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What will a post-Museveni Uganda be like?
We often talk about a Post-Museveni Uganda without discussing what shape such a dispensation will take. During Gen. Museveni’s Evil Empire of a tenure, we have witnessed death, destruction and debt mounting to debilitate a once healthy nation. One thing that has defined the Gen. Museveni junta is not only its endemic corruption and autocratic rule, but the way it has sanitized the same by using the law. Indeed, the law has been instrumental keeping justice at bay.
All told, Gen. Museveni has fiddled with provisions of the current constitution to remove term limits as well any caps on the age of a presidential candidate so that, being well over 75 years of age, he was not eligible to stand at the polls in 2021. Again, Gen. Museveni has imposed a number of draconian laws on Ugandans such as the Public Order Management Act, 2013, which was so foul that, in 2020, Uganda’s Constitutional Court nullified part of the Act. The Court declared Section 8, which gave the Inspector General of Police mediaeval powers to prevent or stop public gatherings, illegal and unconstitutional.
This brings us to how things will take shape in a post-Museveni Uganda.
It is clear that when Gen. Museveni and his associates are gone, there shall be a dawn of sanity based on the overturning of everything he has done. This will happen.
Recall Isaac Newton’s Third Law, Action and Reaction? Newton’s third law states that for every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. Hence, if object A exerts a force on object B, object B also exerts an equal and opposite force on object A. In other words, forces result from interactions.
The equal and opposite reaction of a post-Museveni Uganda will thus lead to the undoing of every crime Gen. Museveni has committed in the name of governance. This does not imply revenge, it means restitution. The term limits imposed on age and lifted terms limits will be restored.
However, these two might be restored before a post-Museveni Uganda arrives because he is sure to use either or both as bargaining chips to amend the constitution once more in order to usher his son, Gen. Kainerugaba, into office. Returning to the notion of restitution, Gen. Museveni’s controlling stake in every big business and public corporation in Uganda will be whittle down to the very air that his leadership has supplied the country since 1986.
We have seen plenty of African despots whose wealth has been seized, upon their departure from power.
Take Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga of the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, for instance. He created a lootocracy which saw him stashing huge sums of stolen loot in Switzerland worth over $6.68 billion. With the 2.49% inflation rate means this money in 1997 is equivalent to $12 billion today.
In a report by the Economist, “Between 1965 and 1987, GDP per head fell by 2.4%. In 1987 a Zaire was worth about one US cent. By October 1993 there were 6.9m to the dollar.” When it came to Mobutu and money, “His bank account was indistinguishable from the national treasury.” However, when he was ousted, his properties were auctioned off and his accounts frozen. None of his colossal wealth remains today.
There shall also be jail time for Gen. Museveni’s associates. If he doesn’t die in power, he will face jailtime too. These punitive measures will ensure that a post-Museveni Uganda is the exact opposite to the vampiric Museveni junta.
Then, Uganda shall rise from the rubble of Museveni’s misrule.
Columnist Matogo can be reached via [email protected]
