| TZ law professor attacks power-greedy presidents |
| SOLOMON MUYITA & HAFSAH NABAYUNGA |
| ENTEBBE
A VISITING Tanzanian law professor has said African presidents who cling on to power are the cause of the endless conflicts in their countries. Prof Chris Peter Maina said most leaders on the African continent could not imagine themselves being anywhere else than the State House. Absence of salutes, ever bowing servants and clapping citizens is said to lead to depression, blood pressure and heart attacks to some leaders, Maina of the University of Dar Es Salaam said. Maina, also an executive in Kituo Cha Katiba, an East African Centre for Constitutional Development, was speaking during a three-day annual conference of the Association of Law Reform Agencies of Eastern and Southern Africa in Entebbe yestrday. The drew participants from the law reform commissions of Uganda, Britain, South Africa, Swaziland, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya. Maina said presidential term limits are an important principle to be respected for proper constitutionalism in Africa. Recently, Uganda removed the two-term limits on the presidency, which gives President Yoweri Museveni a chance to run for the third term in 2006. Museveni, who took over power through guerilla warfare in 1986, will make 20 years in office in five months time. He said the decision defeats basic principles of good governance and endangers the political future of Uganda. Tanzanian President, Mr Banjamin Mkapa recently visited Uganda to bid farewell to MPs because he is leaving power at the end of his two terms in office. Maina said the majority of the presidents who stick to power often come to power very innocently with bags of promises of putting the country in order and then retiring to his village, but power corrupts them.(Was this not Museveni's promises???.He now wants to retire to his grave instead of to his farm in Rwakitura and talk with his cows) We are reminded that absolute power corrupts absolutely! It is worse where such leaders are surrounded by sycophants who sing nothing but his praises day and night and blind his vision completely, he said. Prof. Joseph Kakooza, who chairs the Uganda Law Reform Commission, said the conference provided an opportunity for the law reform agencies to share experience in law reform. |
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