Bureaucratic Capitalism in Uganda: A pathway to Aristocracy

FAMILY RULE

The Independent news magazine of March 11, 2009 revealed how President Museveni has conspicuous involved his family, relatives and acquaintances in exploiting Uganda. Ever since this article, “Family Rule in Uganda” was published, there has been limited audit of the progress, expansion and legitimization of this family rule in Uganda. In essence, the 2009 list may require revision since individuals like the President’s brother; Gen Saleh has long relinquished his portfolio in cabinet. Other activists have since attempted to expand this list of the Museveni family influences into the army, police and other facets of civil service.

Recently, the London (UK) based veteran Journalist, Dr. Vincent Magombe reignited this debate of family rule in Uganda in an article which featured in both The London Evening Post and Black Star News of New York, titled: “How Museveni is Turning Uganda into Personal Business” and  “How the Country Named Uganda became Museveni Family Incorporated” respectively.

The merit of this debate is not merely to haunt the First family or their established influences in politics, economy and in social life. Since some of them have become Ugandan citizens by marriage or birth, their constitutional rights to freely and fairly explore these realms of society are entrenched in the 1995 NRM constitution as amended. However, the centre of contention arises when conflict of interest, political patronage and sectarianism underlie these influences.

Family rule in Africa and elsewhere is nothing new. In Uganda, it only confirms an increasing bureaucratic form of capitalism which is being used to buttress false nobility. This trend is worrying because of the exploitative nature of this influence and the creation of unequal society insulated underneath a wealthy aristocracy. Pundits have argued that, like all other African leaders, past and current, the entrenchment of family rule in a country enables the ruling president personalize the state; monopolize the economy and its politics, thereby securing a lease for life presidency.

Evidently, Uganda is a classical case of a bureaucratic capitalist state, where state operators – most of whom are related to the president; openly use their political power to also dominate all the facets of the economy. For instance, members of the President’s family are entrenched in many private businesses, such as managing Uganda air services and major airport like Entebbe; some own security agencies, transportation franchises, beverages manufacturing, oil, mining and mineral exports, telecommunication, banking, military hardware, agriculture and so forth.

Maurice Jerome Meisner (RIP), a Sinologist, studied this concept of bureaucratic capitalism in China and wrote a book: “The Deng Xiaoping Era – An Inquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism 1978-1994”. According to Meisner, Bureaucratic Capitalism is used to refer to the use of political power for private pecuniary gain through capitalistic or quasi-capitalist methods of economic activity.

In his study of Chinese quasi-capitalist success story, Meisner discovered prevalence of a traumatic underside to the quasi-capitalistic model of the Chinese economy as characterized by considerable economic inequality, wide gap in wealth distribution between rural and urban workers, a rise in crime and unemployment, rampant job insecurity and poor social benefits. Meisner concluded that such incongruous economic progress and social deterioration are not only common in capitalist societies, but is also very specific to the traits of bureaucratic capitalist practices in Communist China from the Deng Xiaoping era to 1994.

Reasoning from a Marxist lens, Meisner argued that people cannot avoid the painful vicissitudes of Capitalism because of its exploitative nature. Here and there, the regime’s centric bureaucrats will, at liberty, misrepresent the strength of the economy so that the exploited people begin to feel a pervasive sense of improved economic conditions. At the bottom of it all, the exploiters are intent at extracting from the repressed masses to keep them impoverished, needy and dependent on that very class that control both the economy and the polity.

Au Loong Yu, the author of “China’s Rise: Strength and Stability” who claimed that China has become the industrial complex of the world, observed that Chinese bureaucratic capitalism enables bureaucrats at all levels of government to run companies, profit from them and are rarely prosecuted. This is because the bureaucracy has completely monopolised state power, thereby enabling the bureaucrats to rise above all classes. In such a case, one could even say that the bureaucracy has privatized the state.

For Uganda, the analysts cited above aver that the bureaucrats and key players in private sector are intricately linked to the ruling family, either directly or otherwise, through political patronage. Given their principal location at major joints of the economy and political structure, they determine which private sector player stays afloat or is suffocated, purely using political yardstick. This is how they monopolize the economy, the military and subsequently hold on to political power that they will bequeath to their offspring as if it were a birth right.

