Hoima Crashes Opposition

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Three successive events this week is proving that Uganda’s mendacious opposition leaders Kizza Besigye, Patrick Amuriat, Salaamu Musumba, Norbert Mao, Mugisha Muntu, Erias Lukwago, and recent entrant Robert Kyagulanyi may be reaching their final sad destinations. 

The just concluded two parliamentary by-elections in Hoima and Kaabong districts were NRM thwarted their intimidation, violence and misplaced excitement with massive wins is testament that their incorrigible lies are not working especially when they had conducted the campaigns with bluster and guff. This malevolent combination, in false unity, camped in Hoima for months, boasting that it was the defining contest. They had run away from Kaabong.

In extreme desperation, they traded many lies among them that the NRM and President Yoweri Museveni had sold oil long ago and stole the bounty in the futile hope voters were so gullible. Now the results show, NRM’s Harriet Businge scored 33,301 against FDC’s Asinasi Nyakato 8,789 must be a humiliation, although they will cry foul. In Kaabong NRM’s Christine Tubo walloped FDC’s Adyaka Judith Nalibe, 22,532 to 1,692. In both districts, there were other elections for councilors which NRM won massively. These results coming against the backdrop of continuous hubris since December 2017 and elections for LC, II and Women councils countrywide in 2018, portend the sad reality for the opposition in 2021.

Earlier, when the US government announced it had imposed sanctions on former inspector General of Police (IGP) Gen. Kale Kayihura and his immediate family members the same opposition leaders went jubilating that perhaps Kayihura was going through poetic justice. 

The State Department claims that Kayihura while still police chief, aided the abuse of human rights, smuggling, and corruption to entrench his political influence in Uganda. Henceforth, he, his wife and children will not be allowed to enter, trade with, and hold property or bank accounts in the US.

While we acknowledge US’s sovereign right to admit foreigners into their territory, it is strange that a country that claims to uphold the rule of law could punish someone without according them due process to a fair hearing, or at the very least, right of reply. His family members have been subjected to collective guilt only by reason of association as if they too exercised police authority. Be that as it may, Kayihura has said that he doesn’t own any property there and did not have any desire to travel.

One would have expected that if indeed the US government has credible and verifiable evidence against Kayihura on the accusations being made, it should share them with the Uganda government so that appropriate legal actions are taken. It is not clear how preventing Kayihura and family from entering the US remedies human rights abuse especially to those who could have suffered under him.

There has always been a fallacy among African elites that the US and its western allies mean well and act on sound judgment after thorough investigations, which is not the case particularly when dealing with external matters. Many events around the world have shown that the US is both a driver of ill intent, is egoistic and superficial. The US and Britain deliberately told naked lies to the world that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction to justify their invasion of Iraq to steal its wealth. To-date those weapons haven’t been shown to the world while US To-date those weapons haven’t been shown to the world while US is taking out Iraq oil even without metering it and so the world will never the extent of the loot. With such a background, it is difficult to believe what US government is saying against an individual like Kayihura.

While Kayihura may respond in detail to some of these accusations, those of us who know him relatively well, find it an absurdity and painful that can be accused of all things, smuggling drugs. But Uganda’s mendacious opposition leaders cannot distinguish facts, fiction and malice, thereby exposing themselves to ridicule as leakey to foreign interests.

And as Uganda hosted the 64th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC) which brought close to one thousand delegates, the opposition tried to sabotage the meeting including circulating fabricated documents, photographs and videos of alleged recent human rights abuses. It is important to state that Uganda runs a transparent political system with a vibrant parliament, judiciary, civil society, and media where those abuses are actually well captured and many visitors travelling to Uganda know the extent of freedom or lack of it. In addition almost all delegates have embassies domiciled here to feed them with accurate information on the state of governance and therefore opposition’s so-called briefs don’t add much value.

But perhaps their main objective was in the hope that police would either prevent distribution of those materials or brutally arrest them and attract media attention away from the conference. 

Having been ignored, the opposition plan to disrupt and foul the CPC which would pain Uganda with negatives fell flat. As the conference moved on successfully, by Thursday, many opposition leaders descended into Munyonyo for the free lunches, dinners and drinks.