A response to Jim Muhwezi’s philosophy on Rukungiri by-election

In a democracy, the Opposition is indispensable and the rule of law is sustained by an educated population. In a dictatorship, the Opposition is an enemy and the rule of law is maintained by a compliant army.

In the context of the above statements, we discuss former minister Jim Muhwezi’s comments published in the New Vision of June 26. In Mr Muhwezi’s opinion, the NRM lost the Rukungiri District Woman MP by-election because of the tendencies of elements who are ideologically bankrupt, combined with politicians who use divisionism and NRM members who did not bother to vote.

He heaps the greatest criticism on the unprincipled Opposition members who put aside their differences and descended on Rukungiri to interfere in the by-election. He further claims that security forces who had been recruited to guard the NRM votes had been compromised and failed to fulfil their obligations.

These statements are not only controversial but fallacious because they are not borne out by history, facts or truth. They are typical of Uganda’s new brand of politicking. Rukungiri is part of Kigezi sub-region of western Uganda.

Its people; the Banyarwanda, the Bahororo and Bakiga have for centuries been one people. They have lived together in harmony, sharing the same culture and clan names with their neighbours and they have always intermarried.

Without going into details, in the scramble to partition and own chunks of Africa by Europeans, Kigezi was taken by the British. In consequence, the colonial masters did not change the historical bond between the Banyakigezi. However, on the eve of Uganda’s independence, the multiple headed monster known as politics visited the hitherto innocent and happy people of Kigezi.

At the beginning, the monster started modestly using religion, tribe and foreign ideologies to divide and dominate the same people. It deliberately planted into the minds of the population foreign myth, including what Muhwezi calls ideologies, the meaning of which millions of Ugandans and the Banyakigezi were ignorant about even today.

The Banyakigezi who embraced this foreign culture quickly learnt how to manipulate it to be better than their fellow Kigezians and monopolise the regional cake to the exclusion of all others. That was how today’s Ugandan politics began. They started in Buganda and within no time spread like locusts and invaded every part of the country. They were fuelled by an imperial colonial bug known as divide and rule which had been invented and now flourished in Kigezi.

The bug has many facets but its purpose is for you and your people, the rest can go to hell. Politics is about national resources, wealth and who owns, controls, distributes or can steal it from other people.

Politicians are the masters of this game and its techniques. It has been under this game that Kigezi was divided into numerous districts beginning with Kabale, Kisoro and Rukungiri. Today Kigezi is balkanised into numerous tinny districts.
Mr Muhwezi deliberately omitted the negative elements which led the NRM to lose the Rukungiri by-election. He did not disclose that most people voted and supported the Opposition because of NRM’s failures in the constituency.

He conveniently avoided mentioning that the margins of winning and losing the by-election had nothing to do with religion, tribe or ethnicity at all. Muhwezi was unable to concede that NRM lost mainly because of the way it governs the constituency and Uganda.

In reality, these are the main reasons why the people of Rukungiri voted for FDC. They felt that they had been taken for granted by the NRM because of the ethnicity or affinity relationships with its leadership.

As Muhwezi correctly observed, the people of Rukungiri have eventually discovered the trick. Hence in their bitterness they have adopted a slogan that, if you want money get it from NRM, but if you want good governance vote for Opposition.