Nsibambi: Academic don, federalist and ex-premier

Uganda last week and early this week marked ceremonies to bid farewell to Apolo Robin Nsibambi, the former prime minister of Uganda (1999-2011). A keen intellectual, formidable author who joined politics first as a nominated delegate to the Constituent Assembly (CA) in 1994, Nsibambi was long-established as an academic outpost at Makerere University for years where he taught and became a professor of Political Science. Prof Nsibambi, a son of a lay preacher, was already approaching retirement age when he arrived in the CA.
In the CA, he made a mark advocating for democratic federalism and return and entrenchment of multi-parties in the constitution. These in addition to adoption of a uniform system of land tenure, curbs on excessive presidentialism blamed for the collapse of the post-1962 constitutional order, were easily the most contentious provisions of the Constitution.
Prof Nsibambi, a presidential nominee, surprisingly took a moderate but consistent stand. He voted to reject entrenchment of the now “spent” Article 269 of the draft Constitution that provided for the Movement political system. He also voted to introduce federalism as a system to define the relationship between the centre and the regions, an arrangement which had bedevilled the founding fathers in 1962 and ensured a quick exit for the Democratic Party from power at the behest of Mengo in the April 1962 elections.
With the coming into force of the 1995 Constitution, Prof Nsibambi, then 56 quickly arrived on the front benches of government as minister for Public Service, where he worked hard to ensure automatic disbursement of government payroll. He later served as minister of Education before becoming Prime Minister of Uganda, a non-executive role at the helm of Cabinet and Leader of Government Business. Nsibambi never ran for a single elective office although in 1980, it was believed his sympathies lay with the Conservative Party. In fact outside NRM, Prof Nsibambi never openly identified with any other political party.
People will remember Prof Nsibambi for modesty. He was asymptomatic of the elusive dream of the minimum wage that made many academicians paupers courtesy of World Bank Structural Adjustment reforms. The old colonial elite dream of cradle to grave welfare disappeared mostly in his time. Professors had to moonlight as tutors, shopkeepers, etc, turning the university into a hub of cottage industries, kiosks, makeshift illegal drinking establishments and institutional despair, a situation that contributed to the dilapidated state of the university.
Desperate to make ends meet, professors were conducting “coaching” in their bedrooms, publishing pamphlets, vending and hawking cheap consumer goods. The less fortunate ones found solace in alcohol and indeed a full professor and Harvard Business School graduate in 1996 fell in a drunken stupor on campus grounds and died in mysterious circumstances.
Prof Nsibambi, a proud man, ran a small farm in Buloba, and his light truck delivered milk in the city. Perhaps in a mark of austerity, until he joined government, he favoured the more practical Kaunda suit (safari suit) to the neck and tie, which had lost relevance as wages collapsed around the academy.
Prof Nsibambi had a mixed relationship with Mengo, the seat of the Buganda government. After years of providing intellectual fuel for the federalism cause, he parted ways with Mengo, resigning as a minister in the Kabaka’s government. Prof Nsibambi and other moderates favoured a two-tier system that separated the cultural role of Buganda and the modern political elected branch. It is said, he always saw himself as a “Katikkiro” in waiting alongside the late Abu Mayanja and Dr Suleiman Kiggundu. It was their dream job. The trio were never comfortable with the apparently close relationship the longest serving Katikkiro Joseph Ssemogerere (1994-2005) enjoyed with President Museveni.
Abu Mayanja had already served as Attorney General of Uganda and served as a bulwark of the no-compromise traditionalist forces. Dr Kiggundu, an orthodox economist and intellectual, saw himself as a potential presidential candidate. Prof Nsibambi, the cautious intellectual, almost reluctant speaker in public at the beginning found himself at the centre of government even though he did not have any obvious power base - a positive thing which earned him very few enemies.
At the end, Prof Nsibambi seemed to have returned to his maverick ways, speaking out strongly against the deletion of the presidential age limit in 2017. In the end, Prof Nsibambi has made off for the hills of Buloba with outriders in tow in a respectable perch of history. A decent God-fearing gentleman.

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-at-Law and an Advocate. [email protected]