Omar Bongo, not the Gabonese, of Mayuge

The Station Wagon screeches to a halt in front of the Mayuge District administration block.
Extremely conspicuous is the youthful swagger of the man clad in a beige Salwar Kameez (traditional Islamic Men’s suit comprised of a loose fitting tunic with button cuffs and pants) complete with a Kufi, who alights from the vehicle and dashes into the building.

“Who is he?” I ask one of the women with whom we had been standing outside the building.
“Where are you from?” she asks with unmistakable disdain.

The tone tells us that we should have known that the young man is Omar Bongo, the chairperson of Mayuge, a district that has been at war with itself for almost all of its close to 15 years of existence.

Tensions started building up right from the time it was carved out of Iganga District in 2000. The 2001 LCV elections which coincided with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-led International Security Assistance Force’s invasion of Afghanistan and the ouster of Taliban government heightened the tensions and polarised the populace. Rival factions identified themselves along the lines of the warring factions in Afghanistan. Former Mayuge MP, Sarah Namumbya, led the “Taliban” while Mr Baker Ikoba Tigawalana led the “Americans”.

The darkest point of the “Taliban” Vs the “Americans” conflict that stretched from 2001 to 2009 was the murder, in 2003, of Fred Musiitwa Nume, who had gone to Court seeking to eject Tigawalana from office for lack of academic qualifications.

On January 16, 2003 Musiitwa was kidnapped from the Kityerera County Courthouse in Mayuge and driven to Bujuko Forest in Mityana where he was murdered.

Although he had initially been absolved, on December 17, 2009 the Court of Appeal found Tigawalana and three others responsible for the murder. Tigawalana who was not in court has since been in hiding.

Tigawalana’s faction backed Haji Daudi Isanga, husband to State Minister for Gender, Rukia Isanga Nakadama, while the “Talibans” backed Mr Bongo, who views himself as a representative of his generation.

“This is a generational struggle. I was given a flag to carry, but as a representative of the youth. Whatever I do either elevates them or pulls them down. When I serve well they can say to the rest of the country that give us an opportunity to serve you like Bongo has done,” he argues.

But wait a minute! Bongo! Yes. You heard right. The name is not listed in the catalogue of names from Busoga. So where did he get it from?
It was his maternal grandfather, the late Omar Maluki, who named the 35-year-old after the then Gabonese strongman, El Hadj Omar Bongo Odimba.

“He [Omari Maluki] used to admire him a lot and used to read a lot of his [Omar Bongo’s] articles. When I was born, he said that he wanted me to follow in the footsteps of his role model,” explains Bongo.

Who is Bongo?
Alhaji Bongo is the son of the late leader of the Shi’ite Muslim Sect in Uganda, Sheikh Dr Abdul Kadhir Muwaya.

The third in a family of 10 children born by his father’s two wives, Bongo who holds a Masters’ Degree in Public Administration from the Islamic University in Uganda (IUIU) was born at St Francis’ Hospital Buluba on February 2, 1979.

He attended Kongoni Primary School and Upper Hill Secondary School in Nairobi before returning to Uganda in the late 1990s to join Tawheed Islamic Institute in Buyemba where he sat his Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) before joining IUIU for his Bachelor’s Degree.

Politics

Like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross pointed out, “We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind’s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.”

Old man Maluki taught and inspired Bongo to make a choice built on both his (Maluki’s) love of the Gabonese strongman and the awe that his grandson would later develop towards the man after whom he had been named.

“He inspired me a lot. He would take me along with him to village meetings, community meetings and political rallies and he introduced me to several political leaders in Kenya, Tanzania and here at a very tender age, naturally, I developed a liking for politics,” he said.

Action towards realisation of those aspirations began in the 1990s when he started skipping lunch or walking from home to school, to save money which he would later use to buy balls and trophies and organise football and netball tournaments. It is around these that he carved himself out a base on which he sprang to become a district youth councillor in 2006 and subsequently Chairman in 2011.

Daddy’s Boy?
Until his father was gunned down on Christmas day last year, his critics accused him of consulting his father about every small detail. This, they said, effectively meant that the deceased cleric was the real chairman of the district. It is criticism that Bongo has always found unjustified.

“My father was not only a parent to me, but was also my best friend. We shared a lot. I would consult him on almost everything and he would also consult me but that didn’t mean that he used to decide for me or I for him,” he says.

Sheikh Dr Muwaya may have passed on, but his name still hangs like a giant Sphinx over Mayuge District. It therefore follows that Bongo always finds himself being compared to his father. So how does it feel to have had such a famous father?

“Having a big name behind you is a responsibility. Society looks at the big name so you have to be mindful of not dragging it in the mud, but I think I like it and I am very much contented with living in the shadow of my father,” he says.

Achievements
The district has for the last two years been holding separate functions, one organised by Minister Nakadama, and another by Bongo, to commemorate the Women’s Day, which is testimony that tensions remain, but Monitor journalist Abubaker Kirunda says the tensions are less pronounced, a development for which Bongo is credited. But how has he done it?

“It has been mostly by engagement. We try to listen. Some issues are fundamental and they have warranted a response while others have not, but the drivers have been accommodation and forgiveness,” he says.

Besides the stability, safe water coverage has increased from 32 per cent in 2011 to 52 per cent, 60 per cent of the district’s 1,400km feeder roads network has been repaired and work on strengthening education facilities, developments which he attributes to renewed public confidence in the leadership of the district.

That has, however, exacted a price. Many are the days that he goes without meals and the doors to his home are often opened as early as 6am when the first people arrive. It is not unusual that they close well after 10pm, regardless of the day of the week.

That has also meant less time for his two wives and children, but if all that amounts to a headache, it would appear like it is a headache that he is ready to put up with for another five years and perhaps to a higher pedestal.

“I will seek reelection and in 10 years’ time I see myself climbing the ladder possibly to becoming the President of Uganda. That is the ambition of all politicians,” he says.

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