(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
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