DO WE NEED INDISPENSABLE LEADERS OR RULERS?

 

By

F.C. OWEYEGHA- AFUNADUULA

Website: http://www.afuna.org or http://www.afuna.o-f.com

Email:afunaduula2000@yahoo.co.uk or afunaduula@afuna.org

Tel: +256 78 555 222 or +256 71 845461

 

June 4, 2005

 

In 2003 I wrote an article titled “Foreign aid is not good for Africa ”, which I think was published either in The Monitor or Sunday Monitor. In that article I dismissed the IMF/ World Bank label “fast track country” that the two Bretton Wood institutions had affixed before “Uganda” to show that my country was doing very well in terms of development.

My view at the time was that the Bretton Wood institutions of the United Nations were using the label “fast track country” to whitewash a new round of plunder worse than the plunder that characterised the Scramble for Africa in the 19 th Century, with our leaders of today acting like the complacent traditional chiefs of that time. I was convinced it was international aid business rather than promotion of true development that foreign aid aimed to sustain using our leaders or rulers to this end. Since 1997 I had been at the forefront of questioning the development effectiveness of the much hyped Bujagali Dam.

Many must have thought that I was crazy, blind, frustrated, confused, absurd, incredible and anti-development, and in a country where pluralism is immediately assigned to multiparty social or organisational manifestation, a pluralist whose only business was to endlessly critique any action by government. These are some of the words that lend themselves easily for use by citizens in all social strata who find it difficult to engage intellectual energy to unravel or understand complex issues or phenomena in all dimensions of our environment (ecological-biological, socio-economic, socio-cultural and time). In fact each of them and more has been used since the early 1990 on me.

At the time I wrote my article on foreign aid our President had metamorphosed from a man openly deeply fascinated by Marxism, barter trade and one party “popular democracy” into the most forthright, unquestioning agent in Africa of complete liberalisation of the economy without corresponding liberalisation of politics.

In a way, politically President Museveni remained Marxist at heart but manifested as a capitalism facilitator and major beneficiary economically. He was still the silent believer in one party rule who nevertheless was exploiting the ignorance of the citizens about his true political intentions to use legal and constitutional means to achieve his goal of unchallenged physical and mind control of the citizens. Yes, the end justifying the means. If the laws stood in his way, then the laws, not him, had to change in the true spirit of his “No Change” philosophy of governance, to accommodate his designs of consolidating his political base.

He had provided the necessary political leadership for the implementation of IMF/World Bank philosophy of total destruction of public ownership and management of the economy, including the imposition of heavy taxes, cost sharing and removal of subsidies and government support for family higher education and health.

The President, however, had erected a State House Scholarship Scheme for higher education at Universities across the globe, which one strong school of thought says exploits the principle that “Blood is thicker than Water”. He had also built a long, formidable patronage chain, which assured its members of unrestricted access to the “national cake”, while stressing that those who did not support his economic, military, social and political choices would definitely be excluded from this cake. In effect he had converted politics (actually military politics) into the most lucrative employer in the country. This, perhaps, is his greatest contribution to socio-political change in Uganda !

Many of the beneficiaries had benefited from a flawed privatisation scheme, which was implemented as the gateway to the total liberalisation of the economy. It is these beneficiaries that today dominate Uganda 's economy and politics, enjoy higher social status, and own every major asset, sometimes hiding behind some foreigners, minors, wives or people of dubious citizenship identity. These, in my view, are the ones being primarily targeted by dual citizenship.

It is these beneficiaries that are today “using” the President to ensure that they do not lose the political protection of their gains and whom I think the President is also “exploiting” to ensure that there is perpetual protection of his own gains. This reciprocal relationship has the NRM/NRA revolution (bush) constitution to apply at every opportunity to ensure that all continue to gain and none loses (The Monitor May 31 2005 “ Uganda running on NRM bush constitution”). Hopefully, even His Excellency the Vice President of Uganda, Gilbert Bukenya, will continue to benefit beyond his current political and ethical troubles.

According to one of the beneficiaries, Security Minister Betty Akech, there is impliedly no problem with this status quo (The Monitor June 3 2005 “Movt will rule Uganda for 100 years). As I surmised in my The Monitor article “Uganda running on NRM bush constitution”, it is as if Movement rule is/will be like the manifestation of an occupation force all out to appropriate all resources -political, economic, social, health, educational, business, etc -to itself analogous to what was the case during the occupations, by colonialists, of portions of Africa in the 19 th Century or to the now defunct exploitation of the Bantustans by the racists in South Africa.

If, for example, one wanted to know who owns any of the major new buildings in Kampala one would not be surprised to find that the majority are owned by Akech-type people. Since the social costs of privatisation, or foreign aid for that matter, have been very high, as seen in the excessive decline in government commitment to social responsibility, it is not far-fetched to suggest that foreign aid has benefited the powerful and hurt the powerless. Why not since it goes through the powerful and hardly reaches the powerless?

This then has been the status quo until recently when President Museveni started to wage a one-man war against foreign aid and donors in May. In his view he and his country now do not need foreign aid. It does not matter if Uganda is manifesting as if it is a giant international Bantustan (The Monitor Dec 6 “Turning Uganda into a Bantustan ”) whereupon the country graduated as one of the World's poorest ten.

