Museveni and the Americans,The Bobi Wine Phenomenon

Our Man in Kampala: Museveni and the Americans

By Abdullahi Boru Halakhe

Since taking power in 1986, President Yoweri Museveni has enjoyed total bipartisan support from six American administrations. Along with America’s help, Museveni’s domestic repression has grown steadily, stymying Uganda’s fledgling democracy. Uganda’s next general election will take place on 14 January 2021, a week before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The Biden administration must not give Museveni carte blanche but should instead make America’s continued support contingent on good governance and accountability.

When he first became president five years after launching a rebellion against President Milton Obote over the disputed December 1980 election, Museveni portrayed himself and his movement, the National Resistance Army/Movement (NRA/M) as the antithesis of all previous groups. After 33 years at the helm, Museveni and the National Resistance Movement are indistinguishable from the people he launched a rebellion to dislodge from power.

The speech and the memo

A speech given and a memo written 13 years apart, laid out the vision and the contradictions within the NRM, and more broadly within Uganda, and cast the authors as protagonists in the struggle for democracy in Uganda. The speech was given by Yoweri Museveni in 1986, shortly after he seized power. Kizza Besigye issued the memo on 7 November 1999.

The speech, often referred to as the “fundamental change” speech, laid out the future of Uganda under the NRM, while the memo, “An insider’s view on how NRM lost the broad base”, was the most realistic appraisal of the NRA/M 13 years after it took power.

When he delivered his speech on 29 January 1986, Museveni said, “No one should think that what is happening today is a mere change of guard: it is a fundamental change in the politics of our country.” Museveni added,

“The people of Africa—the people of Uganda—are entitled to democratic government. It is not a favour from any government: it is the right of the people of Africa to have a democratic government. The sovereign power in the land must the population, not the government. The government should not be the master, but the servant of the people.”

Regarding democracy, Museveni said, “It is a birthright to which all the people of Uganda are entitled.”

In November 1999, while still a serving army officer, Col. Kizza Besigye offered an opposing view of the NRA/M when he said, “All in all, when I reflect on the Movement philosophy and governance, I can conclude that the Movement has been manipulated by those seeking to gain or retain political power in the same way that political parties in Uganda were manipulated.” Besigye went further to say that, “[W]hether it’s political parties or Movement, the real problem is dishonest, opportunistic and undemocratic leadership operating in a weak institutional framework and a weak civil society which cannot control them.”

Museveni’s vision of “fundamental change” has produced “no change” and the servant leadership and democracy espoused in his speech are illusory. Besigye’s assessment of the selfish, opportunistic and undemocratic leadership within the NRA/M and in Uganda is all too familiar and the competing realities embodied by Museveni and Besigye have dominated Ugandan politics for over a decade.

A central plank of the NRM was the establishment of a broad-based government and the elimination of all forms of sectarianism. To make good on its promise, the NRM introduced an anti-sectarian law in 1988. The NRM also instituted a no-party system where elections were contested on personal merit rather than party affiliation. For Museveni and the NRM, political parties were the root cause of Uganda’s crises since independence—as they inherently promote “sectarianism”, unlike the Movement, which “fosters consensus”.

Three elements have sustained Museveni’s vice-like grip on power in Uganda: the use of the security apparatus to suppress the opposition, the passing and selective application of laws—even when the courts strike them down—and America’s generosity despite Uganda’s dubious human rights and governance record.

Electoral violence

Three years after publishing the memo, Besigye ran against Museveni in the 2001 general election. The electoral commission declared Museveni the winner. The run-up to the election saw the arrest and assault of Besigye’s supporters. A Select Parliamentary Committee established to examine electoral violence stated that, “violence experienced in elections includes physical assault and shooting, intimidation, abduction and detention of voters”. In all, according to the commission, 17 people were killed and 408 arrests were made. A few months after the election, Besigye was detained and questioned by the Criminal Investigations Division (CID), allegedly in connection with the offence of treason. Besigye left the country In September 2001, citing persecution by the state. He returned on 26 October 2005.

Unlike in the 2001 elections, in 2006 the state was keen to derail Besigye’s candidacy through legal manoeuvres from the outset to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot. The police filed a case in court accusing him of rape and treason, and arrested him on 12 November, barely a fortnight after he returned to Uganda from exile, and a few months before the election scheduled for March.

When the military realised that the civilian court would grant bail to Besigye and his co-accused, the military prosecutor brought terrorism and weapons offences charges. The court eventually acquitted him of the rape charge. In dismissing the case, high court Judge John Bosco Katutsi said, “The evidence is inadequate, impotent, scandalous, monstrous against a man who brought himself up to compete for the highest position in this country.”

