rightfully so. They are industriousness, consumate consumers, and innovative. This is the social media generation who understand WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Mobile money. They are mostly idea oriented, largely unemployed but very tenacious, vicious.

It is this latter group that are restless for accountability from Museveni. Museveni should not think that he can hide behind armed guards, armoured vehicles, torture or killing to avoid that moment of accountability. Each time Ugandans go to an election, they go there with one thing in mind – accountability.

 Museveni has reacted very angrily at Hon. Kyagulanyi for leading a troop of disenchanted citizens to defeat NRM in Arua polls. By harming Kyagulanyi and torturing Hon. Zaake to near death, Museveni is returning the politics of Uganda to the dirt we emerged from.

End.

Ugandans are disoriented by state tyranny

CHANGE AGENDA

The death in Arua of a 26 years old Yasin Kawuma, a driver to Kyadondo East MP, Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi, (aka Bobi Wine), subsequent detention of the Arua Municipality by-election candidate and hordes of his supporters cast a shameful light for those who validate the Museveni-type legal tyranny.

Ugandans should wake up to realize that democracy is meaningless in Uganda and Museveni will never let up through the ballot. Frequent rigged elections on its own, does not imply democracy. Democracy thrives alongside respect for human rights, constitutionalism, rule of law, and independent institutions such as the media, Judiciary, Legislature and rule of law.

What we have in Uganda is an eviscerated version of democracy deprived of all its supportive institutions, militarised and lethal - In Bugiri a youth lost a life and now in Arua. The relevance of democracy in a liberal society is to promote free thinking and reaffirm social and political rights of individuals. The state should guarantee and not abrogate these rights. Mr. Museveni has ably duped his foreign backers - USA, UK, EU to believe in a sham democratic credential. Uganda has regressed from the ideals of a liberal society with liberal rights. To a greater extent, Mr. Museveni has succeeded in creating his counterfeit version of each and every attribute of democracy by adopting a veneer of its main components, while exenterating out substance.

In practice, the regime subverts democracy using legal means to sustain a legal tyranny. All their duplicitous policies are channeled through the legislative process and approved by the Court systems for legitimacy. To an outsider, these processes appear all perfect and democratic, from inside, these systems and processes are grossly flawed and ignoble.

The most abused is the concept of people's power which is also recognized and symbolized in the 1995 NRM Constitution. In that document, which has since been abrogated as deemed, the people of Uganda have arbitrary power, and are allowed to exercise it as they wish. That provision ends there in theory. In practice, Ugandans are some of the most dis-empowered lot world-over. They have no control over the exercise of their social rights as citizens. If elections allows the exercising of this power, then the routine vote rigging, and doctoring election outcomes by a tightly controlled, impartial and appointed cadres in Electoral Commission denies people of this exercise.

The institutions that arise out of this sham electoral processes also lack legitimacy to serve a function. Under the NRM, the legislature and Judiciary serve a functionality rather than a function. A judge performs a function when s/he dispenses justice as per the laws and authority derived from the constitution under the doctrine of separation of power. The Judiciary does not perform the function for which they are qualified for as Judges of the various courts the moment their judgement are swayed by political gerrymandering to legitimize the tyranny of the regime.

The media on the other hand is bullied, bought-off or subdued to the point of self-censor, thus compromising scrutiny and accountability. In all these narrowing public space, Mr. Museveni has eroded and diminished the values of democracy to a level that he is has seamlessly fused himself with the state, and is the state. Soon, Mr. Museveni will ban elections, Parliament and Judiciary like Amin, and his western backers will offer him a red carpet still.  Every action Mr. Museveni takes now subverts democratic institutions, thus producing leaders with dubious democratic credentials, highly corrupted and unpatriotic.

To know that Ugandans are powerless, any attempts to criticise the regime is matched with excessive force, detentions, torture, annihilation, unreasonable taxes, endless legal battles, and grabbing their land. Discrimination from public service and resources are used as political weapons to silence dissent.

Ugandans are so fed up with Museveni that they are disoriented and now feud over strategies to remove the regime, and when!

END

OTT and MM Taxes: Tumwebaze, lets raise money by cutting costs

 Debating Cost Cutting Measures

 The ICT Minister, Hon. Frank Tumwebaze was in news chiding unpatriotic Ugandans for using VPN to override the OTT tax considered repressive and oppressive. Frank may have suffered a convulsion of reality in his quest to tax Ugandans unnecessarily even for social media services that his government does not offer or own.

Before we talk additional taxes, Frank must first think of cost cutting measures within his government to save money and avert unnecessary borrowing or taxes.

Most of what Mr. Museveni called "rumouring" on social media are public scrutiny of his strange policies such as over taxation, waste, cruelty, inefficiency, greed, sectarianism and extravagance. This government is suffocating with a budget for public administration and loan servicing – two of most avoidable costs to the tax payers.

 First, let us reduce the size of government. A minimalist government can often be efficient and cost effective. The cost of public administration has gone way too high for a government that depends on foreign aid, loans and grants. It is unsustainable.

When you look at the number of Ministers (31) and their deputies (49) alone, the burden of sustaining them places wanton burden on public purse.

We then have a stadium of unhelpful, insensitive, unapologetic, unconscionable and greedy MPs who even sneer and scorn at their impoverished electorates. They are not worth the money they earn. In fact, this 10^th Parliament has not been helpful since every decision they have made are anti-people, and majority of whom are NRM are bound by collective responsibility.

The difference between Idi Amin and Museveni is that Amin was honest enough to rule Uganda without Parliament. Museveni prefers to use them as his symbol of power, manipulate and chump them up at a high cost to the public.

Another avenue for leaks is through the balkanization of districts into smaller dependent units. These district administrations are unsustainable to finance districts since they are unproductive. Uganda now has about 130 districts, out of which, only 4 or 5 of them are productive enough to sustain their own budgets. The rest depend absolutely on central government for all their expenses.

These districts were supposed to bring services closer to the people. Instead, they suck up valuable resources meant to improve services. The constant decay in public service across the country is evidence that decentralization needs a rethink.

This government leaks uncontrollably given the high levels of rent seeking (corruption), nepotism, and cronyism. At least the finance Minister has realized that corruption is now institutionalized.

The magnitude of corruption happening in Uganda is of World Cup proportions.

By putting in place practical and radical measures to stem corruption, Uganda could maximize public resources to meet the budgetary objectives.

The lavish lifestyles of our leaders must also be reduced, radically. The President flies an expensive personalized jet, and travel with a convoy of motorcades that add unnecessary costs to public purse given his already elaborate security details.

We have an assortment of Presidential advisers and RDCs with their deputies and assistant deputies all hooked up on public purse while duplicating duties of one another.

Then a coterie of security agencies from the villages to the district, all doing one thing – security in a country where insecurity is commonplace.

The informal economies operated by regime minders evade taxes; costly foreign trips, medical services abroad, and the various tax holidays lavished to suspicious investments could be reviewed.

I am not supporting taxes on social media access or on mobile money. It hits the poor the most. The government should introduce cost cutting measures to save money for national development. It is unfortunate that whenever we want money we turn to mooting cruel tax regimes.

Hon. Frank, before you kill us with taxes, let us debate cost cutting measures.

End

Insecurity in Uganda: A conceptual approach

(In)SECURITY

The state of insecurity in the Uganda is definitely at a new crescendo. Physical and Social insecurity are personalised experiences that many Ugandans know quite well from Uganda's turbulent past. Security is not given by the state, rather, the state guarantees it as a common value. The state of insecurity or security often defines the effectiveness and legitimacy of the state.

The NRM regime should not romanticize with security rhetoric for political capital because insecurity in Uganda is state orchestrated and it is hurting many people and their prospects. 

To address prevailing state of insecurity, we must conceptualize the origin and the undercurrents that drives it. This will afford us a tool potent enough to address the insecurity as an urgent issue for action, whether strategically or pragmatically, to protect Uganda's concrete and abstract values.

In discussing the state of insecurity, one cannot divorce the nature of the regime in power with the question of its legitimacy - a seemingly concrete value rooted in constitutionalism. By security, we should desist from flouting an ideological, semantics,  rhetorical, or even reductionist definitions to imply the absence of physical harm to persons and properties while conveniently omitting  the uncertainties we have over our  psychological, social and political rights - the abstract.

The physical presence of armed police, guards, and intelligence manning our streets, or high walls encapsulating our niches only embody the mechanistic definition of security and do nothing to remediate the pervasive state of anxiety that ordinary Ugandans live through.

The debate of (In)Security should be also rooted in analyzing the social, economic and political structures and processes of society. Of interest is how these structures augment equitable or inequitable distribution of resources. This leads to another definition of insecurity as living in constant paradoxes under this NRM regime.

When Mr. Museveni claims that Ugandans support the NRM because of its security credentials, a conflict between the conceptual and the rhetoric, reductionist, or even obscurantist purview of (in)security immediately arises.

