Wafula Oguttu
2 September 2008
opinion
Daily Monitor of August 25 carried a commentary titled, Opposition; Remove Museveni and Do what?, written by Mr Moses Byaruhanga, a special presidential sssistant to President Yoweri Museveni.
Mr Byaruhanga was commenting on the Inter -Party Cooperation Protocol signed recently by CP, FDC, Jeema and UPC. From the word go, he chose to premise his comment on lies or misinformation on the cooperation. He says "their only aim is to remove President Museveni. But you ask them after removing him ... what plans do you have for Uganda, they have none?"
Has Byaruhanga really cared to read that Protocol, or is he simply incapable of understanding even a simple document like that one? The name Museveni is not mentioned anywhere in the Protocol let alone removing him from power. We have heard a lot of this rigmarole before from the likes of Byaruhanga where they have exhibited the highest form of intellectual dishonesty and arrogance.
Sometimes I wonder whether they actually believe what they are saying. They would like the world to believe that big time thinking in Uganda and generation of correct ideas started with Museveni and will perhaps end with him. They seem to believe that nobody else can have ideas that can assist in the building of the country except Museveni. If this is not neo-fascism, then what is it?
I say intellectual dishonesty because I am sure Byaruhanga knows very well that all the cooperating parties have published their ideological Platforms, Manifestoes and even Strategic Plans. In all these documents, he will find nothing else but plans for Uganda. Indeed most of these parties published their manifestoes for the 2006 general elections long before NRM even thought of writing one.
No wonder that when NRM finally came out with theirs, it was largely cut and paste document from the parties Byaruhanga always dismisses as "bankrupt" of ideas. The sad thing is that they have proved that they are not even capable of implementing properly the good ideas they stole from other parties' manifestoes. Theirs is a party of social -economic experiments most of which have failed.
Byaruhanga tells another incorrigible lie that FDC President Dr Kizza Besigye cut short his tour of Gulu District so as to avoid more embarrassment due to low turn out at his rallies. The truth is that Besigye went to Gulu on Saturday August 2, from Bunyoro and had to return to Kampala on August 4 to participate in signing the Inter-Party Protocol the following day at Kololo Independence Ground.
I am horrified to read that Byaruhanga is blaming Besigye and his lawyers for the delay of the treason case that State House cooked up with the sole aim of preventing him from standing as presidential candidate in the 2006 against President Museveni. He certainly knows that it is State House where he works and security agencies that are delaying the case for two main reasons.
First, with the arrest of several of their hired witnesses for various criminal offences and the mysterious death of some of them, the case seems to have collapsed on them. They have failed to find more impoverished people from the north to hire for witnesses although we hear they are presently trying to bribe a former high ranking LRA official who recently returned to Uganda to do their dirty work. Secondly, they are planning to resurrect the case towards the 2011 so that they bog down Besigye, should he accept to be a presidential candidate again.
Byaruhanga ends his comment chest-thumbing over the assumed success of UPE programme. Would he take his child to a UPE School? Would Moses have made it to Makerere if he had attended a UPE school in some remote village in Hoima? UPE is a good idea that was ruined by NRM's political expediency.
With an education system where there are 400,000 new job-seekers per year but only 8,000 jobs are available for them, there is a very reason to question the ideas behind that system.
Let someone do research for Byaruhanga and give him a breakdown of children in high schools and universities indicating those who went through UPE schools and those who went through private primary and secondary schools. Perhaps he too will begin to care about the direction and fate of our country and stop manufacturing lies.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
