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.

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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.  

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