Print This Page
Visit�The�Publisher's�Site
The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
October 2, 2003
Posted to the web October 2, 2003
Karoli Ssemogerere
Kampala
Dr Crespo Bazarrabusa Kiyonga, the 47-year-old National Political Commissar has proved a more combative fighter than his predecessor, Mr James Wapakhabulo alternately dousing fires and lighting up new ones with a lot of tact.
His political resume is fairly lengthy starting with a 1980 election to Parliament on a Uganda People's Movement (UPM) ticket from a Kasese constituency where former Democratic Party (DP) candidate Victor Muhangi had been gunned down. Like a few other MPs including Abu Mayanja (DP-Mubende), he never took his seat but instead fled into exile where his political mentors were forming what became the National Resistance Movement. Barely in his thirties, he was reading national budgets before he got the inglorious sack and consignment to the backbenches. His stars were briefly taken over by his nemesis, the equally combative Loyce Bbiira Bwambale, Kasese Woman MP who for a while served as deputy Minister in the Women in Development Ministry.
During the long fizzled "small" Kategaya-Museveni controversy, Kiyonga came in to sober up the highest sounding tunes of "his master's voice". Mr Ofwono-Opondo, once journalist, once security operative was much toned down after he appeared to become too fluent. Mr Charles Rwomushana was "fired" before being "reinstated". We now hear a more coherent voice with some leadership being exercised at the Movement headquarters.
The third term is being sold as a package with slightly more than symbolic powers for Buganda in Mengo, and a primus inter pares political system that allows the Movement to continue being closely identified with the state, winning elections without much challenge. This is a realistic reform being signed off in western capitals and may as well fly until the Congo tribunal starts sending sealed indictments to key elements in Uganda's political leadership who had their paws in the Congo pie.
While discussing Uganda's growing economy as one of the "lion-cubs" on the African continent with historically high levels of economic growth, a sentence or two are devoted to the fact that the growth is concentrated on the northwestern shores of Lake Victoria. The seasonal famines in many parts of the country simply don't register on the radars of the image-makers. The high donor infusions in the economy are a matter of fact we have to deal with.
So why does Constitution Review Commission chairman, Prof. Frederick Ssempebwa even come close to being an issue in the succession debate. There are many commissioners including Matiya Mulumba-Semakula-Kiwanuka, the 67-year-old junior Minister in the Luweero Triangle who have better things on their mind. Others like Benedict Ziribasanga Mutyaba, the author of the poison-pill constitution amendment and the controversial Land Bill have better things to worry about like running an airline. This leaves a few sober gentlemen, including Lukiiko member Dr Higiro Ssemajege, the 65-year-old economist who served for many years as Chair of the Committee on the Economy, painstakingly compiling views collected from different parts of the country.
Prof. Ssempebwa, the former Law School Dean, cabinet minister during former president Godfrey Binaisa's time and former DP National Executive Committee member has a lot of things on his mind. At the bar, he briefly bandied with a few unpopular causes, the Health minister Jim Muhwezi petition, which was a political dispute with the appointing authority, and the referendum cases, a poison pill association with the opposition. Did he make a new historical mistake of bandying with a new set of unpopular causes like re-thinking Uganda's constitutional set-up that is promising to be useful in extending the venerable Movement's life into perpetuity?
Already Monsieur Kagame has applied the Uganda model, at a small cost, of shedding his combat fatigues. He begins a new 14-year lease at the helm of the mountainous country. With a few shades of ink, a few tears, and the promise of blood down the road, we are moments away from Uganda's eighth republic. Not even Prof. Ssempebwa can destroy this glorious and auspicious occasion. The lay magistrate [ and now minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs] Janat Balunzi Mukwaya just fired the people who would read the report, Cheborion Barishaki, and Deus Byamugisha, aggressive litigators who it appears argued with their hands in their pockets rather than with great belief in the system they were serving, recruiting sceptical judges to their opponent's causes.
After bandying perjurers like Nsibambi, Attorney General Francis Ayume, and others, to ascertain quorum, they were no longer worthy of retention; disposable slips just like the Ssempebwa commission whose time came and left before they wrote their report. As a nation, we must be grateful for Kiyonga for telling us ahead of time.
The writer is a Ugandan living and working in Washington DC, USA.
quote: Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes. - George Bernard Shaw