In other-words, with the politics and economy safely secured and guaranteed, the militarized regime can now amend the constitution of Uganda to provide for an article which reads: There shall be a President of Uganda and that President shall be Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and bloodline.

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African Liberation is a vehicle to westernization of society

WESTERNIZATION

The ideas that we are religious, civil, educated or democratic are all measured ideals for which the colonial objectives were primed. In history, we learnt that at the advent of missionary expeditions into the hinterland of Africa, religion was advanced to introduce civility to the backward savages there. With religion, came western education and the reinforcement of colonial language as the authenticated instruments of dominion. Everything else African or black was subordinated and derogated as primitive, insufficient and backward, while an adult African, however grown, was viewed as a big inferior “child” incapable of truth telling and self governance, fit for menial undertakings.

Such Black people’s history is buried in a hip of tragic episodes, often romanticized by victors of colonial advents. In the colonial narratives, our tragic history is disguised as deliberate investments to enlighten backward people, no matter the cost. This is unfortunate because the black consciousness often requires a revisit of its heartrending history in order to make sense of it. It is this historical fact that also drives the consciousness. Without such courageous effort to revisit the past, the black consciousness would remain a recycling of internalized colonial distortion of us, something which we are not.

In the pecking order of global challenges, the Black race has seemingly lost the ideals of the original struggle for liberation that Franz Fanon and others advocated. If African liberators are still trying to stay visible, then their efforts are not paying off. For, we cannot claim to be struggling for liberation if we continue to use the very colonial systems, methods and objectives that were applied against us, which dehumanized us. Shamelessly, we often juxtapose ourselves between capitalism and socialism as contending ideologies to liberate Africans. In reticence, by embedding our conscience in western ideologies, we placate our nerves to subdue the intractable history of the loss of our identity, intellect, virtues and values.

Through liberation, we westernized. We appear to be fully complacent to the western ideals such that we now struggle to manifest within westernized mainstream to proclaim liberation. We continue to subvert our own cultures and make little effort to modernize it because we have come to look at it through the same lens that the colonialist used – primitive and savagery! Westernization as such has dictated the way we valorize our own languages, religious practices, industries, lifestyle, laws (norms and traditions), economic activities, consumption, alphabet and others.

It is strange how in Uganda today, we have abandoned our languages and yet we can neither speak nor write any foreign language fluently; We have abandoned our religion, yet we lack in Christian faith; Religion has not helped us, instead, it has diminished our collective values and  heightened our indifference to our needy neighbors. Western religions have scared us inflexibly from our roots, consequently eroding our traditions and values.

An increasing body of scholarship has recognized the acculturation of the black society through Christianity. Scholars have argued that it is the dereliction we accord our social-cultural institutions that also augments our westernization.

Africans today, for instance, have conceded most of their values, identities, and the control of their environment to agents of colonialism, (now increasingly to Chinese). The footprints of monetized Christianity in all these are evident.

Christianity itself is not a culture, but a belief system that is transmitted through existing culture modes and structures. Left unattended, this powerful belief system has the capacity to dismantle indigenous cultures, rendering it near obsolete. Christianity is strong in that it is transmitted through the very instruments of colonialism where they augment and replenish each other’s legacy.

For instance, to be considered civilized, an indigenous person was expected to identify as Christian, must speak fluent colonial language and must flaunt colonial formal education. Each of these is primed to invalidate the African cultural institutions of language, knowledge and its very existence.

How then can true African liberators possess all the traits of the oppressors? They are Christians (Catholics, Protestants or evangelicals), speak and identify with the colonialist (English, French, Portuguese etc), espouse colonial ideologies of social transformation (capitalism, socialism, libertarianism etc), all conspired to advance colonialists and imperialist objectives – to enlighten and therefore “liberate” the primitive savages (in modern terms, those living under $1 a day)

Hitherto, it is mundane to declare that contemporary African liberators are colonial mercenaries who continue to represent the very ideals of those who stole the humanity of the oppressed. Their struggles represent the distorted vocation of re-humanizing the black race. These vain efforts have manifested in westernization rather than modernization of African cultures.

END.

Uganda Elites are Sympathetic NRM Cadres

POWERLESSNESS

The impact of sustaining the NRM regime on tax payer’s money has come to bear down on national morale across the civil service. In every work place, there is bickering about low pay, poor working condition, inadequate income, and arrogant political appointees who disrupting professionalism and so forth. The state, by appointing political stooges into civil service, has also diminished the level of professionalism and morale.

