WAR MONGERING
In 1996, Dr. Kawanga Semogerere of DP teamed up with Hon. Cecilia
Ogwal of UPC to give Museveni a ran for his money. I was a high school student
watching Museveni lie through his teeth. I was also an avid admirer of Ms.
Ogwal, not so much of Semogerere, because he played a significant role in
legitimizing the fraud that the Museveni regime has become and the decline of DP.
I was a regular at my HSC debating club during the 1994 Constitutional
debate that resulted in Uganda's 1995 Constitution. That Constitution lacked in
many ways, but it was a document that designed a clear democratic path for
Uganda.
I could say some democracy because many of the critical levers
that may have cemented Uganda's democracy were also made vulnerable to manipulation
by Museveni's regime agenda.
The 1995 Constitution also gave Ugandans hope through term and
age limits and a civil language that encouraged civil society organizations and
opposition political parties to fetter. These are critical platforms that mediate
between citizens and the state.
That Constitution also assured Ugandans that civic
engagement was a right and not criminal – that citizens could protect the state
from intruders and pronounce themselves over Uganda's territorial integrity
using state machinery.
Left in its 1995 form, that Constitution could have
delivered Ugandans to unimaginable triumph on several fronts, such as a
peaceful transfer of power from one President to another or from one political
party to another. This feat is vital because there has never been such an
experience in Uganda's entire existence.
Suppose the Constitution was so clear on avenues through
which Ugandans could legally participate in democratic governance and see that
their will to be governed is respected. Why do we always get into this war-mongering
mode at every election since 1996?
In philosophy and African wisdom or even in moral
discourses, one does not get a valid result from a fake process. You cannot be
pregnant by eating a mango. This concept feeds into the logic of mathematics
and all sciences. Machiavelli failed society as a desperado by claiming that
the end justifies the means. In lawful and organized philosophical or scientific
society, only the means matter.
In 1996, when Dr. Semogerere picked Mrs. Ogwal as his running
mate, Semo was demonized as Dr. Obote's empathizer. Musevenists went to Luwero and
displayed skulls by the roadside, attributing that to wars of Obote. Spooky
stories of ghosts of Obote and the northern hate-mongering filled the airwaves.
The threat of going back to the bush was the highlight of that campaign.
Many Baganda shunned Semogerere and treated him as an Obote
ally, a traitor, and an anti-progress that the NRM had brought. You may
understand why the north is cold about a Muganda Bobi Wine.
In 1999 when Col Besigye jumped off the NRM bandwagon to
challenge Museveni, the regime did not take it lightly. It blackmailed,
threatened, and went ballistic on all fronts, accusing Col Besigye of planning
wars, being an enemy of the state, and so forth. A similar pattern came on in
2006, 2011, 2016, and so forth. From 2006 to this date, there has never been a
Presidential candidate not charged with treason.
Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu and Lt. Gen Henry Tumukunde
have treason charges looming on their heads in this campaign.
In sum, it is a pity that the 1995 Constitution, even when
fraudulently amended several times, did not remove Ugandan's rights to unseat
an incumbent as treasonable. Some of the provisions within 1995
constitution, as amended dubiously, still recommend the preservation of human
rights and rights to civil liberties, right to participation in civic
discourses. Above all, it upholds that elections every five years.
If contesting against the incumbent constitute a threat to
national security/war, or leads the state to kidnap, shoot at, detain without
trial, torture, or murder citizens who are practicing their constitutional
obligations, then what is the worth of a constitution disorder?
END
