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At last, we’ve found a retirement home for Museveni; it's called East Africa

Thursday October 25 2018
M7

What now is preoccupying Uganda’s eminent politicians is how to “persuade President Museveni to give up power peacefully.” They are caught in this theory that Museveni cannot be defeated in an election, so they must negotiate him into leaving power. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGAH | NMG

By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

I am Ugandan but I am no longer sure I understand Ugandans.

As usual, many things are happening in the country at the same time but one topic that is becoming dominant is an upcoming national dialogue.

A group of eminent senior citizens and religious leaders is organising the dialogue in the near future and they are optimistic because President Yoweri Museveni has reportedly agreed to attend.

The political opposition have tabled their demands of what must be on the agenda. And therein lies Uganda’s definition of national issues – politics.

It is as if politics were the beginning and the end of life in the country. So the national dialogue is going to be about politics. Yet of all the sectors, politics is the one whose rules of engagement and activity are the most clearly written and spelt out.

We have a Constitution that took several years to write from thousands of views collected from all villages in the country.

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The Constitution was promulgated 23 years ago and there is a functional, very active parliament whose business is passing laws formulated by some of the best paid public servants in the country. Yet Ugandans want a national dialogue about politics.

Ugandans are so obsessed with politics that you would have expected them to be good at it.

However, 56 years of Independence including 23 years under the “people’s own Constitution” that was debated and enacted by a special assembly of directly elected delegates, they seem not to know how to go about politics.

Periodic presidential and parliamentary elections are held unfailingly every five years but there is still no political consensus.

Now they want a special dialogue because apparently the parliament and elections cannot deliver the politics they want. “Seeking ye first the political kingdom” is the most enduring lesson they learnt from Kwame Nkrumah.

And why not? They are free to hold as many dialogues as they want. Let us just pray that a topic other than how politicians can share the spoils of power also gets a mention at the dialogue.

And listening to the politicians, the political dialogue has just one main point, the others being just top-dressing, and it is called transition; how to get from the current to the next president without going to war.

So, what now is preoccupying Uganda’s eminent politicians is how to “persuade President Museveni to give up power peacefully.” They are caught in this theory that Museveni cannot be defeated in an election, so they must negotiate him into leaving power.

It gets even more interesting as they suggest offering him the sweetener of leading a future East African federation.

That is what is puzzling about Ugandans’ being obsessed with politics and yet not being any good at it.

How on earth do they convert their president into president of a federation of six countries? Will the other five states just accept him as their leader because you have failed to vote him out?

How shall you explain to them why you removed your presidential term limits from the Constitution if you did not want one wo/man to rule you for longer than 10 years? Won’t they just advise you to restore the term limits rather than turning their region into your retirement house?

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