Despite already competing in an election with the odds stacked against him, Besigye lost six weeks to legal fights in the courts where he spent as many days as he did on the campaign trail.

The defiance campaign

After losing two elections, Besigye realised it was almost impossible to beat Museveni at polls which were neither free, nor fair, nor peaceful, or by having the courts overturn the election results and sought to employ other means.

In 2011, Besigye joined other activists in a Walk to Work campaign, a simple yet profound form of protest that highlighted the stark economic realities in Uganda. Even as many Ugandans were struggling to meet their daily needs, the country bought at least eight fighter jets and other military hardware worth US$744 million. Museveni’s inauguration ceremony cost US$1.3 million. That the protest came a few weeks after the electoral commission declared Museveni the winner of the election with over 60 per cent of the vote illustrated the hollowness of Museveni’s victory.

The election took place against the background of the Arab Spring and its potential for contagion, with Museveni viewing the remarkably benign act of people walking to work instead of driving an existential threat. Museveni and the security agencies could not countenance the Walk to Work or other similar activities turning into a popular movement. The 2013 Public Order Management Act and its convenient interpretation came in handy.

Museveni fell back on the template set during the 2001 election. Security agencies visited unspeakable violence on Besigye and his supporters during the election campaign and Museveni was declared the winner by the electoral commission. Besigye contested the validity of the election in court but, while it recognised that there were irregularities, the court ruled that they were not sufficient to modify the outcome of the election.

Enter Bobi Wine

State violence against Besigye and his supporters has been a constant in the Besigye-Museveni contest but for the first time, Museveni‘s opponent is not Besigye. He will be competing against the Kyaddondo East Member of Parliament, Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known by his stage name Bobi Wine. Kyagulanyi was four years old when the NRM came to power in 1986.

And just like with Besigye, Bobi Wine has been at the receiving end of the violence of the state agencies ahead of 2021 election. The police have disrupted his campaign and detained him several times and he has on occasion suspended his campaign in protest at the violence meted out against him and his supporters. He was recently arrested for defying the COVID protocol while campaigning. Predictably, the protocol does not seem to apply to President Museveni, who has been campaigning unimpeded.

America’s support

Museveni’s ascension to power also coincided with the deterioration of the security situation in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and with Muammar Gaddafi’s actions to prop up various African regimes. An astute political entrepreneur, Museveni put Uganda at the service of America and in return, successive American administration gave him political support and financial backing.

When President Ronald Reagan warned him to be wary of Gaddafi’s activities during their first ever meeting, Museveni told Reagan that he had fought Gaddafi before the Americans started fighting him, to which Reagan replied, “I am preaching to a choir.”

Since then, Museveni has made himself indispensable to America’s security calculus in the region. During her visit to Kampala in 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright called Uganda a “beacon in the central African region.”

Uganda is among the largest beneficiaries of the Department of Defense “Train and Equip” programme. The Department of Defense has notified Congress of over US$280 million in equipment and training for Uganda since the 2011 financial year, over US$60 million in joint support to Uganda and Burundi for AMISOM and significant funding for the 2011-2017 counter-LRA effort (Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency). Additionally, Uganda also receives counterterrorism aid through State Department funds. It received over US$30 million in support via the African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership (APRRP).

The state is coming down hard on Bobi Wine because he is tapping into and articulating the latent discontent among the vast majority of Ugandans, those under 30 who make up over 70 per cent of the country’s population and who cannot relate to Museveni’s self-aggrandising rendering of the Bush Wars or the Idi Amin scarecrow. America has a choice: to side with most Ugandans who would like to see democracy take root in Uganda or with Museveni under the pretext of maintaining stability.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

By Abdullahi Boru Halakhe

Like with many stories, the story of Yoweri Museveni and Kizza Besigye was consummated and nurtured by idealism. Similarly, like many stories built on idealism, inevitably it ended in betrayal, real or imagined.

The story of Ugandan politics over the past two decades has been dominated by two personalities – Yoweri Museveni, the incumbent president, and Kizza Besigye, his main challenger. In many ways, the political vision of both men has been marked by a certain idealism inspired by their participation in the 1981-86 liberation war, whose relevance is increasingly being questioned by many younger Ugandans.

Though they are widely seen as polar opposites, consciously or unconsciously, over the years Museveni and Besigye have needed each other to remain relevant among their respective constituents. Museveni cannot operate without Besigye, and vice versa. The two are thus stuck in a historical time warp of unfulfilled revolutionary utopia.

In dealing with Besigye, his most formidable opponent yet, Museveni is guided by a sense of entitlement, while Besigye is motivated by a sense of betrayal – both individual and collective. He wants change. Museveni believes that he rid Uganda of dictators and tyrants and, therefore, he should rule as he wills, unencumbered.

Besigye, on the other hand, is convinced that Museveni has perverted the ideals of the revolution they fought in together, and like other tyrants, he should be resisted as a matter of principle. In dealing with Besigye, his most formidable opponent yet, Museveni is guided by a sense of entitlement, while Besigye is motivated by a sense of betrayal – both individual and collective.

The difference between the two, one could argue, is that Museveni is “flexible” and Besigye is “obdurate”. Museveni sees himself as the grand patriarch of Uganda’s revolution, but with shreds of flexibility that allow him to stay in power. Besigye, on the other hand, sees himself as an egalitarian moral crusader, a position he acquired during his days as the National Resistance Movement’s Political Commissar. In his unbending vision, he saw the National Resistance Army (NRA), the precursor to the National Resistance Movement (NRM), as a moral army to end all of Uganda’s ills. He was and still remains a doctrinaire ideologue.

Besigye sees NRM as incurably corrupt, unaccountable and a one man-circus.

Museveni, however, sees NRM as the heir to the rich revolutionary tradition of restoring dignity and improving lives of citizens.

Besigye’s obduracy, even when it costs him power and friends, is, in essence, the difference between the two men – one a successful President and the other the ‘People’s President.’

In real terms, Museveni is undoubtedly the winner; he has defeated Besigye in three straight elections, although, some may argue unfairly. But in symbolic terms, every Museveni electoral victory felt hollow and insecure – the more he won, the more he and Uganda lost. In the end, Museveni’s victory looks increasingly pyrrhic, while Besigye’s electoral and personal losses, innumerable as they are, look like a victory for him and for Uganda.

However, Besigye has reached the limits of his defiance; he needs to give space, support and share his wisdom with the younger leaders because he has done his part in his struggle to make Uganda a better place. Increasingly, both Museveni and Besigye have had to contend with a young Member of Parliament who doesn’t draw on the revolutionary ideals of the bush war years, which are fast fading from the conscious memory of the young Ugandans who make up a huge proportion of the population.

Enter Bobi Wine…

The Kyaddondo East MP, Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known by his artiste name Bobi Wine, was 4- years-old when the NRM came to power in 1986. While Museveni’s and Besigye’s world views and programmes of action are mostly about history and fear, Bobi Wine’s world view is shaped by the future and hope. His background as a ghetto kid, figuratively and metaphorically, appeals to the majority of youthful Ugandans, who identify with his story of triumph over adversity. Over 60 per cent of Ugandans are under the age of 30. For this group, Idi Amin’s and Milton Obote’s horror stories, which Besigye and Museveni are wont to use, sound like old lady myths. They see themselves as entrepreneurs, music moguls and successful civic leaders.

Bobi Wine’s combination of a remarkable personal story of rising from a Kampala ghetto to become an independent MP, defeating candidates sponsored by both Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change, (FDC) Party and Museveni’s NRM, has seen him take the mantle from Besigye and throw down the gauntlet to Museveni.

Consequently, his framing of Ugandan youth’s existential angst because of the bleak economic reality, the conscious nature of his social justice message through his music, and the penetration of social media, which has seen the rise of a critical mass of brave front-line activists who have been working in the shadows for change, all have contributed to making Bobi Wine a potent force of nature.

Possibly, the fact that he doesn’t come from a military/revolutionary or big political/economic family background must have initially led Museveni and his coterie to assume they could safely ignore him. But increasingly, he is making the state respond in the language it has deployed against many of its opponents: use of excessive force and trumped-up charges, especially treason.

Since his election in July last year, Bobi Wine has demonstrated that he has his fingers on the pulse of the younger urban electorate, especially those who have only known Museveni as the president. He has articulated and energised their latent desire for change in a language they understand, through a medium that is accessible to most of them – music.

His election into parliament has not blunted his appetite for using music as a vehicle to connect with his supporters. During Togikwatako (Do not Touch It), a popular movement against changing the constitution to remove the term limit that allowed president Museveni to contest the presidency, he released the song Freedom. The video of the song features Bobi Wine in a cage-like structure interspersed with images of police violence, making the lyrics as well the video at once poignant and raw, thus connecting with many who have suffered at the hands of the police and other auxiliary security forces.

Freedom is not the only video he released. In 2017, he released another video, Time Bomb, whose socially uplifting message in both Luganda and English touches on the day-to-day kitchen table reality of many Ugandans. For instance, why is the price of electricity so high? Why is corruption so prevalent? But in a forward-leaning pivot, Bobi Wine says there is no reason to cry.

Freedom comes to those who fight

But not to those who cry

Coz the more you cry

Is the more your people continue to die.

