By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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Ugandans tend to get wary of lawyer Male Mabirizi’s relentless pursuit of justice in courts of law. We are a fatalist society and get impatient when someone insists on pursuing something that is hard to get – like justice – and we often ask of him, “Now what is he dying for?”

Many lawyers actually dislike Mabirizi, who hogs the limelight when he sues a public figure — which is all the time — and sneer that “the fellow isn’t even an enrolled advocate of the High Court.” Apparently, Mabirizi forewent the bar course, despite having been an A student at law school, and it is suspected he did so to avoid being under regulation and control, for practising lawyers must get and annually renew a practising certificate. So he sues as a concerned citizen.

Courts rarely rule in Mabirizi’s favour, but he scored a huge victory a few years ago when he successfully sued the Members of Parliament who had resolved to grant themselves an extra two years in office en masse beyond the five years they were elected for, and the bizarre extension was nullified! Mabirizi recently served a year and a half stretch in prison for annoying judges — understandably.

But this story is not about Mabirizi. It is about people in authority using their power of signature to frustrate the interests of the people they are appointed or elected to serve, leading to the rise of the likes of Mabirizi, whom a public that has lost hope call mavericks, while the targets they sue claim they are paid by their enemies.

Last month, Mabirizi aimed his telescopic legal rifle beyond Uganda’s borders — at State House Nairobi. He ran to the East African Court of Justice contesting President William Ruto’s action of recalling East African Community Secretary-General Peter Mathuki and “demoting him” to ambassadorship in Russia. The recall timing was curious, coming just as some East African MPs were moving to probe Mathuki for financial accountability. Mabirizi argues that a president of a country that nominated a candidate ceases having authority over their tenure as the SG is appointed by a different authority — all the EAC presidents.

Now, last week, the rest of the East Africans got told by the media what only the Kenyans previously knew, that Nairobi’s nominations for the highest office of the EAC (there have been two since the recall of Mathuki) are about balancing Kenya’s local tribal politics. While the two ladies nominated so far have impressive CVs that qualify them for the SG job, Nairobi would really be taking the 300 million East Africans for granted by exporting its ethnic arithmetics to Arusha, that the SG post “belongs” to a particular tribe that must be allowed to “complete its term”.

Beyond disrespecting “only” 300 million East Africans, next month it will be East Africa’s turn to nominate candidates for the presidency of the African Commission in Addis Ababa, to manage the affairs of one and a half billion Africans. Will some countries nominate candidates to fix their domestic issues, thus externalising their problems to Addis? Would the EA court handling Mabirizi’s case expeditiously help give direction to how candidates for running inter-state agencies are selected rather than buying off local interests with international jobs that are meant for service delivery to more countries!

The issues at hand regarding these interstate agencies are well known, actually better known, by the presidents. The issues are mostly economic like building infrastructure, promoting trade and uplifting the social well-being of the people, especially the youth and women. The presidents have the intel systems that inform them better than what we ordinary mortals know about what drives the nomination of candidates in individual states.

Let East African presidents bear in mind what is at stake for Africa at this point when the growing external debt is about to be leveraged to reverse our independence when a few powerful countries are jostling for Africa’s strategic mineral fields as if the Africans are just not there when Africa’s 55 heads of state and government must not act like fellow conspirators of the external forces that are scheming to empty the continent of its resources with minimal benefit to their real owners.

While no individual African country can keep out the looming sophisticated recolonisation on its own, by working together, the continent can. The starting point is to identify the right candidate to run the “African government” in Addis, not someone being given a job to balance a political equation in just one of the 55 countries.

Moreover, even in countries where such candidates are being appeased, not all the citizens applaud such a settlement. In fact, over half would be against it.

Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail:[email protected]