The root of this problem can be traced back to the 1990s and earlier times when the NRM ferried students and public servants to Kyankwanzi for politicization and indoctrination. Here, prospective government employees were groomed through the rigors of revolutionary intellectualism and a cocktail of Marxism. Participants were given vague pictures of a rather complex, colorful, hopeful, peaceful, prosperous and equal society which would be cured of sectarianism, obscurantism and chauvinism.

Ultimately, words have meanings, and words usually leave lasting impression on the minds of those with faith. As such, Uganda was a country of devoted religious people who had faith in various systems. Ugandans in the 90s were a vulnerable people who had just emerged from turmoil and ready to embrace a new beginning. For once, the ideology of the NRM was assuring and appealing to a common conscience. The 1990s was also a decade in which Ugandans were able to reinvent their efforts meaningfully towards discovering the essence of being in Uganda – as Ugandans as such.

Today, the experiences of the 1990s are inverted after every promise was reneged on; every progress reversed and every collective gain, usurped by the despots. The common dreams that were nurtured for posterity have been squandered. The regime that everyone proudly identified with has retracted, transforming itself into predatory a system that is exploitative and prejudiced. This has rendered members of the civil service helpless and ideologically disoriented

The opposition groups view the elites and those in the civil service with much scorn. This may account for their conscious redundancy in pushing for political change in Uganda. A general consensus is that a change of regime is inevitable as precursor to improving the social conditions of the working poor. On the one hand, the opposition frustration is genuine because every sane person now feels the utmost urgency and necessity for regime change. However, a thorough analysis of this behavior of the elite ought to be unpacked systematically if the opposition groups wishes to espouse them.

Dr Kiiza Besigye, a leading opposition activist once described the elites of Uganda as selfish, opportunistic and self-serving groups that collude with the military to perpetuate President Museveni’s grip on power. Some quarters have dismissed the elite as never becoming a critical mass because of the persistent duality of elite-cum-peasantry that pervades them. A critical mass is adopters of innovation in a social system - a necessary requisite threshold for change to occur. There are those who recognize that the elites have conspicuously absconded from shaping socio-political landscape, thereby relinquishing politics and intellectual discourses to vandals.

This article argues that the remarkable absence of the elites and members of the public service from public discourses is rooted in the traditions of cadreship of the 90s. These groups have been bred to identify with the regime; to provide the ground substance on which the regime is firmly supplanted in Uganda. This attitude manifests in the rather timid approaches taken by the various Unions that represent professionals in civil service. There is this aura of guilt and betrayal between each of them whenever the need to demand for improved working conditions arises. They show the kind of guilt a prodigal son endures when demanding for his fair share from family fortunes. The teachers Union or market vendors will not join the picket line when the Health Workers’ Union is agitated and vice versa - It is this rather false sense of matrimonial loyalty to NRM as cadres which also compels these groups to subvert the forces of change for themselves.

However, a fault line is beginning to emerge, which confirms that a scintilla of change in attitude is beginning to take shape with the elites. This is largely because the civil servants and some elites are becoming conscious of the distinction in their adverse social conditions under the NRM regime. They are now and then confronted with breakages in the distribution of public goods which would otherwise benefit the public. 

It is also important to note that because of the numerous political posturings, the regime has made it obvious that the civil workforce is disposable. President Museveni threatened to fire all the striking teachers so that young, inexperienced, untrained jobless youths could take over the teaching jobs. It is this same attitude which ensures that inept, inexperienced political cadres are appointed ahead of career professionals to mess up with professional traditions.

However, the fact that teachers and health professionals can take industrial action illustrates a stride toward gaining higher self-consciousness. The just concluded teachers’ strike is a confirmation of how the regime continues to undermine formal institutions which employ the bulk of its cadres. 

The government is now conspiring with informal groups which also operate the informal economy, such as the boda bodas, illegal traders and the crooked middle class that evade taxes. These are the groups that have curved a symbiotic relationship with the state at the expense of those operating the formal institutions. This also explains why public utilities have endured depravity, while private investments in the same industries are thriving.

