Bukenya vows to give Museveni a run for his money come 2016

2016 presidential race. “We have always been endorsing one person as a presidential candidate. We have had elections for secretary general before but not a presidential candidate. If they cheat me, then I will quit and contest for president independently.”

Busiro North legislator Gilbert Balibaseka Bukenya, who served as vice president from 2003 to 2011, has declared that he will run against President Museveni in 2016. In an exclusive interview, Richard Wanambwa caught up with him at his Kakiri Country home and here are the excerpts.

We have heard talk that you are gearing up to contest for the leadership of NRM and subsequently contest for president of Uganda. Are you finally throwing the hat in the ring?

Well, leadership is not a monopoly of one person. Leadership must be for more than one person competing for the chair. I now feel I must not be out of the game; I will compete within the party and we see who wins the nomination for party presidential candidate, then we will support that person. So I am going to be in the “football game” in 2016.

What has changed that now you want to challenge President Yoweri Museveni? Don’t you think he will defeat you or you’ll be cheated?
It will be the first time the NRM calls a delegates’ conference to elect a presidential candidate. We have always been endorsing one person for the presidential candidacy. We have had elections for secretary general before but not a presidential candidate. If they cheat me, then I will quit and contest for President independently.

Don’t you fear that you will be expelled from the party like the four MPs who were recently expelled for opposing party positions and the President?

If you stick to the truth, you’ll never fear anything. But if you want to stick to the position of manipulation, then you fear something. I have supported NRM from its inception, I was instrumental in having it registered with the Electoral Commission and I am one of the signatories on the founding documents.
Yes, I hear this talk that they want to expel me from the party but this is being spread by a very young man, Mr Ronald Kibuule, who was not even there during the formation of NRM party. I think he must still be learning politics so I don’t think anyone will dare take his position. And if he was sent by somebody, you can hear a lot of noise within the NRM party; that what has Bukenya done, what is making him be punished? How about the others who are also around and they are not being punished? So I am waiting to see.

What are you bringing on the table as a game changer?

The country must change, the country must create priorities and we stick to those priorities and for me I think that right now, the priorities must be zero corruption practically, not zero corruption by voices, it must be practical. Everybody who has a question mark must go through a process of clearance. The scandal I see in the Prime Minister’s office is alarming, what I saw in the pension’s office is terrible and what I see in health clinics is very bad. There is no medicine; there is nothing! We must fight the hemorrhage of money from the government so that money is used in areas where we need to use it.

For example if you put Shs250 million in a bag and you throw it to the youth and in the next health centre there are no medicines, what is the use of throwing this money instead of giving it to that health unit so that it can operate and have healthy people who work better?
Secondly, we must focus maximally on agriculture because agriculture is the step for income generation in this country.
I am very worried about the way money is being used in the agriculture sector; Naads today, no Naads tomorrow, Naads doesn’t do this the next day, Naads does this! You can see a lot of confusion in the agricultural sector yet that is the backbone of development in this country.

The public believes that there are people within the government who steal money but are untouchable. Since you have worked in very high offices, how true is this statement?

Well, I can’t say yes and I can’t say no. But certainly there is no equal dispensing of justice in the fight against corruption. Unless everybody is treated the same, we shall end up failing to fight corruption and that is why we are currently failing. If Bukenya was in the OPM [Office of the Prime Minister] as a political leader, he would now be under the hangman’s noose because with Chogm, I was a political leader and when some things went wrong you saw what happened.
In this case, we are seeing it differently and when you look at the old people who have worked so hard to develop this country unable to get their pension because some people are eating and stealing it and no action is taken, then I wonder what is going on. There must be political action as well as action by the civil service.

Do you think the NRM system and President Museveni in particular will allow you to challenge him and you still remain in NRM?

He should, because for me I have always admired President Museveni for being democratic; for fighting to free this country from dictatorship. All the people around where I live here in Kakiri and Masulita supported him because he was fighting dictatorship, he was fighting nepotism and he was fighting undemocratic processes. Therefore, I expect that during the process of choosing leadership within NRM, there will be fair elections and if it is not there, then we shall say ‘well, people no longer believe in democracy here, they believe in nepotism and it is time for us to quit’.

Have you started mobilising people within the NRM, especially the delegates?

I haven’t and I don’t need to because I expect the delegates – since most of them are political delegates – to see the truth and vote for the truth. And if they think the country must continue sinking well they do what they want to do but if they want the country to change, then they will have to make decisions. I don’t want to go around the country campaigning with money like some people are beginning to do.