As Museveni fights ‘rebels’, who is governing Uganda?

There is this common expression: Throwing good money after bad. For the benefit of young readers; after you have spent some money on what turns out to be a worthless enterprise, you may be tempted to spend more to turn around your luck. The initial expenditure is what we call bad money. The money not yet spent (and could be saved) is good money. Spending the good money on top of the bad increases your losses.

A little bit of phrase engineering gives us: Throwing good time after bad. And since time is money, multiplying time wastage is economic sabotage. A lone peasant who spends hours shifting his bedroom rags looking for a lost safety-pin can be left to lick his jiggers; but what about a ruler whose actions or omissions affect millions of people?

Surrounded by a sea of problems, from grand corruption and donor aid cuts to ghosts of dead politicians, President Museveni herded members of the NRM Parliamentary Caucus to the National Leadership Institute at Kyankwanzi. Although everybody knows that the issue of rebellious NRM MPs was what drove an angry Gen. Museveni to Kyankwanzi, the public has been given the poorly sustained pretence that the gathering has a whole lot of other interests bigger than the rebels.

The truth in this case seems to be that all those other interests are excuses and deliberate distractions. The heart of things is to try and ram submission (politely called “party cohesion”) down the throats of skeptical and rebellious party members, as well as spreading fear in the media and the increasingly restless broader society.

From way back, the NRM has used Kyankwanzi to promote the cult of the warrior. The warrior is the liberator. The warrior understands discipline and obedience. The warrior restores order where the civilian brings confusion. The warrior is honest and patriotic. A civilian who wants to become a better citizen, especially a better leader, must seek some of the attributes of the warrior, the higher man. The warrior should be worshipped.

Over the years, and in spite of all the leaders who have gone through the Leadership Institute, Uganda has rapidly grown into a Mafia-like vampire state. And yet – old cults die hard – so often when his government is getting a bashing, Gen. Museveni dresses his officials in fake army uniform and lectures and threatens them at Kyankwanzi. The only attribute of the warrior that he seems to consider still desirable is obedience; or, more accurately, submission. Museveni’s expression for beating errant politicians into line is to “de-toxicate”, although perhaps “de-toxify” might be preferred.

However, while paying obsessive attention to this task of removing poison (no mischievous allusion intended) from rebellious politicians, as he has been doing this week, there must be gaps in the workings of an already incompetent and cash-strapped government. In short, who is governing Uganda?

Unlike countries where public institutions work with a high degree of autonomy, Uganda is largely micro-managed by the President. The President will be heard directing that such a person be questioned by the police; he will publicly tell off a minister who made a move he did not like, in effect making the minister reluctant to make decisions in other circumstances; he will get involved in a dispute over a plot of land; he is defence policy; he is oil policy; he is hydropower station priest; he is arbiter in Muslim quarrels; he is negotiating with investors; he is closing his eyes – or one of his eyes – when thieves are claiming billions and forging powerful documents; he is instructing the IGG where to look and PAC where not to look. So, instead of throwing good taxpayers’ money and presidential time on bad at a Kyankwanzi outfit that has shown itself to be a failure, why not spend the same resources on governing Uganda? A good job done there would make the rebels redundant and Kyankwanzi retreats unnecessary.

Allan Tacca is a novelist and socio-political
commentator. altaccaone@gmail.com