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Rape justifying minister must resign

RAPE JUSTIFIED

The reports that the State Minister for Youth, Hon Ronald Kibuule did say that no arrest should be made when an indecently dressed woman is raped, should be condemned. Hon Kibuule is definitely in a breed of diffident humans who lack respect for women and children, many of whom are brutally raped, daily, in the country. These men do not have the full capacity to understand the devastating impact of rape on our society. It is a pity that such populist utterances should come from a minister in charge of Youths. This guy must just resign from leadership!

Not long ago, the Ugandan chapter of the African Network for Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) released a report which indicated that over 600 children are raped daily in Uganda. A quick check of a small place like Wandegeya Police records showed that about 742 cases of rape have been reported so far in 2013. Wandegeya Police recorded 22,614 cases of rape between 2009 and 2011. We agree that there are many other neighborhoods with worse rape records than this. The Daily Monitor of February 28, 2013 indicated that countrywide, the Police recorded 7,690 cases of rape in 2011 with an estimate that about 21 girls are raped each day. Rape cases are on the surge, recent reports shows that Busoga is awash with rampant rape cases.

With a grim and stark statistics like this, it becomes inevitable to show outrage to some of these lousy leaders who justify rape. One wonders how an indifferent person of Hon. Kibuule’s stature becomes a minister and whether his views are popularly reflective of rape as a morale ideal.

It is very important to understand the dimensions of this statement from a practical perspective. This is not merely structuring the culture of impunity into our social fabrics, but condoning and encouraging the act of rape. It also attests to the perpetuation of sexual violence against women by state agency. Socially, the Hon. Minister is imposing a moral restraint on the women to curtail their inherent rights to self expression and the enjoyment of freedoms associated with their womahood. This must not go without attracting the necessary condemnation in this epoch of our civilization.

To blame the victim for their predicament has always been a projection of self righteousness for those who are, by any measure of morality, deficient. These are men whose pre-occupation with sexual thoughts even compromises their deliberation in Parliament. The Minister himself, a Christian by names of Ronald – is consorting with two wives. Doesn't that tell us enough about his condescending attitude towards women, girls and children who are targets of perversion? It wouldn't be a surprise to find that the minster is espoused by way of arranged marriage, itself a form of domestic violence. But if the minister has daughters, he should have thought deeply about his attitude before verbalizing it. To parents, such offensive statement can be taken for a national policy under his portfolio and that is scary.

The tone of this article is rather sad because we have just buried a young and innocent girl – Nambi “Nisha” Hanisha of Kanyanya who was deprived of life at tender age due to rape. To say that before arrests are made in such cases, the police must first ascertain the degree of decency of that little girl means that the rapists have a justification for their horrendous underclass crime.

Unmistakably, rape, in the Minister’s mind, is a tool for reinforcing decency – for establishing decent dress codes. I have never known a minimum expectation of “decent dressing” or a legislation that succinctly describes what descent dressing is. Perhaps we need one such legislation after the Public Order Management Bill, 2011. This would showcase a clearer national policy on decency, violation of which should be punishable by rape.

I am challenging Hon. Kibuule to take the moral high ground to apologise to the women and the many victims of rape and to resign. I implore his appointing authority to remove this thoughtless man from our youth docket because he is a bad influence. If the message that his ministry is passing to the youth is that rape is justified as long as you can determine the degree of decency of the potential victim, then we are raising a society of horny rapists. I am not sure which parent is not outraged at this numb-skull inclined at corrupting the minds of our youths.

By any means, the imprint that rape or attempted rape leaves on the mind of the victim is profound. But rape truly undermines the very temple of our being; it diminishes our humanity and to the woman, it steals from her, the very sacredness of her womanhood. Uganda is a country where intimate partner violence is rampant. Women remain very vulnerable due to historically and socially structured gender inequalities. Already, majority of married women endure marital rape and yet the government does not seem to care enough. The trauma associated with being a woman alone is debilitating but the trauma associated with inability to attain justice after rape, is worse and rampant. This is amplified when the very women for whom we prescribe sexual violence, are also held paradoxically as the gatekeeper of morality. There is no way any person, leave alone a person in high authority like a minister, can endorse rape.

There is urgent need to amplify the role of men in averting rape and other forms of sexual violence from an early onset. Our children and youth ought to be nurtured that women are as equal as men, deserving respect; women are endowed with innate abilities to develop themselves – physically and intellectually – like men, to full capacity without unnecessary prohibitions.

