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Perils of presidentialism in Uganda

Oweyegha-Afunaduula

What you need to know:

This has thrown local authorities into dysfunctionality. They are like beggars  

Speaking at a launch of a book titled  Militarism and the Dilemma of Post-colonial Statehood: The Case of Museveni’s Uganda, at Makerere University five years ago (in 2017), Prof Joe Oloka-Onyango said: “For Uganda to sort out internal contradictions and set a firm foundation for institutional building, the idea that everything begins with the President and ends with the President must be tamed”.

This must have moved Oloka-Onyango to suggest internal contradictions in Uganda cannot go away until the presidency, which he called presidentialism more or less a philosophy - is tamed, and if institutional (re)building is to take place now and in future. Oloka-Onyango went on: “The phenomenon of presidentialism must be dealt with and examined.”

In this article, I want deal with its deleterious effects to human endeavour and examine the consequences of its unchallenged manifestation.

First, I want to state that presidentialism is a tragedy that is built on deception, lies, false promises and fear-building, buttressed by militarism camouflaged by electoral politics.

Its sole purpose is building power and authority in one person who can do anything without fear of being called to account, and who can demand anything from society and institutions and get it, whether it will be harmful to others or not, but build his independence from Institutions, the people and society so that he can rule like an absolute monarch.

So when Ugandans were told there would be democracy, respect for human rights, no extrajudicial killings, no corruption, a self-sustaining and integrated economy that would not serve the personal interest of power at all costs, it was a multi-pronged lie.

Even when Uganda’s decentralisation was advanced, proliferated and applied, it was such a deception that most Ugandans did not see that the presidency would fail it.

Today power and authority have been usurped from the periphery, to such a tune that the money local governments collect as tax must all go to the centre and then the centre decides what portions to send back to the local governments.

This has thrown local authorities into dysfunctionality. They are like beggars. But even when money is sent to them, it is delayed so that many local governments fail to achieve anything, and mostly if the money is either taken to the centre or embezzled both at the centre and at the periphery.

The losers are the people who ritually elect representatives who end up being irrelevant to them. For lack of space, let me just list some of the negative impacts of over-centralised power in the presidency: exacerbated corruption, militarism, torture and extrajudicial killings; compromised quality of education, health, agriculture; compromised Parliament, Judiciary and over-politicised Public Services.

Others include anti-people laws and policies, rising environmental crime and environmental corruption, proliferating land grabbing - official and unofficial - banning of many NGOs, dysfunctional institutions, and individualisation of national                                                                                 resources

The list could go on lengthening and each theme could attract academic research, but where would funding come from?  Most universities in Uganda would most likely not encourage their students to research on many of the themes, because they would be considered politically sensitive.

Otherwise, if we want true democracy, where corruption, human rights abuses, torture, extrajudicial killings, oppression, repression, and injustices such as encroachment on the rights of the media and grabbing of land from the poor and needy; and if we want national resources to be people’s resources, we cannot have them when we have a personalised presidency, independent of the people and institutions, and with absolute power.

We should expect the making laws, policies and even court rulings to be influenced - always - by the president, as has become common - to reflect only his wishes and choices, as has been the case in the past.

For God and My Country

Oweyegha-Afunaduula is a retired lecturer and an environmentalist