Step aside Americans; Russians are coming

Phillip Matogo, a fine columnist with Sunday Monitor, still doesn’t seem to understand how calculating President Museveni is. In his piece titled, ‘Ruling NRM must discover itself to recapture Buganda,’ Mr Matogo argued: “Buganda’s support is indeed the gold standard by which a glittering political future on the national level is measured, and NRM knows this.”

Well put. That was, indeed, the definitive statement about electoral contests – held under the resuscitated multiparty system – in Uganda from the general election in 1996 to the one in 2016. Buganda, correctly, was the winning card. Museveni needed Buganda to win. NRM needed Buganda. And Uganda needed Buganda to maintain a semblance of an independent and united republic.

Not anymore. Museveni no longer needs Buganda to retain power. NRM doesn’t need Buganda either. Only Uganda has reason to want Buganda to continue being part of it. (In 1966 Buganda wanted out.)

There’s a new ballgame and President Museveni is a player. He was ready for it even before the 2021 general election in which he let a political greenhorn named Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, carry the day in Buganda. (Bobi Wine was allowed to register a party, the National Unity Platform (NUP), which swept electoral seats in Buganda and Busoga.)

The new ballgame is geopolitical realignment in a world no longer dominated by a single superpower – the US. In the unipolar world, America was the hegemon calling the shots. It controlled the international financial system run by the Bretton Woods twins – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. America prioritised its economic, political, social and cultural values across the globe, from Argentina in South America to Afghanistan in Asia.

Anyone who wanted financial aid had to submit to scrutiny by the Bretton Woods twins. Such aid was tied to American values. The twins used a standard yardstick called the Washington Consensus (a set of sweeping economic policies) to determine who gets what, how much and when. They caused political and economic reforms among beneficiaries. Not falling in line invited an unsavoury title such as “failed state.” No nation wanted such a label.

Certainly not Uganda. So when President Museveni was asked to send troops to Somalia he did. When he was pressured to relax the ban on political parties he did! He had little or no choice in these matters if he wanted to stay in the good books of America and the twins.

That’s not the case today. Increasingly, Museveni is saying what’s on his mind. Noticeably, he’s sounding defiant against Western dogma. (He commands capitalist and left-wing ideas.) And he’s quite critical of Africans he thinks are letting down Africa.

At the Independence Day celebrations, for instance, the President criticised academicians in general and professors of economics in particular for not properly scanning the global system “to see what is going on where and why.”

Museveni knows that in a multipolar world he can look East if he’s fed up with what he calls “lectures” on how to govern Uganda. He may no longer tolerate “lectures” from America or the Bretton Woods twins. Russia and, increasingly, China are coming to his rescue. These two have no time for lecturing democracy. They are more interested in their national interests, including the need to counter – and defeat – America’s influence in Africa.

A new cold war is afoot.  Infrastructure loans? China’s Exim Bank will give them to us. Military aid? Museveni can count on Russia for personnel training and firepower (AK47 rifles, Sokhoi jetfighters, helicopter gunships, etc).  Why would Museveni still sorely need America?

And, Mr Matogo, why would he need “glory” in Buganda? To win another bush war or to forge another alliance of convenience with Buganda? NUP can run the show in Buganda as long as NRM controls Parliament and the rest of Uganda. I have argued here before that a tail can’t wag the dog in Buganda.

This is because the President has systematically neutralised the big Opposition parties, beginning with Uganda Peoples Congress, followed by Forum for Democratic Change and, most recently, Democratic Party. NUP’s role is to “challenge” NRM in this fake democracy of ours.

Mr Okodan Akwap (PhD) is an associate consultant at Uganda Management Institute.