It is these basic and yet core understanding of the need for co-existence in equal modern society with women as an inevitable partner which has eluded self righteous leaders like Hon. Kibuule. Definitely, this breed of mankind has no place in our contemporary society.

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What makes our politicians unattractive

POLITICS

Politics in Uganda is a game where the disposition of nobility is utterly mythical. In fact, one would say that becoming a politician in Uganda makes one also to become unattractive. The word “ugly” may come across as strong, but depending on how you look at the situation, there is no better word other than this, to describe the trends in Ugandan politics.

It is contestable that Ugandan politicians are among some of the most dishonest, insensitive, in-congruent, sedentary, poorly read and inexperienced, which also make most of them unattractive. It is a fact that our legislators are among the youngest in the world and yet they lead in being dishonest, superficial and unprincipled. This also explains why the budget for Parliament which has only 375 MPs is equivalent to combined budget for 15 districts in Uganda.

The International Parliamentarian Union, a consortium of Parliamentarians in the World released its’ last Global Parliamentary Report in 2012. This report shows that sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest average age for all MPs in the word, at 49 years, against the global MP age average of 53. The average age of legislators in the UK is 50 years. In the US, the average age of representatives is a bit higher, at 57 for Congress and 63 for the Senate.

So, what has age got to do with ineffectiveness and unattractive nature of our Legislators? This question is very important because the legislative branch of government has been the most misunderstood institution. It seems that neither the people who occupy it, nor those who send their representatives to it, do fully comprehend the role of this House in democratic dispensation. A correct assessment of Parliament in its current standing, whether from public stand point or structural point of view, reveals that it is a House under usurpation by the Executive. The cabinet has made the Parliament look like a mere extension.

Now, some of the MPs came to Parliament without any history of formal employment - experience in private or public sector. This in itself is a great disservice to the Parliament and to Uganda as a whole because of content issues. Occasionally, we see the manifestation of raw university mannerism on the floor of Parliament. Here, people talk a lot but when in actual sense they have not said anything - Interglot!

Many factors contribute to the unattractive nature of our MPs. Key among these is the dress code. MPs are expected to wear suits with neck ties to look formal. What appear to be of utmost imperative in the formal sector are the cosmetics of being an MP, not the quality of contributions in the House.  In sub-Sahara Africa, reasonable people should not be confined in suits and ties especially during the peak hours of 10am and 5pm when the sun and temperatures are very high. The heat and discomfort experienced during these hours affects the comfort level, disorganizes the biological functions and compromises mental capabilities.

Another factor which makes our MPs unattractive is the culture of accountability to the public. Leave alone the bravado which comes with the title and status of being an MP. MPs are called “Honorable” because they are expected to dispense honor, to be accountable and to embody the virtue of nobility as operators of the state. Our leaders decompose when required to become accountable. This makes them even more unattractive!

To understand how accountability makes our MPs very unattractive, one just has to appear at a press conference in Parliament or attend committee hearings between the hours of 10am and 5pm. The way the MPs struggle to communicate, one would easily assume that something has gone fundamentally amiss with them. The vigor, creases, lack of affect or the twitching in the face; the lack of composure, the unintelligent way of answering serious policy question and lack of consciousness about the repercussions of their foot in the mouth gaffes, simply makes them look truly very unattractive.  

Never mind my friends asking me all the time why Ugandan politicians are so aggressive and quarrelsome in their communication despite their uncoordinated mannerism. I always respond that the in-congruence is the result of cultural mode of communication that is being transmitted in English. Another grueling experience is speaking the English language. If only Parliament could permit the use of local languages, we would salvage our MPs and reduce on their degree of being unattractive!!

It is interesting to note that our MPs appear the most unattractive during budget reading and end of year Presidential speech. Here, you bear witness to some of world recording breaking cacophony. Our leaders will be sleeping, snoring, snorting like pigs and salivating on each other like real imbeciles. For their sleep, they still fetch huge allowances and salaries.

However, the most unattractive thing about our politicians is when they act deviously and dubiously during voting on contentious national issues in Parliament. What these boil down to is really that the most intricate aspect of human life is all about perception. The formulation of the perception of a person’s net-worth in the mind of another, also dictates the context in which the other is viewed and esteemed.

