Strange things happen when a nation stops dreaming

 

Rwandan artifact at the Agaseke Expo in Japan. Endo has pledged to lobby more Japanese tourists for Rwanda. The New Times/ Courtesy.

 

By Charles Onyango-Obbo
 

 

In Summary

My sense is that most Ugandans have grown extremely cynical about politics in general. No story of corruption, however huge, no act of nepotism, and no brutality by security agents will shock them anymore.

The two-week closure of The Monitor and its affiliated KFM and Dembe FM radios rightly made big local and international news. The hammer also came down on the racy Red Pepper tabloid.

The closure followed the State’s anger at The Monitor’s coverage of Gen David “Tinyefuza” Sejusa’s controversial letter in which he alleged that there was a scheme to install President Yoweri Museveni’s son Brig Muhoozi Kainerugaba as successor. It also called for investigation into claims that there was a plot to assassinate those opposed to the dynastic plans.

Beneath all this drama, though, I sense a deeper crisis in the Republic.

My sense is that most Ugandans have grown extremely cynical about politics in general. No story of corruption, however huge, no act of nepotism, and no brutality by security agents will shock them anymore. They might get annoyed, yes, but their expectations of the government is so low they are now beyond being truly surprised by a most outrageous action.

That poses a major problem for media that reports on official wrong-doing. They could get around this problem by painting a Uganda beyond the NRM and the government of President Museveni, and holding up hope for a better tomorrow by speaking to the sunnier sides of the people.

However, that too doesn’t seem to be flying, as many people seem to believe that nothing life-changing can happen when this government’s dead hand is on the steering wheel. The State has become a gigantic dream killer.

This is not only a complicated problem for the media, but for the Republic as we have known it. Uganda is a country that had never been ruled by anyone for more than eight years until Museveni came along in 1986 and flipped that on its head.

In power for 27 years now, that is longer than all the eight presidents and prime minister since independence. Critics will say that that demonstrates just how “power hungry” Museveni is. However, it must also not be lost on many that there is something wrong with a people who allow one man to rule them for that long (and it looks a lot more years to come as the president seems intent on standing in 2016 for a seventh term), even when he is an exemplary leader (which Museveni hasn’t been).

Fortunately, one can argue that in Uganda’s case, it is understandable. We have a very unsual history in East Africa. Since independence, we have been ruled by more government/political systems than any other country in the region.

For example, at independence Kabaka Freddie Mutesa was president. He was only a half-ruler for sure, as most power was with Milton Obote as Prime Minister, but still only we had that. It was a multiparty and highly devolved government. It didn’t work.

Then Obote kicked out Mutesa in 1966, declared a Republic and a one-party State shortly after. It flopped.

We then took a very familiar path with the rest of Africa from 1971 when Idi Amin staged his coup and ousted Obote. He brought to government the most “humble” and the highest number of illiterate people. It turned into a train wreck.

After the Uganda Liberation Front/Army and the Tanzanians overthrew Amin in 1979, we had Africa’s first broad-based government. The first UNLF government had more ministers and big men with PhDs and who were professors than any other African government had ever had and will ever have. It was easily the freest political period in any African country. This rule of the professors and free-wheeling politics failed spectacularly.

In 1980, we had our first rule by Commission when the Military Commission of the UNLF overthrew President Godfrey Binaisa. It then appointed a Presidential Commission ostensibly to run the country. This rule by Commission ended in the debacle of the December 1980 election.

Obote fumbled in his second rule until he was deposed by the Okello generals (Basilio and Tito) in 1985. They set up a Military Council, which incorporated a few rebel groups. They dangled a carrot for Museveni’s National Resistance Army. He refused to bite the carrot, and bit their hand instead. This was our first attempt at rule by military junta. It was an unmitigated disaster

Then Museveni and his boys routed the junta, and took over. They tried their hand at a version of the UNLF’s broad-based government with some success, and then they too innovated with a “no-party” system. By 2001, that too had gone up in the smoke of nepotism, corruption, and militarism.

 

Then we returned to a kind of bastardised multipartyism in 2005, with a touch of Amin-era-president-for-lifism. You can forgive Ugandans if they feel that they have tried everything and it has failed, and they are doomed. That can breed a peculiarly disempowering type of despair.