By Black Star:
Yet another minister in Gen. Yoweri Museveni’s cabinet has come out to categorically scuttle away the raw ambitions of the latter’s prospective successors to State House vowing to work only with Museveni until he leaves office. Internal Affairs minister, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu has told Museveni that he [Museveni] should not count him [Kamuntu] “amongst supporters of those seeking the presidency after you”. Only recently, Prof Kamuntu’s ministerial predecessor, Retired Maj-Gen Kahinda Otafiire, criticized human rights abusers and torturers in Uganda and said a true general is one who can win a fight without firing a single bullet. The fearless Otafiire is now Water and Environment minister.
So far in high gear and on the mark to replace Museveni is none other than his only known biological son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba; he who heads the military and chairs the political outfit, the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU). The Constitution of the Republic of Uganda and the army laws bar active-service officers from taking part in partisan politics.
PLU has, however, stepped up political mobilization efforts in which sections of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) MPs and ministers have already endorsed Gen. Muhoozi for the presidency come 2031. Despite the fact that Uganda just-concluded presidential elections on January 15 which retained Museveni in power after 40 years, PLU, in August, started mobilization campaigns, holding political rallies and collecting 20 million signatures supporting Muhoozi’s presidential candidacy in 2031.
But Prof. Kamuntu will have none of it and tells Museveni on October 24: “I will work with you and leave once you exit. Don’t count [me] amongst supporters of those seeking the presidency after you. I don’t want people to second-guess where I stand.”
Prof. Kamuntu was a staunch Milton Obote’s Uganda People’s Congress party member but when political expediency came calling under Museveni’s calculus, he had to abandon the independence party in the 1990s to join the current ruling NRM.
Prof. Kamuntu’s assurance to Museveni comes in the heels of NRM MP representing Older Persons from the eastern flank of the country, Ofwono Opondo, wondering why a “beeline” of Museveni’s ministers were endorsing a presidential aspirant only five months after the January 15 polls that ushered in the current cabinet announced in May. “There are things going on in the country that give people in distant places worry. For example, five months after the election, ministers are already endorsing another presidential aspirant. Could these political games undermine confidence in the sitting president, scare away investors and undo 40 years of progress?” Ofwono Opondo asked on the premium political accountability talk show on October 24, The Capital Gang program of Kampala’s Capital Radio.
On the talk show, Ofwono Opondo, formerly Museveni government’s mouthpiece, repeated his October 22 call on the Floor of Parliament where he implored government functionaries to respect the inherent human rights of Ugandans. The military and the intelligence services in the country have been variously accused of abusing citizen rights through arbitrary arrests, abductions, incommunicado unwarranted detentions and torturing citizens with unbridled abandon some of which Gen Muhoozi has severally confirmed in his tweets.
“It is for the good of the NRM and those jostling for power to be seen to be respecting the rule of law and the procedures, especially if you are seeking to replace President Museveni, because he is the most tolerant,” Ofwono Opondo said on Capital Gang, and elucidated: “Whoever wants to replace President Museveni must do more than he has done in terms of tolerance and verbal engagement, rather than using crude power.” Museveni has sometimes said he has his mouth to talk and respond to criticisms. In other cases, he has always butted away criticisms saying “those who criticise me on radio are stupid”.
Ofwono Opondo argued that Museveni’s successor should be prepared to engage opponents through dialogue and tolerate differing views. “If they think they can rule by the gun, they should try walking through downtown Kampala without security or guns. The only supreme leader I know of is the Ayatollah [of Iran] and I wonder why the title has been imported into Uganda. I would dare, if you think the gun can rule and sustain, just for a minute, walk downtown (Kampala) without the guns. Walk downtown without escorts and we see,” Ofwono Opondo dared the torturers. Some of Gen Muhoozi’s supporters refer to him as “supreme leader”.
The issue of widespread human rights abuses, according to Ofwono Opondo, is a hot potato which NRM leaders, including ministers, sweep under the carpet for fear of crude and rude repercussions from the gun-wielding powers that be.
“In the Parliamentary Caucus of the NRM, to which I belong,” Ofwono Opondo recalls, “the issue of human rights has been persistent during the five months we have been in Parliament [sworn-in in May]. I have spoken to the [Government] Chief Whip and to the NRM leaders in Parliament [front bench or ministers] and there has not been any efforts to have that discussion in the caucus. And my reading is that they are unwilling to engage because of the repudiation. They don’t know what will follow if they allow that discussion in an official forum.”
According to Ofwono Opondo, the Human Rights Committee of Parliament is an accountability committee which should have been chaired by the Opposition but the ruling NRM always hijacks it. So much so that, he regrets, the Human Rights Committee of the 11th Parliament (May 2021-May 2026) did not produce any single report during its last five years in office.
Ofwono Opondo worries that such records of human rights abuse and premature political alignments and alliances could have political and economic consequences that makes investors hysterical with uncertainty about injecting their monies in Uganda. “Before investors come into any country,” Ofwono Opondo sought to counsel, “they first look at State institutions if they are functioning. For example, an investor would want to know that if he has a dispute, will the judicial court system resolve it in time?”
Similarly, it is now apparent, loyalty to Museveni and his government appears to be shifting from the father to the son and thereby putting unity within the ruling establishment to a litmus test.
“That man is an army officer. He is not interested in politics in Uganda,” Museveni told Al-Jazeera in October 2013 when the Muhoozi Project was leaked out. Recently, it was reported that when junior Public Service minister, Lydia Wanyoto-Mutende asked Museveni at a cabinet meeting about the on-going endorsement of Muhoozi yet they (NRM) still want Museveni to continue ruling, it is said Museveni ordered her to sit down and went on to address totally different matters as if no important question was put to him.
Museveni’s continued silence on cries of human rights abuse and break down in the rule of law in Uganda convinces many that he has already either ‘abdicated’ or ‘transitioned’ power to his son through osmosis.