It is consistent now that the regime lacks any aorta of legitimacy claim over security realms especially of persons and property as proposed in the initial 10 point programs of 32 years ago,  for those outside the spheres of power. In fact, the state, under the NRM is the major source of insecurity as seen in its policies and actions. The common rhetorical and reductionist claim to security presents a classical oxymoron intended to justify militarization and politicization of security apparatus as seen under Gen. Kayihura reign for regime's sustenance.

Since the 2006 Juba Agreement, Uganda has not experienced any internal conflicts. Military incursions have occurred outside our borders – in Congo, Southern Sudan and Somalia - mostly contracted or mercenary warmongering.

The main causes of insecurity in Uganda therefore are internal, largely by state agencies in the exercise of the instrument of coercion. The nature of what passes for Democracy and the manner in which elections are blatantly rigged are the cornerstones of insecurity. Botched democracy stifles hope for change and ruins the lull of patience that people normally invest in between election cycles. Further, illegitimate regime struggles with setting up efficient public institutions to make accountability possible given that they lack the authority.

The manner in which an incumbent regime obtains power gives its legitimacy of authority to govern and in an accountable manner. A regime that lacks that legitimacy struggles to provide security, which is within the remit of a legitimate authority because it needs the insecurity to rule.

Thus, insecurity in Uganda resides in the state actors disrespecting the Constitution and thus, adulterating the rule of law to further their self-interest above public interest. Such actions eliminate first and foremost the safeguards for accountability. When state actors are no longer accountable, impunity becomes the natural consequence leading to the emergence of police regimes as corrupted, incompetent, politicized and militarized like that presided over by Gen. Kayihura.

Further, the nature of distributing what we collectively produce is also conflict studded. Therein lies the politics and power playing out to generate social and economic inequality such as land grabbing and redistribution to foreigners. To procure loyalists and a semblance of legitimacy, the regime tolerates resource distribution through corruption and handouts as public or social policy approach. The mechanism that perpetuate nepotism and sectarianism also manifests in discriminatory social services structure.  Such can be seen though selective distribution of cash, tax benefits, employment, scholarships, and agricultural resources targeting regime's loyalists and wealthy investors. In this discriminate category of "social policy" are Operations Wealth Creation, the Statehouse scholarship, access to jobs in statutory bodies and public service, Presidential hand-outs, recruitment in armed forces, appointments and secondments, etc.

In conceptualizing insecurity in Uganda one has to examine the politics of production, and distribution of resources. Most importantly, governmental legitimacy is core in mobilizing public support to enforce security. After three decades in power, the NRM presides over a nation stratified and so diabolical like day and night.

End

Problematizing Besigye in Oppostion is an Oxymoron

UGANDA'S OPPOSITION

Last week, the serial Presidential Candidate, Dr. Abed Bwanika gained notoriety for demanding that Buganda should only elect a person from Buganda to be President; and not to support Dr. Besigye, a resident of Buganda! Notwithstanding the fact that all the traditional Presidential candidates are residents of Buganda. The sectarian (tribal) undertone there was prominent.  But that is the depth and limit of Dr. Abed Bwanika’s politics!

We realized that Dr. Bwanika or his utterances do not add any value to the opposition politics in Uganda. His assault on KB started off by problematizing KB while at the UYD alumni re-union. But, this was just a cacophony of an ongoing onslaught on KB, given his growing material threat to the status quo.

I have heard Politicians justifying their unfortunate alliance with the Go-Forward campaign that collapsed in its infancy in 2016. One is on the account that Dr. Besigye is selfish, and that FDC aims to invaginate their Parties like NRM did to DP since the 90s. However, the old grand Parties in Uganda have been at serious cross roads on their own already.

These parties have adopted self-destructive modus operandi of double dipping and selling off to the NRM. It is their way of preservation, a trait that has cultivated public distrust and apathy towards Opposition. Party leader are now hiring the same repressive state agencies and employing same repressive laws to muzzle power in their own parties.  

What is happening at the helm of UPC’s Party leadership with the Party’s first lady serving in NRM and husband helplessly presiding over a deeply divided and conflicted Party, attest to how these leaders are renting state arms to keep them in place. It invalidates any of their claim that they are legitimately vying to seek state power! In DP, their historical alliances, partnerships and collaborations with NRM has been fuzzy, exploitative, opportunistic and so forth. The impact is visible – we have good DPs who eat off the palms of the tyrants, and multiple splinters. You never know where the loyalty of each lies. It is a murky affair in there!

In fairness of all things, DP seems more nationalistic when disjointed. In fact, we see the best of DP cadres when they work in splinter groups - the Social Democratic Party, Suubi and a mainstream skeleton.

