'Supporting right and opposing wrong'?: Uganda's NRM

The 27 May 2009 lead story in New Vision was entitled 'Museveni vows to win over North'. The headline forced me to read between the lines to find out the reasons advanced. I found however no plausible reason, save the recent performance in the local council by-elections in which according to President Yoweri Museveni the National Resistance Movement (NRM) performed better.

The president reportedly made these remarks as he was opening the NRM National Executive Committee (NEC) which ironically was hosted at the state house using taxpayers’ money. This implies that the NRM and President Museveni have no appreciation of the fact that we are in a multiparty dispensation, or if they do, they have either inadvertently or deliberately continued the fusion of the NRM party with the state. Museveni reportedly said, 'Northern Uganda with proper interaction will become the bedrock for the NRM because of the historical principled stand of the party. The NRM always supports right and opposes wrong'. With these comments in mind, I find it prudent to raise the following critical issues:

- The NRM’S 'good performance' in northern Uganda, as in any other region, is not necessarily as a result of the increasing popularity of the party but a function of multidimensional factors. The NRM has abused the spirit of multi-partyism, whose basic idea is that no party should use state resources to fund its activities. The president has fused party activities with state activities to the extent that even when he is on the prosperity-for-all campaign – or any other national programme – he is at the same time encouraging support for his party. In effect, he uses state resources to run party activities at the expense of other parties. One finds that since the 2006 general elections, opposition parties have hardly managed a tenth of the mobilisation that the NRM has done. Therefore, it is as plain as a pikestaff that the ground is not level.

- Coupled with the above, NRM candidates have unlimited financial resources from state coffers. This money they use to bribe the voters and buy logistics for the electorate. Like the English say, he who pays the piper calls the tune. In my region – western Uganda – I have hardly seen anyone winning without money. It is also true that many people who openly support opposition parties are denied jobs, tenders and contracts, and if in business they are heavily taxed, while open NRM supporters are given tax waivers or even loans from the Bank of Uganda which are later written off. This denies opposition parties the support of sympathetic businesspersons, who fear campaigning for their parties lest they lose their businesses. On the other hand, NRM-leaning business people rigorously, vehemently and strenuously campaign for their party.

The NRM’s support for right and opposition of wrong is highly disputable. As long as one does not threaten the desire of the president to retain power, regardless of what they do, they will always get away with it. In fact, impunity has become the order of the day, with the security forces – notably the military and the police – torturing people while citing orders from above.

I personally have been a victim of such impunity, which has spread throughout our country. Besides, if the NRM genuinely supported right and opposed wrong, we would not have our very few graduates languishing without jobs while people who forge academic documents steal them. The government is yet to put mechanisms in place to track these criminals down.

If the NRM supported right and opposed wrong, the talk of the marginalisation of the people from the north wouldn’t arise; the president wouldn’t run this country through his family, relatives, in-laws and cronies; sectarianism and nepotism would have been destroyed root and branch; we would have an independent judiciary and a functional parliament; we wouldn’t have special interest groups' representatives such as the youth, workers and the Uganda People’s Defence Forces fused with the NRM; we wouldn’t have flagrant and wanton abuse of human rights; torture would be unheard of and the NRM would not bother bribing voters to support it, for their achievements would speak for themselves.

Many voters have told me that they accept bribes, because they know even if they didn’t they would still have to suffer from a lack of drugs in health centres, from potholes, power blackouts, excessive taxes and continued unemployment. We have witnessed a wave of institutional dysfunction as a result of the inadvertent failure or deliberate refusal of the National Resistance Movement to support right and oppose wrong.

Sadly, the government thrives on voter ignorance and poverty, which it exploits to remain in power. This explains why if the NRM is to stay in power for the next 10 years we are likely to have more than 200 districts with around 1000 sub- districts. This the NRM does purely for political expediency. All we want are services, not worthless districts.

A 'good performance' in the recent local council elections is not what people of the north and all well-intentioned Ugandans want. Ugandans want quality services and equal opportunities on the basis of meritocracy, not patron–client relations. I am not from northern Uganda, but I think people from the north and any other region should cast their vote based on serious issues. For instance, if they are assured that they will not be treated as second-rate citizens. Let the president give the northerners jobs, build them roads, hospitals, schools and equip them with drugs and scholastic materials. Let them partake in state house scholarships, which to date have been the preserve of a few people with particular physical features; dark complexion of the gum and pointed noses. I hope I will not be accused of fanning sectarian sentiments, because all I am doing is condemning the practice thereof.

As we talk now, the calls for secession still simmer among the greater north parliamentarians. But I have been told by one member of parliament that the Ugandan media has been barred from debating it. If Museveni genuinely wants to win over the north, let him have a roundtable with the region’s politicians, civil society activists, academics, religious leaders and all other opinion leaders to share with them their demands. After all, it is he who wears the shoe that knows where it pinches.

As regards the historical principled stand of the NRM, I think that would sound like hogwash and an utter insult to the people of northern Uganda. If I were from the north, I would be asking of the historical principled stand of pushing us to the margins where the term 'marginalisation' comes from. Giving us leftovers from the national cake? Calling us derogatory names such as 'anyanya', 'badugudugu' and 'bakooko' (beasts)? Which historical principled stand? In fact, on the basis of that historical principled stand, the north shouldn’t give a single vote to the NRM, because the president seems to insinuate that the status quo will not change. The north wants an equitable distribution of the national cake, not the president's usual platitudes.

The NRM may win the northern vote come 2011, but little will change in the lives of Ugandans from the north. If genuine transformation is to be realised in both northern Uganda and the country as a whole, the solution will be to extricate Uganda from Museveni's clutches. Otherwise, we shall continue witnessing massive wealth alongside massive poverty with those who have primitively accumulated wealth from the top fighting to maintain the status quo.

The president has deliberately decided to swerve from his blueprint, the 10-point programme and his inaugural speech of 29 January 1986. He has broken so many promises that he feels uncomfortable if one reminds him of his manifestoes, his past speeches and his own book, 'What is Africa’s Problem?', because all he castigated therein is what he has wholeheartedly perfected, effected and embraced.

I must however commend the president for conceding corruption as the evil confronting his party. But I am sure he is merely targeting donor funds, especially from the Millennium Challenge Account which promises aid to fight corruption. Otherwise, the president cannot absolve himself from corruption. He has often ordered the Central Bank to bail out pro-NRM businessmen, and there is no proof that the monies lent to them have been recovered.

I disagree with the president’s narrow confinement of corruption to over-invoicing, bribery and people behaving parasitically with regard to investors. We must add nepotism, sectarianism, perjury and all other sorts of aberrations, deviations from the norm, and abuse and misuse of power and office. We have people who print documents and use them to get jobs. We also have people who hire mercenaries to do their coursework and exams and virtually all of them are well-placed. Our dear president doesn’t look at this as corruption. As long as patronage remains the basis for recruiting office bearers, we shall always compromise quality for political expediency. And as I have stated before, if fake people are hired, what would stop them from perpetuating the system that saw them assume office? Corruption will always beget corruption.

* Vincent Nuwagaba is a political scientist cum human rights activist.
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