Uganda: Big Interview - "President Museveni Is Not Our Enemy" - UPC's Fred Ebil

12 August 2022

Many analysts have claimed that Uganda People's Congress (UPC), one of the country's oldest parties, has become weaker after its decision to work with the ruling government.

Speaking to The Nile Post in an interview, Fred Ebil, the party secretary general, said UPC's dreams are bigger than removing President Museveni from power. He said their dreams are to fight poverty, ignorance and diseases among Ugandans.

Excerpts below:

First thing first, who is Fred Ebil?

Fred Ebil is a simple person born in Soroti and studied in St Mary's Nursery School Soroti, Pioneer Primary School Soroti. I went to Lugazi West Primary and then I sat my P.7 in Lira. Then I went to Komboni College and from there I sat my A level in Lira Town College. I was the only one admitted to Makerere University. I did my Bachelor of Arts in Arts. I taught in some schools in Lira and Within Wakiso here. I started a non-Government organisation called Facilitation for Peace and Development and I went to parliament. After Parliament I was appointed assistant secretary general UPC and later on I was appointed secretary general and I have been in that position for about seven years now.

Congregations upon being elected as UPC flag bearer for EALA. How prepared are you?

I would like to thank The Nile Post for this opportunity to inform the 11th Parliament who are going to vote us on 29th September 2022 for EALA term 2022 to 2027. I was a member of the 9th Parliament and for years I was a member of the Foreign Affairs committee. It gave me the opportunity to attend the summit of East African Community Heads of Government and Leaders of the summit. That gave me a chance to understand what leaders of the East Africa Community want. You need to understand the aspiration of different governments of East Africa. So having sat in the meeting of the heads of government as a member of foreign affairs in 2015 I understand what they want

How confident are you that you will be voted?

I hope so because of my track records. So, you will see that most politicians don't mean what they say. Others are just doing politics but for me whatever I have outlined is what I am going to do.

With the experience of being the member of parliament and being a member of foreign affairs committee, I wish to put that to good use because we have a country to rebuild, we have a community to rebuild because ever since 1963, we have not released our dream of having a political federation.

So, you need somebody with the experience, somebody who knows what is exactly at stake. I believe the members of 11th Parliament will appreciate my ideas which are real. I believe I will be in position to win.

What is your take about the recently concluded Soroti by-election where UPC managed to front a candidate?

That by-election was not completely free and fair. There were some problems which we cannot address in the press. We addressed it to the Electoral Commission. We believe that the Electoral Commission also acknowledged them and also forwarded the same complaints to the Uganda police Force. So, the issues of arrest which were done, we want to leave that behind us, we are now looking into the future not the past.

What is the future of UPC in the next five years to come in terms of politics?

As I have told you we are in the rebuilding phase and we have moved down to the grassroots. We are also working along with our stakeholders to ensure that we recover some of our properties which were taken away by some people. We are also trying to give a new face to dilapidated ones and also trying to mobilise the members .In other words grassroots mobilisation. So, within five years we believe we shall take off.

There are claims that UPC has been in bed with the ruling government hence making the party too weak to compete in Ugandan politics. What do you think?

We have not started working with President Museveni today. We worked with the president in1970. We worked with him from 1971 to 1980. Working with him is not the problem, the problem is what do we bring to Ugandans. Much as we come from different backgrounds, much as we have different ideologies, what matters is that the future of Uganda is what we care about.

Why is UPC not working together with other change seeking forces in ensuring that transition is realised as soon as possible?

We are still in the rebuilding phase. You know we were in government twice and we lost power.So we needed to rebuild. So, when you are rebuilding you need some sort of soul searching and also working hard. There are programmes which may come which are not our priorities, so in that case we don't engage with our partners in the opposition because we have to look at our priorities.

Our priorities are grass root mobilisation. But we have committed ourselves to some of the amendments and we worked with the leader of the opposition and I attended personally.

So, where we feel that opposition is bringing things which are priorities to us, we always attend and we work with them. But there are things which are not our priorities at the moment.

Is UPC still in the struggle of dislodging President Museveni from power?

That [Museveni] is not our enemy and you should know the values of UPC. UPC's enemies are poverty, ignorance and disease, so we fight poverty, ignorance and disease from Uganda. So, you will find us in that course and that is our biggest enemy.

For those who would wish to join us in doing that we are with them. Those who want to increase the level of poverty, ignorance and disease are our enemies and we shall always deal with them decisively. We are not there to fight an individual. Our cause is bigger than [fighting president Museveni].

Opposition leaders recently signed a joint statement in a bid to fight electoral malpractice in the country. In your view will the opposition succeed in this move?

First of all, there are forums where we can discuss these issues. Forums such as IPOD, parliament of Uganda. These are spaces that we can use to discuss some of these issues. We think we have not yet exhausted those spaces to address some of those issues. We don't need to sign any document; these are things that we believe in. and that is why you didn't see us there.

In your view, what lesson should Uganda learn from Kenya in terms of elections?

We should learn that Uganda has a better opportunity to be the best democracy in the world. We just need to learn from our brothers and sisters in Kenya that politics is not a do or die. It is about shared values and shared aspirations and understanding that a country is bigger than all political parties. So, if we can appreciate that we will learn a lot from Kenyans and also understand that democracy is never perfect, we keep on improving. Every generation has a role to play by improving the frontiers of democracy in our country.

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