Kampala — In 1961 Yoweri Museveni was admitted to Ntare School, Mbarara as a student in Senior One. I had already been at the school for two years and according to school tradition I was considered his senior. But that seniority did not last long. Two years later he was already challenging me and heckling me during a school debate. I can remember the incident so vivdly as if it happened yesterday. It took me long to recover from that mauling and as a result I have always kept a respectful silence whenever he is within debating distance.

The reader might wish to know who else was involved in the debate that fateful night. I can remember "Sir" Richard Kaijuka who was the chairman of the Debating Club. Prof. Tarsis Kabwegyere, Ephraim Kamuntu and Eriya Kategaya must have been in the audience for their love of debates knew no bounds. The late Prince Ruhinda was the main speaker in support of the motion.

I wish to say more about the mauling I received at the hands of Yoweri Museveni, the scars it left behind, the recovery period and the post- traumatic period as well as the long term outlook or in other words the prognosis occasioned by the incident.

Maybe this will throw light on the Museveni you see these days and why I wish to carry on the debate forty years on. Many things are in my favour this time. I have had forty years to recover from the knock down, I have become wiser and I can now engage him when he is most vulnerable.

Round number two. Venue: Electrokom headquarters, Midrand, South Africa. Date: Sept. 1, 2002. Occasion: Meeting between Museveni and the Ugandans resident in southern Africa. Topics for discussion included the following:

- Invasion of DR Congo by Uganda troops.

- The war in northern Uganda

- The rampant corruption in Uganda

- The slow down of the economic growth in Uganda

- The one party system disguised as "the movement"

- The sucssesor to the president, who will it be?

- Was Kizza Besigye hounded out of the country?

I had been mandated by the Ugandans living in the region to debate these issues with the president and I willingly accepted to take on my old nemesis, hoping to turn tables on him this time and I did!

The score according to a random survey of those who attended the meeting was 60% in my favour and 40% in favour of Museveni. The winning margin would have been even higher if a group of Ugandan demonstrators had been allowed to watch the debate live.

Museveni this time did not heckle me while I put my points of view across. How things have changed! I must say there was an atmosphere of maturity, tolerance albeit mixed with the Museveni trademark of weaving and dodging critical issues by resorting to use of Kinyankore parables. One such illustration was to explain why Congo DRC was invaded.

According to him there were red ants attacking his house and the best way to deal with this attack was to destroy the home base or the hide-out of these red ants. The trouble is this base happens to be in somebody else's territory and to make the matter more suspicious the same place yields gold or diamonds if you dig deep enough.

The explanation given regarding the heavily guarded secret of succession to the presidency was that as long as the pillars of good governance are in place the question of who the next leader is becomes unimportant.

Examples of rapid turnover of leaders in Italy and Israel were advanced.

There was no satisfactory explanation of whether Besigye was a victim similar to Snowball in George Orwell's Animal Farm or not.

We were simply left to assume that sufficient intelligence reports implicated him in clandestine activities against his mother country, Uganda.

Time and space prevent me from reporting in detail all that was discussed that particular day. But for the sake of those who hunger for more about these important matters and particularly the Ugandan community in southern Africa who were left crying for more debating time, I would like to make a challenge to Yoweri Museveni: that we participate in yet another public debate. I suggest a neutral venue with satellite uplink between Pretoria and Kampala. I'm sure some funds recovered from the junk helicopters scandal could be used to purchase the necessary airtime. Please note that I have no ambitions to the post of President.