Is it possible to collaborate with President Yoweri Museveni and his inner circle without succumbing to personal interests or exploiting the Ugandan taxpayer? Can shunning President Museveni and his allies lead to a more accountable and just Uganda? These are questions we at Public Square have grappled with extensively.
We conclude that there may be more effective approaches to achieving a just and equitable Uganda than shunning President Museveni, a strategy adopted by many of his opponents. This stance has precedent. When he still had influence over the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) Former President Milton Obote, partly succeeded in encouraging his supporters to stay away. Years later, Dr. Kizza Besigye and the opposition that rallied around him followed a similar path.
This issue is personal for us at Public Square. Some of our members disagree with the prevailing consensus among the majority in the opposition and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) on how to achieve an equitable and just Uganda. The consensus among these groups, who represent the most organized Ugandans working toward an accountable government, is to avoid collaboration with President Museveni and his inner circle.
However, we believe that collaboration with President Museveni and his inner circle requires nuance. Organizations and individuals should choose when and how to work with President Museveni, without being permanently labeled as state operatives. After all, we are all complicit to some extent.
Criticizing civil society members and opposition politicians for working with President Museveni, while praising the church and cultural institutions for doing the same, seems counterproductive. Conditions in Uganda today are such that almost everyone ends up knowingly collaborating with the President, his inner circle, or those to whom he lends power, as all the important institutions through which Ugandans find meaning have been infiltrated.
For the opposition, it is about survival. They consistently participate in elections and their winning members take positions in Parliament and at local government level, lending legitimacy to Uganda’s rulers. Once the opposition takes these positions, they become irrelevant, as the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) has long figured out how to secure controlling majorities at Parliament and local council level.
Dr. Kizza Besigye, a veteran of Ugandan politics, has explained why political parties and individuals participate in Uganda’s elections despite the violence, widespread use of money to bribe voters, and gerrymandering. Boycotting elections, according to Dr. Besigye, would mean political death, as laws such as the Public Order Management Act provide cover to harm and ensure that those opposed to President Museveni do not freely assemble.
Under the current circumstances, it appears that opposition parties in Uganda are only viable if they act as vehicles for their members to become Parliamentarians and, to a lesser extent, local council leaders. It is otherwise impossible to organize politically if you do not have political leaders with power, which is gained through elections.
This dynamic also explains why leaders such as Beti Kamya, Nobert Mao, and Abed Bwanika have left their own political parties to join either the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) or bigger opposition parties such as the National Unity Platform (NUP). The alternative is to fade into oblivion, as has been the case for Bidandi Ssali’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and the Justice Forum (JEEMA).
The same calculations and need for survival driving political parties also motivate cultural institutions to align with President Museveni. Just like political parties, cultural institutions, including those with a large number of committed subjects, have all decided or been slightly coerced to cast their fate at the feet of President Museveni or the people he lends power to.
In its actions and politics, the powerful and well-resourced Buganda does not mirror the other cultural institutions. Still, it has since 2009 acquiesced to the corruption synonymous with President Museveni’s governance style and those to whom he lends power.
One recent example is Charles Peter Mayiga, Buganda’s Katikkiro, accepting Shs50 million from Parliament Speaker Anita Among. Among went to Bulange Mengo and donated, three days after the Katikkiro criticized Parliament for unabashed extravagance, which is achieved at the expense of the Ugandan taxpayer whose needs the people’s representatives ignore.
Among used the platform at Bulange to fashion herself into a victim of #UgandaParliamentExhibition, which identified her as the biggest beneficiary of Parliament’s extravagant budget that is now close to one trillion shillings. Among her list of transgressions, the Speaker was identified as having received over Ush17 billion in funds for Parliament’s corporate social responsibility through different conduits.
Katikkiro Mayiga’s rationalization for taking money from a politician he had criticized just two days earlier for her extravagance was that it was for a good cause—the fight against HIV/AIDS. The greater public good is also often used to rationalize churches taking money and hobnobbing with President Museveni and whomever else he lends power.
The church is the one place where the oppressed and oppressors converge. One characteristic of that convergence manifests through the closure of the divide between those who shun and those who would like to get close to President Museveni and his power brokers.
Fundraising for church buildings, the coronation of a bishop, or Uganda martyr’s pilgrimage is incomplete if the government doesn’t contribute, and this has never stopped the opposition from participating in those events.
Put simply, we are all complicit and willing to ignore the corruption and lack of accountability of this government to pursue the goals we believe are most important. As a society, Uganda and its most important institutions have decided to achieve a modicum of development that often ignores the desire for justice and equity. To change this attitude and create an empathetic nation, where we can all condemn and fiercely fight against the mass murder and imprisonment of sections of our population over political leanings, requires a civic coalition that changes the strategy that pushes for accountability from the government.
Dividing ourselves as we do now, based on whether we support the government or the opposition, just fuels tendencies to back our clansmen even if they are criminals, murderers, or avaricious politicians living expensively off our hard-earned taxes. Besides, the opposition, led by the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and National Unity Platform (NUP), have pushed the shunning of President Museveni for over twenty years now, and the result is an opposition that now struggles to get a member of the formal churches to officiate their functions.
Church, of course, fears being branded as pro-opposition, which would cut them off from President Museveni and the government’s goodies. The opposite fear has become prevalent among the opposition, who fear being branded sellouts.
That fear of being branded a sellout has created a civic space, with individuals that one commentator branded as watching for sellouts during the day and at night figuring out how to meet President Museveni for a big payday. As one pundit put it, the big payday is important as a majority of our political class looks to accumulate money, as they expect Uganda to go downhill in the near future. At this point, that money will provide a much-needed buffer in exile.
For this reason, a school of thought at Public Square thinks it is better to try and build together with President Museveni. He cannot be avoided; he’s one of the biggest political masses in this territory and has made progress in entrenching his power. Any transition from this requires a process in which his administration is engaged resolutely to bring change to Uganda. The challenge has to be taken to them to let them know the space they inhabit is contested, but they can’t be ignored.
Unless you are going to be an insider just standing on the periphery but collaborating with Museveni in many ways leads to Mao or Ssebugwawo. You'll an example to study in the future of how my friend say Tony Natif collaborated with the tyrants to bring about change and equity. Well let's use the example of Myanmar (Burma) of how Aung San Suu Kyi thought could bring about change and indeed change happened for a shortlived time! Of recent I have seen posts of "Non-partisan" however that doesn't work in this kind of political environment finally politics will come knocking on your door.