Age limit fracas: Attacks on Kadaga are misguided

Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has come under passionate reproach from all quarters, so much that if you haven’t picked and hurled the nearest stone at the country’s number three, your standing in the crowded public discourse space is wobbly. As I sifted through commentary, I flipped through the wisdom of Will Durant, who counselled, “Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt - particularly to doubt one’s cherished beliefs, one’s dogmas and one’s axioms” while in Mark Twain’s wisdom, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
I shall take the uninsured and uninsurable risk of appearing to defend the Speaker by asking the question: “Can all the sordid drama have just been about Kadaga?” I seek to draw your attention to what in my humblest view is the elephant in the room: The capture of State institutions by the Museveni military dictatorship. I think the Speaker should have, against all odds, exercised better sense of judgment and emotional intelligence on the dark day when security invaded Parliamentary Chambers. Kadaga ought to have foreseen the bloodletting and desecration of Parliament given the fist-fights days before and done everything humanly possible to avert the same. Even if she wanted to help score goals for NRM where she is a senior official, she should have done that with a mask of decency on her face.
Worse still, it was heart-breaking to watch her bark at the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, who tried to bring to her attention the vagueness of the House sitting given the bloodbath minutes passed. A visibly angry and vicious Kadaga, with emotions raging, wasn’t ready to listen and chaired an NRM Caucus meeting purporting to legislate for the country in a multi-party August House amid fear, intimidation and anxiety. That was indefensible legislative rape orchestrated by the Speaker.
As opposed to the 2005 Black Mamba incident at the High Court where the Judiciary was up in arms, the assault on the House had the Speaker as an active participant, aider, abettor and conspirator in the ignominy. Even the gods of Kamuli will join her critics and ask her to go down for some strokes of the cane for this reckless conduct.
That said, however, we need to pose the question again, and debate it squarely devoid of emotional sentiment: Is this just about Kadaga? I think not. I actually think Kadaga means well for the independence of the Legislature and has done what many Speakers in her circumstances, would possibly not do.
When she stood with the rebel MPs and the Supreme Court, to its credit, validated her reasoning, she came under attack from NRM. Kadaga, her human faults notwithstanding, will bite the bullet in the interest of the House and gather the courage to tell the President he is wrong in a government where all and sundry consider Museveni the second in command after God.
But the dynamics are not as plain as they appear on television. This is about Museveni’s fate. He has fought all his life to be president and die one. Anyone who crosses that path will meet the wrath of their lifetime. In fact, watching the events unfold, I saw a subdued Speaker, a mass of human flesh bellowing orders that seemed to come from sources other than her own vocal cords. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the elephant in the room. The independence of our institutions and whether those running them actually have sufficient legroom to make decisions through their will and consent. Unless we secure independence of these institutions, it will be foolhardy to raise the bar for the office holders. They are only human and work within a context and web of complex dynamics.
If that is not tackled, we shall continue throwing misguided missiles, and like grasshoppers in a bottle, bite one another. The issue at hand cannot be about a good or bad Speaker, but the operating environment, which even in our own private spaces, determines the course of human action. Unless and until the chains of bondage in which the Museveni system has placed officials like Kadaga are shattered, uglier incidents will unfold and we shall find all our public officials villainous as one citizen laughs away.
It is fair and justified to attack the Speaker, but let’s not forget the operating environment which would have left her with the option of resigning and fleeing the country like Justice Sylvere Nimpagaritse, the vice-president of Burundi’s constitutional court – which was about to decide on the legality of a contested third term for president Pierre Nkurunziza did in 2015.
The other option was for her to do the right thing like Kenya’s Chief Justice David Maraga, etch her name in history, but enjoy the honour in her grave like many who have been buried with whispers of strange causes of demise. Not many are ready for martyrdom yet.

Mr Okuda is a lawyer, journalist and fellow with the Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies. [email protected]