Mulwana’s smooth transition carries lessons for our politics

There are names one grows up hearing repeatedly. In the beginning, one is never aware what those names actually signify. Names like Mulwana. Of course, James Mulwana was a powerful businessman.
Whatever his shortcomings, the overall public sentiment is one of respect and loss. His business empire and wealth grew but a visible sense of humility about him stayed. He must have been disciplined as well in more ways than keeping an eye on the money. He did not have that stupid belly that men of much more modest means tend to acquire in this land.

The headache for all Uganda, especially its self-proclaimed star political leaders, is generating and implementing policies that can create more Mulwanas.
He may have sought a favour here or there as in his ’80s request to President Museveni to ban importation of used car batteries so that his Uganda Batteries could stabilise and charge forward. But that is no crime. Businesses routinely seek assistance from their governments as long as they can demonstrate they will create value in the economy. Not to forget that these days Uganda is full of business people, both local and international, who routinely run to State House for favours only to deliver air. Some are mere crooks and criminals. It says good things about Mulwana’s integrity that he was invited to sit on boards of several companies.

And now from farming to agro-processing to manufacturing, his businesses pass on to the next generation. The empire should continue to thrive. I have read somewhere that on the whole the switch to the second generation is not a challenge for family business empires. It is the changeover to the third where things tend to fall apart. You overcome that then the family business will run on for generations, presumably because there would be enough institutional memory and genetic material in the family as to how to do the right thing to make money. May we read about the Mulwanas well into the sixth, seventh, whatever generation. I suspect that would quietly please him out there somewhere.

Speaking of transitions, the one MP Barnabas Tinkasimiire broached at the retreat of NRM parliamentarians in Kyankwanzi this past week caused a stir – even if it was not a new subject as such.

The man from Buyaga wants Mzee Museveni to pack up and leave. With the next elections up in 2016, one would think that the MP’s proposal is irrelevant, that any leader who has been in power more than a generation would, indeed, pack up. Not in Uganda. With no term limits, which the MP demanded be reinstated, an incumbent can keep running and “winning” endlessly.

In many words, President Museveni has said his continued stay in power is not just a sacrifice on his part, it is establishing the country on the course to fast-tracked greatness.
Africa has a sizeable number of countries that had leaders who hang around for ages. However they left, these leaders bequeathed a mixed to worse future.

The Ivorians are still sorting out the mess whose seeds Félix Houphouët Boigny sowed – ethnic politics and even militarised politics. DR Congo had its Mobutu. Kenya, its Moi. Oh, Somalia and its Siad Barre! Depending on your definition of Africa, you may count in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
Okay, there are some exceptions. Benin, Togo, Gabon are holding up fairly well. And Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi seem to have turned a corner.

A look at several other countries presently under the thumb of their leaders is not encouraging. Equatorial Guinea and Angola, both oil producers with poor citizens, yet their strong men, old as they maybe, are still not shipping out.

President Museveni praised Equatorial Guinea’s Obiang Nguema for proper management of oil revenue. I want to think our man had been briefed that Equatorial Guinea has very good oil contracts, yes, only that all proceeds end up in the bank vaults of the President and his son and a few hangers-on.
As for Mugabe, he is just bad news. Yet Mr Museveni likes the old revolutionary very much. The fallout over DR Congo is history. No leader outside the EAC is as readily available to hop into Kampala as Uncle Bob. So President Museveni praises Nguema and chills out with Mugabe. With that sort of company, the Tinkasimiires will need to work harder.

While Mulwana left clear instructions about his transition into the other world, President Museveni refuses to show his hand. Regardless, there will be a transition. Fiery or smooth, Mr Museveni will have everything to do with it like. And the nature of that transition will mean so much for Uganda for decades.

Mr Tabaire is a media consultant with the African Centre for Media Excellence. bentab@hotmail.com