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To Ugandans waiting for Museveni to leave: Remove the wax from your ears

Saturday May 19 2012

If there is any topic that Ugandans won’t discard from their day-to-day conversation, it is that of if and when their sit-tight president, Yoweri Museveni, intends to retire. It is not as if he has never commented on the matter. He has, several times. The problem, since he was first elected president after he had served two unelected terms, has always been whether he should be believed. To understand why his retirement remains something of an obsession with many Ugandans, one has to go back to the beginning, when Uganda’s now epic journey with him as president began, way back in 1986.

Former comrades have been telling a captivating story. Apparently, soon after he seized power, he was astonished to discover that some of his colleagues were thinking in terms of hanging around for some years. He wanted to stay for “only” four years and wondered what those who wanted to stay longer would be doing so beyond the four years he reckoned were needed to put the country back on the right footing.
Then four years came and went. And then they became 10 and still he wanted to stay “for one more term” to allow him “to prepare for peaceful transfer of power” or so the crowd around him said. Grateful for the energy and effort he had put into sorting out the mess his predecessors had left behind, in 1996 Ugandans readily obliged and showered him with votes, as it were.

Suffice it to say that by that time those with sharp antennae had already picked up something fishy in the air around the president and were whispering about how he wasn’t about to leave, and that he would contest for elections again in 2001.

Jubilant Ugandans were generally in no mood to listen. Then came 2001 and there he was, again asking for “one more term,” this time to allow him to “professionalise the army.” More Ugandans began to smell the fish. Others, though, decided they would give him what his handlers (some of whom subsequently smelt the fish too and ran off and joined or formed opposition parties) dubbed a “bonus term.” And then came 2006 and he was still around, this time having even led the assault on the Constitution most people lovingly referred to as “the people’s Constitution.” The people, whose views had been carefully canvassed, had recommended two presidential terms of five years each.

The president had been instrumental in ensuring that the Constitution reflected popular opinion. Alas, 10 years after it had become law, he decided he and his close associates knew better. Term limits were scrapped. Just as significantly, he had stopped telling anyone when it was he was thinking of retiring. It had now become the business of “the party,” his National Resistance Movement, which he dominates completely, to decide when he should leave.

Since then, party spokespersons and most members parrot that same position whenever the question of his departure comes up for discussion. Only a few young hotheads have dared to challenge it in his presence, during a party meeting, and asked when he was going. According to media reports, rather than answer the question, the president left for the lavatory and delegated one of his aides, loyal David Mafabi, to do so on his behalf. Caught unprepared, poor Mafabi could only manage, “Where do you want him to go?”

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Well, last week Mzee, as some of his loyalists fondly refer to him, finally came clean on the matter. Or so curiosity-filled Ugandans hope. He still said nothing about when exactly he intends to leave. All he wanted them to know is that he does not expect to still be the tenant at State House after he turns 75. It leaves him plenty of room for manoeuvre and, for Ugandans and other Museveni watchers, for speculation.

Significantly, however, it is not the party that decided. Apparently he looked to science for inspiration: “After the age of 75 there is some scientific idea there that maybe the vigour is not as much as before… if you want very active leaders it is good to have ones below the age of 75”.

What he would say if “the party” insisted on him staying? Those who are familiar with the inner workings of “the party,” however, know already that this is going to be the new hit song. That, though, leaves an outstanding question: Soon after he came to power, he made it clear that Africa’s biggest problem was leaders who overstayed their welcome. Ugandans remember that rather well. Those who were not yet born have heard about it or read it in his book What is Africa’s Problem?

What does he think now? Well, he insists he said more than that: “What I was saying that time was leaders who stay in power without the mandate of the people, that is what I was saying.” Well, Ugandans had been going through a difficult patch when he seized power. It is possible they were not washing properly and so had too much wax in the ears. He said one thing. They heard another. Whatever he wrote, they misread as well. They are to blame.

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