However beautiful or handsome a person is, a constantly negative narrative that they imbue in the collective public psyche leads to a formulation of a congruent and negative perception. If the negative narrative persists as constant disappointment, a sense of disengagement develops in existing relations between the public and such group of people. In sociology, we talk about the transformative narrative of evolving from resourced individual (donor of deeds) to recipient and eventually to a disposable object. This is the climax when the public will begin to intrinsically resist and repulse.  So far, the constant narrative of our legislators is that of disappointment and that is what makes our politicians very unattractive!

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Hedonism fuelling underclass behaviors

CRIME OF PASSION

The incidences of underclass behaviour are on the increase in Uganda. Increased incidences of teenage pregnancy, rape, defilement, domestic violence, petty theft, aggravated robbery, forced early marriages, prostitution, violent crimes, bribery, infidelity, sodomy, ineptitude, alcoholism, drug abuse and several other callous behaviours such as child sacrifices, are beginning to reshape the immoral landscape of Uganda. 

It appears that the increasing socio-economic inequities are enforcing the collapse of the foundational commitment to societal moral responsibilities. But for all that it is, the rape and murder of the 9 years old Anisha “Nisha” Nambi in Kanyanya Quarter Zone, Kawembe division on August 31, 2013, has epitomized the absurdity of underclass madness.

A major problematic discourse is underway in our society. It is the false imagination that at least, somehow, many Ugandans are born again religious fanatics and therefore, moral beings. The church is no longer viewed by many as the moral authority it once was. There is a bigger moral crisis in Uganda which usually hides behind the veil of seeming loyalty to Church. “Devout” Christians are two-faced, now. They have one foot in church and another in the devil’s shrine. 

It appears that many people have resorted to placing their feet in many different worship places simultaneously because of drying faith. The truth of the matter is that the authority of religious institutions can no longer hold the moral fabrics of our society neatly in place.

People no longer believe in public good as portrayed in old teachings of the Bible. Not even in the Qur'an. Ugandans now are self absorbed, listen more to their own survival instincts; devoting more time to the incarnations of the pending perils that accompany then in life – Gloom!

It is this development of institutional despondency that drives men and women to callousness.

The end act, so malevolent as if moral sense has been completely estranged from their daily lives. Their hearts grow cold and their mental faculties are transformed into a sophisticated workshop in which evil is plotted and piloted. These are people who, for a lack of concepts, may be consigned as social reprobates, outliers from the mainstream society. Their mannerisms are depraved, scornful, and insurgent; their perceptions, utterly distorted. Mortiferous!

The American sociologist, Lawrence M Mead in his 1986 book, Beyond Entitlement, described the urban underclass as a group of dysfunctional people who are not only poor but behaviorally deficient. Other sociologists like Erik Olik Wright attributed underclass to social agents who are economically oppressed but consistently exploited within a given class system. In all, the consensus is that underclass mannerisms are exhibited majorly by the lowly in society – those who occupy the lowest possible social rung in society.

The above analogies may become exclusive of the Ugandan social class formation. Here and there, we have sporadic and yet equal spread of underclass behaviour emanating from every section of society and across class. 

A professor impregnating a student; a pastor sodomizing; politicians robbing the public; legal experts squandering the laws; mothers dying of pregnancy; priests fecundating nuns; bailiffs auctioning ambulance….!

Herein, lay the explanation – hedonism. Hedonism is the sole urge – the undercurrent impulse that drives many Ugandans to commit crimes. Most of these crimes are by category, crimes of passion – to satisfy a pernicious, uncontrollable desire – an insatiable void of covetousness. The killer of Nisha endured it; the leaders of this country have it, the peasants in the village have it and so are the religious leaders.

The debased ways of our society speaks to its own end – that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. The ethics of service, which summons the evaluation of action decisions for greater public utility, have become an inconvenience unto thee. They rape and kill first and think of the consequences later. Likewise, they ransack; swindle and render public utilities dysfunctional and even plot to evict common sense from public discourses to commit pleasure.

The circumstance of the untimely death of 9 years old Nisha must be amplified by the media to reawaken this morally decrepitated society. It is vital to evict this addiction of pleasure out of our mainstream so we can readmit the moral rational being which distinguishes us from mammalian elements in the wilderness.

