Age limit is heart of the matter and matter of the heart

Firstly, I, as are many Ugandans, do not mind the Constitution being amended. However, what I detest is the spirit in which it is done. This country has been crying for electoral reforms and smooth transfer of power since independence. Does the age limit Bill have to come through a private member for Uganda to see the light as to where we are heading? Why this frenzy of activities over the Bill when there is a minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs? I think the minister for this docket needs to resign for being idle.
Secondly, it is clear that the NRM, and most of our newer political parties, have not metamorphosed into parties of ideas than parties of personalities. They are dead without the founding leaders because they are built on personalities and, therefore, are political cults. For the NRM without President Museveni, most of the leaders are unelectable unless they hang on the hem of the President’s coat.
You know it because unless the President comes into a constituency and campaigns with a few promises and some cash, the party does not do well. This has killed the spirit of industry, voluntarism and venture. Idlers who hop around tend to benefit more than hard working and resilient people.
Unfortunately, the President and NRM’s success has become their undoing. The President is a good a leader who defeats and destroys his opponents (both within and without) that NRM has no successors to the President left. The Opposition, largely, is the debris of this defeat and crush policy. The remaining leaders in NRM ultimately are discouraged and have either lost interest or the opportunity and have resorted to the politics of survival, as one minister succinctly put it. Such a system where nothing happens unless the big man says so, is inept, corrupt and expensive.
It is filled with abirigations, anitetions, nankabirics and lokerics. If work is done only for political profit, what then is the future of Uganda? By this time, the President, the most proficient for a time, should have completed grooming his successor - not one, two or three - but many! No wonder in NRM, nobody seems to know who is who and where north or east is when the President is away.
Thirdly, succession, as I know it (as a retired bishop), is a very joyful thing. It proves your success as a leader. Samuel in the Bible was an exceptional leader. But at the end of his life, he dazzled so much that nobody emerged fit to succeed him, not even his sons could come near to succeed him. As such, Israel demanded to shift the political system from judges to a kingdom system copied from the customs and traditions of the neighbouring nations!
This demand brought all sorts of problems to Israel, which was a theocracy. Is it that the NRM system is unsustainable for Uganda that supporters cannot see beyond President Museveni? Perhaps it takes too much energy to keep resisting forever unless you are God!
The problem, as the President has often said, is that when all avenues of change are blocked and people are driven to desperation and feel claustrophobic, they try all ways to break out. This happened in 1980. Ugandans still respect the current leaders who led that ‘fundamental” change in the history of Uganda. They believe the NRM leaders are very rational people who see reason for orderly transitions.
But doubt is beginning to set in. The initial intentions, good as they were, are now being muddled by the President’s ‘fighting for myself and my beliefs’ rhetoric. It is now apparent that the heart of the matter is the matter in the President’s heart of not fighting ‘for the nation and people of Uganda.’
Fourthly, why does NRM keep saying this amendment is not about President Museveni? If it were not for him, why did he not (the President) call the NEC and say - this is not about me, it is about Uganda, amend Article 102(b) for the benefit of Uganda.
Why did NRM wait for the President to go away so that MP Raphael Magyezi could table the Bill as if it had nothing to do with him? Why go through a private member (though legal) as if you were a common thief trying to gain access to a home through the small gate? I am now convinced that the age limit amendment Bill was sneaked through the back door because the government, according to the President, is full of idlers, people who are doing nothing to make this country prosperous and strong. They want the President to continue to work day and night to make Uganda what it should be for them.
If, however, it was in the President’s heart, why didn’t he come to Ugandans and say “I am asking the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs to draft an amendment on the age limit because I have some unfinished business” and Ugandans could see whether or not to give him?
Such an approach would be transparent, and such transparency would have rid us of this expensive venture (Shs13 billion for MPs consultation), the running about, tear gas, beatings and making the Parliament a spectacle of barbaric behaviour. Worse still, the amendment has become a party matter when the Constitution is not a party, but a national matter.
Finally, I feel that the age limit can and should be lifted because the spirit for its formulation was bad. The age limit was meant to block Milton Obote from vying for power again. But see how bad laws catch up with their makers! The removal of the age limits, therefore, should be followed by the reinstatement of the term limits. Only then will the 1995 Constitution’s purest intentions be realised.

The Rt Rev Dr Obetia is the bishop (rtd) of Madi and West Nile diocese and a Senior Teaching Fellow, Uganda Christian University Mukono.