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Uganda: Booing of Premier Was a Protest Against NRM
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The Monitor (Kampala)
29 June 2008
Posted to the web 30 June 2008
Chris Obore
Last week's booing of the prime minister by mourners at Dr Suleiman Kiggundu's funeral prayers in an indication that the ruling NRM party is increasingly becoming an enemy of the people, according to political analysts.
Sunday Monitor heard from the same analysts that the booing also manifested the deep-seated antagonism between the government and the Opposition.
Prof. Apolo Nsibambi was stopped from making a speech at Kibuli Mosque where prayers were held for the former chairman of the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party.
While the government on Thursday chose to blame the booing on FDC President, Dr Kizza Besigye, and Prof. Nsibambi said it was the work of "thugs", political analysts say the problem was down to the government's failures.
"It's a demonstration that NRM has not brought a fundamental change; the intolerance of the past is still around," said Mr Mwambutsya Ndebesa, a history lecturer at Makerere University, adding that: "The government-Opposition relationships are very sour and antagonistic."
He said that the government has been iron-fisted in its dealings with the Opposition; therefore, the latter are in no mood to be kind to the regime and its underlings.
Veteran academic and politician, Prof. Dani Wadada Nabudere noted that the booing of the premier "shows that the NRM in Buganda is beginning to be seen as an enemy."
This could be because of the unfriendly policies like the proposed and controversial Land Act Amendment Bill, which Buganda thinks is a ploy through which their land will be grabbed coupled with President Yoweri Museveni's determination to give-away part of Mabira Forest to a sugar cane growing company.
This, according to Prof. Nabudere, could explain people's negative attitude toward government.
He also said that the mourners could have booed Prof. Nsibambi because "Nsibambi is seen as disappointing in standing out on issues of national interest."
"Some ministers and MPs are seen as spineless and betray Buganda's interests and the rest of the country," Prof. Nabudere said.
He said the booing could easily spread across the country because the citizenry feels betrayed by pathetic and cowardly government leaders.
The mourners could have particularly been angered by Dr Kiggundu's death and government's belated concern yet it was public knowledge that the late Dr Kiggundu was "deliberately" crippled financially by the state.
The government shut down Dr Kiggundu's Greenland Bank in April 1999 before locking him in 2002 for allegedly causing financial loss to his employer.
But the Muslim, and wider Buganda community, however, interpreted these actions as a deliberate cynical move to cut down a promising son of the soil.
Prof. Nabudere said that as a leader and founder of the crippled Greenland Group of Companies that dealt in banking and merchandising, the late Kiggundu was seen by Muslims as their hero.
"People feel the government as having given Kiggundu a row deal," he said.
Because Kiggundu's business was suffocated and foreign investors promoted in the country, "people feel this is not our government because it represents foreign interests", according to Prof. Nabudere.
"People have been restricted to a cage and there is no way out; they are resorting to booing as a sign of frustration," Prof. Nabudere observed.
Mr Aaron Mukwaya, a senior political science lecturer at Makerere University agrees. "The major issue is the failure to address the question of democracy," he said.
Mr Mukwaya said failure to open the political space for people to express themselves leads to radicalism as demonstrated by the booing of the prime minister.
He said there is increasing intolerance on both sides because government has set the tone. "Nsibambi also arrived with political clout and his booing was an indication that there is increasing intolerance," he said.
Mr Mukwaya added that he did not believe thugs were responsible for the booing because among the mourners were people in expensive suits. "They cannot be thugs," he said, "People are taking politics to burials and weddings instead of the right place because they have been restricted."
"The onus is on the government to leave people to talk and air their views if not the radicals will keep appearing in such fora, " he said.
He said there should be a policy of government to ensure tolerance and accommodation because "if government does not tolerate; the Opposition will also not tolerate NRM."
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Mr Ndebesa said there is "convergence between NRM and past regimes in terms of intolerance", therefore; the country has not experienced a fundamental change.
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