The President's major concern now seems to be that those who have been giving foreign aid have also gained in political stature to the extent of dictating how his government should approach pluralism, peace, human rights issues as well as the distribution of the benefits of development (See The Monitor May 31 “Uganda running on NRM bush constitution“). It seems the President has just begun to feel the pinch of the dictum that “He who blows the piper calls the tune”. May be it is better late than never.

Although what flows from President Museveni's mouth and the mouths of those in the patronage chain seems to suggest that government concern is social development or democracy, in my view the concern is more the self-survival of the beneficiaries of current individual merit based political governance in a socio-political situation in which government is becoming more and more irrelevant to the collective goal of survival of Ugandans in a complicated Century.

And now President Museveni's economic chief at the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) with whom I have been congruent on the issues of energy and Bujagali Dam, Teddy Cheeye, has used his pen to loud his (Museveni's) new chameleon-like change of colour against foreign aid. Cheeye says IMF, World Bank and donors are dispensable (The Monitor 30 “IMF, World Bank and donors are dispensable”).

True, nothing under the Sun is indispensable. Indeed even in Heaven, according to creation science, Angel Lucifer who converted “Himself” (there is no sex in Heaven) to Satan was expelled from there along with one-third of former angels of God. Cheeye, however, is shy to say that even our leaders and rulers are not indispensable. Actually in my view, the greatest problem of Africa is not so much the dominance of IMF, World Bank or donors as the thieving, unaccountable, sycophancy-loving, socio-culturally deficient leaders and rulers, who wish to manifest as perpetual, infallible, irreplaceable leaders or rulers thereby undermining true development and progress of our people.

Where exactly will you, in history and the present, not find such leaders and rulers having schemed or scheming to become perpetual, infallible, irremovable and irreplaceable? They have been and are there in politics, academia, industry, schools, hospitals, the judiciary, the military; you name it, deeply preoccupied with legacy and oligarchy building. The Members of Parliament! Just read the Weekly Observer's lead story of April 28-May 4, 2005 “MPs order Museveni: declare us unopposed we give you third term”. Isn't this worshiping of indispensability by legislators in the fashion both servant and master must be indispensable?

Presidents? Who? Didn't Napoleon of France first remove presidential limits and then used the referendum to declare himself Emperor thereupon acquiring the name Napoleon III? Didn't Babtiste Bokassa translate himself from President Central African Republic to Emperor of the Central African Empire ? Didn't Id Amin allow himself to be declared President for life and manifest as such until he was ousted from power in 1979? Didn't Mobutu wait to be pushed to his grave in Morocco ? Didn't Mwalimu Nyerere clock 25 years in power in Tanzania before he, on his own volition, declared “enough is enough”? Did it surprise you when the late Basoga Nsadhu said in the Constituent Assembly (CA) that NRM would rule for 1000 years and when Amama Mbabazi said NRM would rule for 50 years? Is Betty Akech's prophecy of 100 years for Movement rule a surprise?

What about leaders of Political Parties? Hasn't Milton Obote manifested as indispensable, infallible and irreplaceable in the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) although he has in the last 20 years found it convenient to explain his continuing status in the Party on debarment by the Museveni's regime? Who has challenged the indispensability of Paul Ssemogerere in the Democratic Party (DP), Museveni in the Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) and Museveni in the National Resistance Movement (NRM)? How many in the Movement, except perhaps, Bidandi Ssali and a few others, are concerned about the looming indispensability, infallibility, irremovability and irreplaceability of Museveni in the National Resistance Movement Organisation (NRM-O)?

How many in Parliament or the NRM-O are concerned that in Kisanja and referendum lies the real possibility and danger of producing an indispensable, infallible, irreplaceable, irremovable, fearful, political monster that may end up manifesting like an Emperor (Ssebagabe) with the capacity to do anything anti-people or anti-life in the name of “popular democracy”? Remember The Monitor May 31 2005 article “ Uganda Running on NRM bush Constitution” and what it says about democracy, human rights and alternative political manifestation. Isn't it NRA (Kakooza Mutale types) to enforce all?

Therefore, in my view, if we are to be concerned about the indispensability of IMF, World Bank and donors, we should be more concerned about the indispensability of our leaders or rulers who, by virtue of manifesting as indispensable, infallible, irreplaceable and demigod-like, can ultimately end up being the real roadblock to development and progress and progenitors of chaos, decay and collapse. Take this as a truism.

See. The World Bank, IMF and donors were active in Japan and Japan was transformed into the industrial giant it is today. The World Bank, IMF and donors have been active in Uganda for most of the last 20 or so years but we boast more of dehumanisation, de-culturalisation, de-naturalisation, deconvectionalisation, depoliticisation, deintellectualisation, demoralization, deradicalisation, fear, silence, docility, corruption, and absolute impoverishment than higher quality of life and confidence in the development process and the future. Are you still a doubting Thomas?

Indispensable or dispensable, leadership or rulership is irrelevant if it is anti-citizens and anti-social, emphasising more the holding onto power to protect its own gains than acting as an agent of change in the quality of life of the broad masses of our people. In my view, however, indispensability is the highest form of arrogance and disrespect towards those one is supposed to lead or serve. That is if politics is done as a service rather than an employment. We do not need indispensable leaders or rulers in order to develop.