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Justice Odoki is conspiring to abrogate the 1995 constitution

 CONSTITUTIONALISM

The Red Pepper newspaper of 09/03/2013 cited Hon. Miria Matembe having fired a salvo at the outgoing EU Ambassador, Roberto Rudolfi. Amb Rudolfi had suggested that President Museveni is right to reappoint Justice Benjamin Odoki as Chief Justice  despite having attained the maximum age of 70 years as per Constitutional provision. Ms Matembe’s outrage is understandable and is, perhaps long overdue. Matembe’s point is that it is high time we started taking our autonomy and constitutional rights seriously. She cautioned that we do not have to wait for EU leaders and Americans to interpret for us our own Constitution as if we are a nation of imbeciles, a colony - on top of being country of thieves.

The gut instincts have guided me to a different interpretation of  Amb Rudolfi's statements. I think Amb. Rudolfi is being misunderstood. I believe that Amb. Rudolfi was trying to state that it is within the mandate of the President to (re)appoint whoever he deems fit for the dispensation of the duties of the office of Chief Justice. But the unspoken sense behind this suggestion is also that it is incumbent upon sound minded Ugandans to call on the President in regards to the provision of the Constitution on this reappointment. Amb Rudolfi and many of us have subtle consensus that Attorney General Peter Nyombi is severely incapacitated with correct interpretation of the Constitution. Lawyers like Nyombi pose unnecessary legal challenge to Uganda's statehood because of the zeal to be loyal to the establishment.

Given the variety of talents and legal skills in Uganda, the President still has limited options of credible and principled lawyers to appoint Chief Justice. It is perhaps the lack of credible, measured and loyal cadres like Justice Odoki that his reappointment has become inevitable. The current Deputy Chief Justice, for instance, is an NRM-O promoter and so are his immediate followers. So, the issue of impartiality looms large over their heads.

I mean, we all know that it takes many righteous characters to restrain the President from his own ego. With the legal flip-floppers that have engulfed the government, it is only understandable that Justice Odoki’s credibility and public image gives him an edge and yet it is also the very Odoki to blame for this blatant attempt at abrogating the constitution.

This article contends that any averagely educated person in Uganda can read, understand and interpret the Constitution of Uganda much better than the pitiful office of Attorney General – based on his recent interpretations. I mean, to understand the constitution, we must look at it as a supreme law of the land, not some ad hoc supplemental document that be easily manipulated to appease the President. The problem with AG Nyombi is that he is so Born-Again that he may be interpreting the Constitution in the same manner as he does to the Bible.

This legal mess makes us all stressed out that the President does not listen to advice. To some extent, the President is actually let down by lazy, egocentric and callous fellows who abuse their powers. They compel the president into submitting to fraudulent intentions and making decisions where some public good become available for squandering.

However, the imperatives that compels us to hold the person of Justice Odoki accountable are dictated by the fact that he served as the longest Chief Justice of Uganda since independence; that he was the author of this very Constitution which he is conspiring to abrogate. Justice Odoki knows very well that the Article 144(1)(a) of the 1995 Constitution places age limit of 70 years on any serving CJ. That Article 144(1)(a) was not inserted yesterday in the constitution, it was inserted at the same time that the Presidential term limit was proposed by Justice Odoki's team and later promulgated in 1995. Odoki should therefore be in the know and to particularly advise the President correctly not to reappoint him - and, he should decline the offer if the President insisted. That he has not done so, and that he appears to be the one fronting for the idea of his reappointment, truly dents his credibility and character as anti-constitutional.

Justice Odoki recently gave a media interview where he claimed that he is still young and strong to serve Uganda. His highest pinnacle of mockery came when he posited that he will continue to respect the constitution of Uganda even when he will be serving beyond the age of 70. This is by all means a travesty - a twisted logic because by his failure to restrain his own ego of respecting Constitutional age limit, the Justice is willingly participating in abrogating the Constitution treacherously. Disregarding age limit depicts a gloomy future because the President will use this opportunity to gauge whether to remove the Constitutional age limit for serving President as well. The other implications are that cases that Justice Odoki will be presiding over can be successfully challenged in courts because of the constitutional illegality involving his tenure on the bench.

Justice Odoki’s insistence in being appointed and his claim that he is strong enough is not only ridiculous, but symbolic of the very symptoms of power hunger that keeps African Presidents in power past expiry date to the detriment of their Countries.

END