Both songs are a rallying call, not dissimilar to Museveni’s when he went into the bush. Museveni is acutely aware of the power of anyone capable of distilling the frustrations or aspirations of the youth, and knows that articulating them in their language poses a mortal danger, even if not immediately.

Remarkably, Bobi Wine’s message is paying dividends at the ballot box; since his election, candidates supported by him have won various parliamentary seats; Arua municipality was not the first – he had beaten established parties in Jinja, Rukungiri, and Bugiri.

The state’s disproportionate response after the loss of the Arua seat by arresting him and other opposition MP’s and supporters is a clear indication that it has been rattled by the reality that the centre of gravity of the opposition has shifted from Besigye to Bobi Wine, and that they cannot afford to ignore him.

Last year, Bobi Wine energetically took up the push against the constitutional change within and outside parliament. During one parliamentary debate, security agencies invaded the session and beat up MPs, fracturing Mukono Municipality MP, Betty Nambooze’s spine. While the bill eventually passed after the MPs received a sweet deal extending their term from five to seven years, Bobi Wine still remains a significant threat to the status quo.

Digital activism

Reflexively, many dismiss online social media activism as a dirty word. In their eyes, online activists are people who are not ready to put their money where their mouths are. These activists are not ready to roll up their sleeves, take tear gas and be arrested by the police.

But behind the dismissive tone, which is accentuated by the generational divide, African governments are fully-aware of the power of social media as a tool for mobilisation and building cross-sector and cross-country solidarity. #ThisFlag in Zimbabwe, and #FeesMustFall in South Africa have demonstrated that social media is a powerful platform.

In Uganda, Stella Nyanzi has become a one-woman army against President Museveni through her Facebook page. She was arrested last year after criticising the First Lady and Education Minister, Janet Museveni, for her ministry’s failure to provide sanitary towels to girls in public schools, a promise her husband had made during his campaign in 2015.

Social media platforms reveal a chink in President Museveni’s armour; he can’t send in his security agencies to stop people using them like he does at public demonstrations. Because they’re decentralised, he cannot take out a leader, and they are not susceptible to manipulation using advertising shillings like the mainstream media. The Internet shutdown during the 2016 elections and this year’s social media tax were essentially designed to contain social media, but they have so far proved ineffective.

The future

Bobi Wine’s rise could also upset the regional ‘balance of power’ within Uganda. Museveni and Besigye both come from Western Uganda. Bobi Wine is from Central Uganda, a region that has been a thorn in the side of Museveni, and which the president has attempted to subdue using all means necessary, fair and foul.

Beyond Uganda, Bobi Wine’s arrest has spurred a nascent youth mobilisation. In East Africa, digital mobilisation and organising by young activists have coalesced around the hashtag #FreeBobiWine. Over half of the traffic for the hashtag was driven by Kenyans on Twitter. However, if he would like to transcend the Museveni-Besigye duopoly, Bobi Wine needs to expand his base beyond urban areas to the rural hinterland. Like every wily politician, Museveni has ignored urban areas, and instead concentrated all his efforts on rural areas. This has been lucrative for him politically. Bobi Wine needs to speak to the youth, not just in Kampala, but in Kitgum as well. He had already started doing so through visits to various parts of the country and in his music videos as well.

The land question and the presidential age limit have sufficiently radicalised a significant constituency in Uganda. And there are a significant number of the young in need of direction. To win them over, Bobi Wine will need to proactively and innovatively capture their issues, provide them with leadership and imagine a possible future with, for and by them.

The musician-cum-politician needs to be aware of the state’s machinations, which are already evident. Treason is a favourite charge, as is rape, which Besigye was charged with, and economic sabotage via the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).

Bobi Wine is a product of the zeitgeist and is a beneficiary of decades of work by fearless frontline activists, including Besigye. They include the Walk to Work protests following the contested 2011 elections, which were brutally suppressed by security agencies. They revealed the limits of Museveni’s patronage network that has sustained him in power for decades. The disproportionate reaction to Walk to Work and what it stood for shook the state, despite Museveni’s claim to winning the election with over 60 per cent of the vote.

Recent events have obviously rattled Museveni’s administration. Since Bobi Wine’s arrest, the president has been making all manner of statements, but it should not be assumed that the collapse of his administration is a fait accompli. To defeat Museveni, Bobi Wine and other progressive forces will need to continue to pursue peaceful mass mobilisation, and to contest every available by- election with similar vigour.

Whether they succeed is another matter, but Bobi Wine’s rise undoubtedly marks the beginning of a turn away from the bedtime stories of liberation that Museveni often recites to his grandchildren, to something new, fresh and bold.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

By Abdullahi Boru Halakhe

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.