A seventh term for Museveni
VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA
VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA
Yoweri Museveni, which sorry record remains for you to break in Africa and in the whole world with the sham election that you held in your country on Thursday last week? Just because sham elections were held last year in several African countries, you feel that you must add to them with a sham election of your own in Uganda? Africa is still reeling from the “elections” held in Cameroon [October 12, last year], in Cote D’Ivoire [on October 25, last year], in your neighbour Tanzania [October 29, last year] and in Guinea Bissau on November 23, last year.
You are trying to beat Alassane Ouattara because he just “won” a fourth term in office, even though his country’s constitution originally spelt out two terms but he added another term, and then another. You, Museveni, you beat him hands down because you have already done six terms in office and this one you are about to embark on is your seventh.
What kind of sit-tightism is that? In a country of 49 million, you alone have ruled it for 40 years. Eighty percent of the people of Uganda have never known any other ruler apart from you. Is that not shameful? You have been in power for 40 years but you are in a hot race to overtake President Paul Biya, who came to power in Cameroon four years before you. You are hoping that by the time you finish this your seventh term, you will overtake Paul Biya, but that is if his rule ends before then.
You are banking on claims that Biya is senile, does not even know that he is living in France, does not know how to find his way back to Yaoundé, and probably did not even know that he has just “won” an election to extend his 44-year rule. You, Museveni, who is still somehow alert, do you want to reach that stage? Even you, it is said that you fall asleep at meetings, your background as an agile guerilla leader notwithstanding. Age does not spare anybody, even Five-Star Army Generals and commanders of nuclear forces, not to mention a bush guerilla fighter who slept at the riverside for years and had to contend with mosquitoes and scorpions.
You have been in power for 40 years already. Are you trying to overtake Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years? You are fond of cracking jokes; I remember hearing you crack some jokes during the Organisation of African Unity [OAU] summit in Abuja in June 1991, when you said you were not calling for racial desegregation because you were not eager to sit with white folks in the same toilet. Only that, that your joke was plagiarism, because it was Malcolm X who first said something like that in the early 1960s, and you did not attribute the quote to him. Nigeria Press Council should have charged you for plagiarism that day if not because you were sitting close to IBB.
This your falling asleep during meetings when you are only 81 years old, what will happen by the time you add another five years on that seat? You want to match Habib Bourguiba, who as President of Tunisia in the late 1980s, used to sleep for 15 hours a day? What kind of rule is that; when do you have time to hold meetings, read files and newspapers, speak on the phone to other world leaders, or even inspect projects in the only nine hours that you are awake?
I am sure your aim, Museveni, is to catch up with Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who once ruled Malawi, not very far away from Uganda, for only 30 years, 1964-1994. When he was voted out of power in 1994, Banda was 96 years old and it was said that he didn’t even know. Is that what you are trying to achieve? Kamuzu Banda had no wife but at least he had an Official Hostess, Cecilia Kadzamira, who was a wife, mistress, protocol officer, cabinet minister and think tank rolled into one. You, Museveni, do you have anyone like that? Your wife, Janet Kainembabazi Museveni, who is also your Minister of Education and Sports, is not as powerful as Cecilia Kadzamira, so how will you cope by the time you are ninety years old and she is only three years younger than you?
A seventh term in office; Museveni, are you the African answer to General Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, the all-time father of sit-tightism? Stroessner served seven consecutive five-year terms as President of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. You, are you an Army General like him, or just a bush guerilla fighter? Stroessner’s Colorado Party was powerful and well organized; can you compare that to your rag-tag National Resistance Movement [NRM] party? What has NRM achieved, apart from driving out General Tito Okello in 1986, with a lot of help from the Tanzanian army?
You, Museveni, you easily forgot your country’s solid tradition of revolving door leadership. Your country’s first prime minister and later president, Milton Obote, ruled for only eight years [1964-71] before he was overthrown by his Army Commander, the former British East Africa Army Boxing Champion Idi Amin Dada. Even when Obote returned to power in 1980, he was there for only five years before he was deposed again. Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada, Conqueror of the British Empire, raised so much dust across African and world scene but he ruled for only eight years, before he was overthrown in 1979 and he fled to Jeddah.
What happened after Idi Amin? Was there not a revolving-door leadership in Uganda? When we heard that Professor Yusuf Lule took over from Idi Amin, we thought that was very good, since Idi Amin attended only primary school but here is a full professor in charge. Yet, you guys in Uganda deposed Yusuf Lule after only three months in power and installed Godfrey Binaisa, who ruled for only a year before you brought Paulo Mwanga, who ruled for only two weeks. You then brought back Milton Obote, who in turn was deposed by Bazilio Olara-Okello, who ruled for only two days before General Tito Okello deposed him in 1985. Six months later, you, Museveni, sneaked in at the head of a guerrilla army and deposed Okello. Instead of upholding your country’s very good tradition of revolving-door leadership, you have been sitting tight for 40 years.
Are you Kim Il-Sung, who ruled North Korea for 46 years [1948-94], was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-Il [1994-2011] and then his grandson, Kim Jong-Un [since 2011]? At least the Kims are known for the Juche idea of national self-reliance, and they built a huge stockpile of nukes, which has prevented the United States for taking over their country and merging it with South Korea. You Museveni, apart from the support you lent to Paul Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front to take over Rwanda in 1994 and the help you are extending to rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the one you once extended to Southern Sudan rebels, which formidable army did you build? Even the help you extended to Kagame, was it not because your mum is a Rwandan Tutsi?
You were said to have won this election with 75% of the vote. What kind of one sided election result is that? Are you trying to match the over 90% of the vote that Saddam Hussein used to get in Iraq, that Bashar Al-Assad used to get in Syria, that Hosni Mubarak used to get in Egypt, and that Enver Hoxha and his Party of Labour used to get in Albania? You Museveni, you mean you are more popular than Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Josif Broz Tito, Mahathir Mohammed, Suharto, Juan Domingo Peron, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and even Nelson Mandela, whose ANC got less than that in elections?
If it is true you have such overwhelming support, then why did you lock up your country’s main opposition leader Kizza Besigye; why did you shut down the internet; why were your security forces harassing your election opponent, the singer Bob Wine; why did you flood Kampala streets with armed policemen and soldiers; why were they firing teargas and live bullets at people? The lead African Union election observer Dr. Goodluck Jonathan said even though he observed no ballot box stuffing, there was a “climate of fear” due to intimidation. Jonathan is a serially unlucky election observer; only two months ago, he was stranded in Guinea Bissau when the election he went to observe ended in a military coup, and he was brought out with great difficulty.
Who is your role model in African sit-tightism? Is it Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Jafar el-Numeiry, Gnassingbe Eyadema, Dauda Jawara, Robert Mugabe, Hosni Mubarak or Mobutu Sese Seko? If it is vanity, can you match CAR’s Jean Bedel Bokassa, who styled himself after the 19th Century French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte? If it is violence, can you match Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam, who opened fire with a revolver during a Dergue meeting? Can you match Samuel Kanyon Doe, who lined up and executed thirteen ministers at the Monrovia beach in 1980? Can you match Ghana’s Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings, who in 1979 lined up and shot three former Heads of State, General Akwasi Afrifa, General Ignatius Acheampong and General Fred Akuffo?
My only regret is that you, Museveni, was once a darling of African youths and anti-imperialists but like Robert Mugabe, you ended up disappointing us with your visionless sit-tightism and election rigging.
