Clergy should get off politics

By Kintu Nyago

I am drawing your attention to Archbishop Cyprian Lwanga’s usual political commentary, to his folk, at Rubaga.
I take the interpretation that his remaining unmolested by the authorities that be in itself, marks the qualitative difference between President Museveni with the NRM and the past regimes Uganda has experienced, including colonialism.

Although religious leaders occasionally criticised the misrule in post-colonial Uganda before Museveni, it was at a great cost.

Take, for instance, Bishop Joseph Kiwanuka’s famous Pastoral Letter of 1962. In this, the cerebral man of God, the first ever black Catholic Bishop in history, critiqued the infamous Uganda People’s Congress-Kabaka Yeeka coalition for manipulating Uganda’s Lancaster House Constitution, with Whitehall, for selfish ends.

This led to the people of Buganda being constitutionally disenfranchised. It ensured that the KY-monopolised Mengo Lukiiko was the one to appoint Buganda’s legislators in the national parliament and all those nominated by the Lukiiko were KY.

Concurrently, Kiwanuka rebuked the UPC-KY coalition for involving the Kabaka, Sir Edward Muteesa, in politics. And argued that the Kabaka should not be made partisan. Kiwanuka prophetically warned of the political doom that was to befall Uganda, if the constitution retained its partisan character.

Mengo’s response was dire. Kiwanuka’s arrest was ordered, to the clear consternation of the Catholic population. Fortunately, he was out of the country, and in turn it was Father Ssebayigga who was humiliatingly incarcerated.

Idi Amin’s regime killed Father Clement Kiggundu, the editor of Muuno newspaper and Musiizi magazine, for criticising the excesses of that regime, in 1971. The same fate befell Sheikh Obed Lutale, the father of Sheikh Kamulegeya and the Archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga Zaire, Rt. Rev. Janani Luwuum. Both were killed in 1977.

Amin also banned the Anglican ‘Bazukufu’ born agains from practising their faith, and the Gugude Pentecostal Church of Makerere. Although I oppose the mixing of religion and politics, I found Archbishop Lwanga’s Easter Sunday commentary, which was telecast live on UBC TV interesting.

He argued correctly that President Museveni is capable and had done a good job at the helm. He went on to criticise the nihilist tendencies of the A4C anarchists. And defined nihilism as being a negative pessimistic ideology.

He advised that the A4C agitators should not attempt to acquire political power through their riotous actions but rather be good democrats and losers, having roundly lost in the last elections, and wait for the 2016 general elections.

The merits of the Bishop’s views notwithstanding, in contemporary Uganda, religious leaders require not to engage in politics for the following reasons.

We have had a sectarian political past. This starting from the confusion that was sown by the first missionaries, amongst the pages/ abagalagala at Muteesa I’s palace. To the extent that just within a decade, Buganda, in 1888, was engulfed in religious wars. With hitherto peaceful kith and kin slaughtering each other due to religious sectarianism. This fermented the political disorder that we suffered in the periods 1962-86.

They are moments when the intervention of religious leaders in politics is justified. As, for instance, during colonial rule. However, we know that the established Christian church, save for the Africanist Bamalaki, were hand in glove with the colonial. Or under dictatorship when the people’s rights are trampled upon by either civil or military dictatorship, as was the case before Museveni.

However, in contemporary Uganda, we have a liberal political environment, with governance being decentralised and democratised.

I am certain that given the size of our Parliament, with 375, and the decentralised local governments and administrative units in this country, Uganda has the highest ratio of elected politicians per capita in the entire world.

In comparison, India with a population of 1.21 billion people has a directly elected parliament (Lok Sabha) of 532 members. While the United States, with a population of 311,591.917 million people, has a directly elected House of Representatives of 435 members.

Put differently, we have sufficient numbers of elected and non-elected politicians to guide this country.
Consequently following the guidance in Matthew 22:22 let’s, “… leave for Caesar things that are for Caesar…” and let our religious leaders focus on guiding us to the heavenly kingdom.

 Deputy Principal Private Secretary to the President