Joseph Ochieno
26 October 2008
opinion
Uganda Peoples Congress has a new member. She is a 42-year-old middle class Muganda born in 1966. The first time we discussed Uganda politics she told me that anybody who will unite Uganda as one country would have her vote.
I told her that in fact her wishes were enshrined under 'Objective One' of the Uganda Peoeples Congress (UPC) constitution: "To build the Republic of Uganda as one country with one people, one parliament and one government".
My friend's mother, a former Kabaka Yekka (KY) member, almost certainly voted for Mama Miria in the 2006 elections while her father supports the Democratic Party (DP). Our discussions recently touched on whether Uganda's independence is '46 wasted years' of self rule.
Our experiences since independence have made us so apathetic that we blame everyone else but our sometimes-collective and individual-selves.
In the last 23 years, those who have been ruling us by proxy or otherwise, without our mandate, never waste a moment to blame it all on those who ruled and governed in the earlier 23. The narrative is so entrenched that even the political, media and intellectual elite, who should be in a better position to dissect the issues, seem to have bought into it. But when did it really go wrong for us? Uganda attained her independence following a negotiated settlement in London in 1961. The key players were DP, UPC, Mengo/ Buganda (Kabaka Yekka was born after the London agreement) and Bunyoro.
In April 1962, fresh elections were held which UPC easily won. UPC sought to form a government but DP declined. It was after that refusal that UPC and KY agreed to form a coalition with Milton Obote as the executive prime minister. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In 1963, UPC sought a constitutional amendment that saw the removal of the British office of governor general and replacing it with a symbolic president elected by parliament. Sir Edward Mutesa was elected to that position and the office of governor general was erased.
In 1964, a referendum was held, as agreed at Lancaster House, to resolve the impasse over the disputed (Buganda vs Bunyoro) 'lost counties'. When this was agreed to in 1961, no one knew which party would be in government. So Obote as the executive prime minister only executed what had been agreed by all. Nothing wrong with that, except that some people did not like the results and opted to target the messenger - only!
Tension brewed from this turned into mistrust and with it, arrived the politics of behind-the-scenes-manoeuvres. A new political re-alignment now started and by 1965, only three years into our independence, there were already plots to assassinate the prime minister and overthrow the government. The plots and the actors were real. They actually tried it but failed.
Dr Obote wrote that the deputy army commander was the military chief of the operation which he was to execute on behalf of others. According to Obote, this was the first time that the gun was introduced into the politics of Uganda, in 1965.
But if only some people could own up. They did not, hence the arrest of key players, including some ministers. If some of these events led to the 1966 crisis, neither subsequent attempts nor the initial plots have helped resolve Uganda's pre-independence problems. Now, 46 years after independence, 23 years after UPC and Obote were forced off the political centre stage, the same old problems are glaring in our faces, unresolved. But why?
Like then, nobody wants to own up but instead, continue to blame the same old messenger, long since retired. UPC worked extremely hard to ensure we had one independent country in 1962. It is extraordinary that those who should help younger Ugandans through this reality are so disingenuous dishonest to themselves and our country.
Mr Ochieno is UPC's special presidential envoy to the UK & Ireland.
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