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Take a bullet for Uganda, kick Museveni upstairs to EAC presidency

Tuesday October 09 2018
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Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni. It’s difficult to see how, given how divided and radicalised Ugandan politics has become, Museveni’s rule will end on anything less than a messy note. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By Charles Onyango-Obbo

Kalonzo Musyoka, co-leader of Kenya’s opposition coalition NASA, caused quite a stir on social media when, presiding over a university graduation ceremony in Uganda, he urged that President Yoweri Museveni be named the East African Community’s first president.

Many East Africans thought Kalonzo had lost his marbles; in Kenya in particular, where presidential term limits are still observed, and many despise Museveni as a throwback from a bygone era of presidents for life, people were particularly appalled.

Museveni will soon clock 33 years in office since seizing power at the head of a victorious rebel army in 1986.

He oversaw the amendment of the constitution in 2005 to scrap presidential term limits, and earlier this year put through another change to remove the 75-year upper age limit for candidates for the presidency, paving the way for him to chase 40 years in State House in the 2021 election.

Faced with an increasingly restless nation, Museveni has resorted to old-fashioned methods to keep his hold on power – go hammer and tongs at the opposition, beat and jail demonstrators.

Kalonzo is right in saying that Museveni is a staunch East Africanist, though he often likes to pick and choose which bits of the regional integration project to take on board. Thus his government has not thrown the doors open for all East Africans to work freely in Uganda, falling way behind both Kenya and late-EAC entrant Rwanda.

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Part of that is that Museveni, philosophically, believes that given Africa’s history of arbitrary borders, economic integration should follow political union, and therefore the current EAC is a mongrel that he is happy to live with, mostly because it is the path to political federation.

Kalonzo’s statement didn’t come out of the blue. It’s likely to be a trial balloon, to see how the idea will go down, because it has been whispered in some corridors in East Africa’s capitals that this may possibly be the way to persuade Museveni to get off Uganda’s back after so many decades, and allow the country and region to breathe.

Often, when criticism of his rule reaches fever pitch, Museveni plays reluctant strongman, saying he would rather be down at his farm tending his cattle. He sneers at his salary, despite the fact that State House is one of Uganda’s leading budget guzzlers.

And, of course, he then promptly goes ahead to change the Constitution to enable him to prolong his stay, then deploys the security services to brutalise the opposition elements agitating for him to retire to his preferred life as a rancher.

It’s difficult to see how, given how divided and radicalised Ugandan politics has become, Museveni’s rule will end on anything less than a messy note.

There are two countries in East Africa for which this instability can prove extremely disruptive: Kenya, because it is still the gateway to the world for most of the region’s economies excepting Tanzania, and Uganda because it is the bridge to the East and Central African hinterland.

Therefore, there’s something serious there. The rest of East Africa should take a bullet for Uganda.

It’s actually possible to take the East African project to the next stage, and create a “starter” regional political structure led by a president, as part of a long-term transition to a full-blown federation.

Give that one to Museveni. Ugandans will thank East Africa into the year 2075.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is publisher of data visualiser Africapaedia and Rogue Chiefs. Twitter@cobbo3

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