The splinter organizations are tolerable because of their narrow focus. They do not claim to have a national interest. You hardly hear tribal, or Buganda centric sentimentalism or religious overtones that are attributed to the mainstream DP. The moment DP comes together, through any sort of union or re-union, then the tribalism and religious sentimentalism emerges. And, conveniently, Mr. Abed Bwanika was there, on that podium, at the re-union, to remind us of this narrow agenda that DP embodies – a Muganda Catholic for President or none! This mindset is retrogressive and opens old distrust towards Buganda, unfairly.

The “intellectual” argument against KB is that he is the only institution that Mr. Museveni has instituted successfully in Uganda, as Opposition. As such, Museveni has a ready-made solution to defeat Dr. Besigye predictably in any contest.

In rebuttal, problematising KB is an oxymoron, although trendy, ala Andrew Mwenda. Importantly, KB is the most valuable tool in the liberation tool box that Uganda has now. Museveni rigs elections because those who criticize Besigye tend to hide instantly under their beds when the rigging begins, and the sell their loyalty when the rigging is done to legitimize the rigging.

Dr, Besigye as a phenomenon in opposition arose organically, through a protracted and unwavering personal sacrifice, unlike the staged Bwanikas and Ochegeres of this world. Characteristically, those who problematize KB, have credibility and legitimacy issues up their sleeves.  

END

Zabia Afzal: When that girl is your former classmate

Zabia Afzal Missing: When that girl is your former classmate

#FindZabia

On May 10^th, 2018, a York University PhD student and activist, Ms Zabia Afzan went missing in Toronto. The news of Zabia's disappearance shocked many of us who knew Zabia personally. It is until such a time when a young woman that you know well disappears that you start to feel shaken with the harsh reality of such assault against women.

I first met Zabia in the fall of 2010 at the prestigious Dalla Lana school of Public Health, the University of Toronto, for the MPH degree. Zabia stood out quite early during our program as an extremely intelligent student, quite critical and persistent. Beneath Zabia's beaming intelligence was a quiet, respectful, thoughtful and passionate student who pursued social justice and equity with intent. Zabia’s values bound us together as friends forever.

Zabia proceeded to the doctoral program in Health Policy and Equity at York University. Zabia where I was to meet her again. I went to practice, Zabia went for academia.

It was again in the fall of 2016 that I met Zabia on the stairs of the Faculty of Health building at York University on orientation day. Zabia was quite delighted to see me, and so was I.

Unfortunately, my first-year schedule conflicted with Zabia’s, thus, depriving us much of Zabia's enterprises. However, we occasionally met at the Graduate office while preparing for tutorials or counseling under graduate students.

The last time I saw Zabia was at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE) in June of 2017 while I worked on a Journal article. The news of her disappearance, thus hit me hard.

We, in Zabia’s fraternity of scholarship felt horrified with the magnitude at which women have become victims of assault. Whether in Uganda, where a significant proportion of women are still subject to disappearance and gruesome murders, to the highly surveilled streets and alleys of Toronto.

The CBC news online reports and family sources observed that Zabia took an Uber from her home in Vaughan, York Region and drove to the Ashbridges Bay, a beach spread along L. Ontario at the Woodbine Ave and Lakeshore Boulevard, East end of Toronto. That is where she disappeared from, and where her purse and phone were discovered.

A multitude of volunteers responded to the family’s call and poured in the area to search for Zabia relentlessly. It is now 11 days and no positive news have emerged as our hearts sinks in agony for our friend. The Police has searched the waters and combed every land in the area for days.

Young women disappearing in Toronto area is not unusual. Several past incidences have occurred, moreover with tragic endings. Some disappearances have ended with body parts, either stashed in basements of their lover's homes, or mutilated and spread along the lake shore. Quite gruesome an experience to say the least. And yet, this City has this reputation of humility, peace and tranquility. How ironic?

The disappearance of Zabia is a threat to all young women, activists, and an assault on all the women. It is a counter statement that women cannot feel safe anywhere in a society where gender equality is emblazoned in its conscience.

Such a community enthusiasm and cooperation is what we need to sustain the search for Zabia. We wish her the very best and still hope she is found alive, soon.

Only few weeks ago, a 25 years old man, Alek Minassian rammed his truck onto pedestrians at the Yonge and Finch area killing 10 and injuring 15 innocent people. That incident was one of the most traumatizing episodes in the modern history of Toronto.

Disappearance of Zabia only adds an additional tragic layer to it!

The End.