UGANDA: Museveni can’t win a village election - Tony Owana

CHANGE OF GUARDS - "I will state that if you came here and stood for LC I election as Chairman of our Radio Uganda village you will be trounced thoroughly."

Museveni's propagandist - Geoffrey Owana, May 2018

A Village is the lowest political administrative unit in Uganda. It has 50 - 100 households and a population of 250 - 1,000. It is headed by a Local Council One (LC 1) Chairman elected by the majority adult members of the respective village. Uganda is a country of slightly over 40 million people and has 57,842 villages.

Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) TV's Head of Library and Archives, Tony Geoffrey Owana recently penned an open letter to Museveni in which he indicted Museveni over loss of popularity. If the salaried employees of UBC TV can't vote for Museveni, what about the rest of the citizens who are unemployed, living in deliberate abject impoverishment, being terrorised by brutal security agencies, live under a breakdown in health and educational facilities, their land being grabbed, and their social, economic and political rights being stampeded????? By implication, in a free and fair electoral process Museveni can't win a village election anywhere in Uganda save for the Cattle Corridor.

Tony Owana's indictment of Museveni is adding a voice to the other Bakooko (Northerners) who have of recent loudly voiced their discomfort with Museveni’s hold on power. First it was the NRM Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Tanga Odoi who in March 2017 told Makerere graduate students that former President Obote had better policies than Museveni. He said;

"It is wrong for the NRM party government to rely on security analysts such as the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Chief of Military intelligence (CMI) as its intellectuals to direct the affairs of the country because they are too incompetent to run a country. We need policy thinkers for budgets, like UPC's Obote who had a Five Years Development Plan; we all know whose results you could see. We lack critical thinkers to criticise and direct government that is why all parties are dying due to petty differences."

He went ahead to lament that whenever he tries to criticise some NRM government policies, he is booed by "petty-thinking politicians who treat history selectively and have denied Ugandans the opportunity to appreciate late President Obote's heroic acts." He concluded by remarking that; "If I am terminated here, I still have a job because I am a critical thinker, a teacher of history and a historian."

By glorifying former President Milton Obote against whom Museveni fought his sectarian Bush War and for the last three decades has been trying to portray him as a devil, Tanga Odoi had crossed the redline. However, his assertion was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Earlier on in August 2016, the then Director General of Internal Security, Brig. Ronnie Balya warned against pervasive graft involving bureaucrats. In his 50-page paper presented at the NRM retreat he warned thus; "........... pervasive graft involving bureaucrats coupled by deteriorating public service delivery are a security threat. Corruption could lead to loss of legitimacy and trust in government ......... corruption makes the government in power irrelevant to the general population." As Dr. Tanga Odoi put it, Brig. Balya very well knew that Museveni hates critical policy thinkers but went ahead to express his frustration. Indeed, shortly after he was sacked and banished to the war torn South Sudan as Ambassador.

Just last month, the NRM Deputy Secretary General, Richard Tadwong publicly aired out his frustration thus; “.......corruption, nepotism and greed are things that are making Ugandans more disgusted at the leadership of our party in government. If we don't restrain, if we don't control our greed on how we use public resources; how we steal with impunity, then Ugandans will push us out of power."

Reacting to Tadwong's frustration, the Head of the government Media Centre and NRM Deputy Spokesperson, Ophono Opondo had this to say; “.... there is nothing strange in what he is saying. The truth of the matter is supervision in government is weak, if not absent - even in NRM, supervision is not there. NRM has failed to supervise the government, and if we in NRM and government don't raise these issues, then we shall cede to opposition propaganda."

The indictment has been laid and there is no doubt the accused is Museveni. Obviously, he can't plead guilty and Ugandans have repeatedly found him guilty and sentenced him at the polls but he uses the security forces to remain in power. Since the latest open criticism is led by his own party members who happen not to hail from his most favoured western region, regime boot leakers will accuse them of being subversive and disgruntled Bakooko looking for a way of regaining power that they lost three decades ago.

Unfortunately, for Museveni, corruption, nepotism, greed, theft, poor service delivery etc don't pose a direct threat to his hold on power as long as he is in control of the security forces. All that matters to him is to remain in power.

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM