ON SUCCESSION MUSEVENI DAMNED IF HE DOES, DAMNED IF HE DOESN’T

Last week President Yoweri Museveni as commander in chief of the armed forces announced a battery of promotions in the army.

Among the promotions was that of his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who he elevated to Brigadier from his former position of Colonel.

"Immediately we shared knowing glances, “Clearly he is grooming his son to takeover,” we told each other as we took a sip of our beers....

Some of us even intimated that the speed of his promotion to a general was unparalleled in the armed forces – of course we forget Mugisha Muntu meteoric rise to Major General and army commander or Salim Saleh before him or Noble Mayombo’s rise to Brigadier, all achieved in less than the 12 years it’s taken Muhoozi to attain his current rank.

And the international press was sucked into the debate with the “The Africa Report” reporting that “Museveni’s son has suddenly been promoted raising speculation that he is being groomed to take over from his father…”

My thoughts on whether Museveni is grooming his son to take over or not are really irrelevant, what often has me tearing my hair out in exasperation is the way the whole succession debate rears its head.

The constitution of Uganda has a well laid out succession plan. If for whatever reason the presidency is vacant the Vice-President is next in line followed by the Speaker and the Chief Justice, but no, the conspiracy theorist in us rejects this formula. It is too straight forward and transparent? There must be another plan.

In fact at every turn we harangue the president to show us his successor.

“It still remains a mystery who President Yoweri Museveni wants to succeed him …. Analysts have expressed fears that Kainerugaba’s promotion was the beginning of a chain of events that could lead to an undemocratic succession,” The Africa Report says.

To begin with, in democratic societies outgoing presidents do not finger their successors, that is often left to their respective parties to do.

In South Africa for instance it has been suggested that Nelson Mandela’s favoured successor was Cyril Rwamaphosa, but the ANC party’s internal dynamics were such that Thabo Mbeki eventually succeeded him.

In fact for a seating president to front and support a successor would lead to an “Undemocratic succession.”

This is why democracies cannot be written into effect but have to evolve.

"The practice of democracy is not only for the ruling elite but for the whole society, which once it has internalized the values of democracy can bring pressure to bear on the ruling elite and ensure they behave democratically....

Our insistence that Museveni should show us his successor, outside the institutionalized process may be a temptation too hard to resist.

The real focus should be on the institutions that would usher in the succession when it comes; The legislature, the judiciary and security institutions. Are they robust enough to resist the competing interests to see the process through and sustain the result?

"As far as the constitution is concerned a successor is in place...

However the President, were he to step down of his own volition can work through the NRM to indicate his successor and the party in turn once it has a flag bearer, would throw its weight behind the chosen one in a presidential election. All this I imagine, would happen within the structures and practices of the NRM.

As it is now the president is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. The chattering classes seem hell bent on second guessing his every move.

Even if he announced tomorrow that he would step down at a certain date, we would weave all sorts of theories about how he must have an ace up his sleeve. And if he announced he was going to go on much longer, we would still doubt his motives and cobble some conspiracy theory to explain why things aren’t as they seem.

Our ability as citizens to leverage or have a say in the process will depend on our organization, without that we might as well keep quiet and let the process take its course.

 

THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF CORRUPTION

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The latest Transparency International survey puts Uganda as the most corrupt of the five East African Community countries.

That is not a headline that would sell newspapers in Kampala. Sad because it means the general society have accepted corruption as a normal thing. But even more disturbing is that it’s not something that is restricted to a politically connected elite, but runs right through our society across all age groups, tribes and classes.

None of us is willing to throw the first stone because we know we are all not without sin. So corruption continues because society does not have the will to beat it back.

As we stagger through the fiftieth year of our existence us a nation, one cannot help but think we let down a generation of patriots who fought for a break from our colonial tethers to provide a better life for the native population.

It has been said that service provision was much better in colonial times than it was now and some years ago one neophyte politician based his campaign on a return to colonial times in order to see service improvements.

The premise of the campaign was flawed on several fronts. One of which of course is that at the time of independence the Ugandan population was small to begin with. But even within that small population services were concentrated on an even smaller group. So for example at independence there were less than thousand A-level students around the country.

One of the independence struggles biggest drawing cards was that these services would be more widely spread around the general population. Hence the rush by the first Obote government to dot the rural areas with schools and hospitals.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so it is that the roots of corruption can actually be found in this rapid expansion of services in post-independence Uganda.

With clear capacity deficiencies merit was thrown out of the window for fulfilling the political promise of African empowerment.

Idi Amin did not help matters with the no real human capacity improvements – in numbers or quality, recorded in his eight years at the helm of this country’s affairs.

The second Obote administration was not only saddled with an economy in terminal decline but also distracted by a draining civil war that forced improving human capacity down the list of the administration’s priorities.

The NRM then inherited this litany of woes. Growing from a low base the rapid economic growth papered over our capacity inadequacies, but not for long.

We are corrupt because we can be.

Despite the thousands of graduates from university and tertiary institutions we are nowhere near bridging our human resource deficiencies. For example we have one doctor for every 11,000 Ugandans, the World Health Organisation recommends at least one doctor for every 7,000. We graduate about 200 doctors a year, so assuming the population does not grow and we even churn twice as many doctors as we do now it would take ten years to bridge the gap.

This desperate situation is replicated in every other profession – engineering, teaching and accounting.

Sadly the resources needed to redress this state of affairs are being shoveled into the accounts of government bureaucrats and their henchmen in the private sector, perpetuating a vicious cycle that will prove hard to break.

That because we are a God fearing people – given the large numbers that patronize our churches and mosques, and therefore that we can appeal to our higher moral selves to clean up the system is a romantic notion at best. In fact some of our most “religious” have been shown to be the most rapacious thieves, believing because they are God’s anointed they are safe from reprove on earth.

The anti-corruption fight will have a real chance of success when we invest more in the institutions to fight crime – the police, Judiciary, Inspector General of Government, Auditor General’s office among others.

Given the current context you may very well recruit battalions of corrupt competent officials – or is it competent corrupt officials, but as long as you cannot man the relevant institutions adequately a corrupt free society will always be a pipe dream.