By Dr Peter Wandwasi

In 1981, President Museveni together with other revolutionaries such as our late comrades Mzee Maumbe Mukhwana and Wadada Musani launched a guerrilla war under the auspices of the National Resistance Army (NRA).

The underlying technique that underpinned the successfulness of the organization of the NRA as a rebel group was mainly based on enlisting the support of the masses.  

Nevertheless, it can be contested as to whether or not the involvement of the masses can be essential in winning guerrilla warfare. While one can, generally, argue that the unity which brings success, is the unity, which achieves participation, it can also be reflected herein too that guerrilla war cannot necessarily be won only with the involvement of the masses in the absence of military coercion to achieve the cooperation of the masses and the subjugation of enemy targets. 

However, the contestation between whether or not the NRA could have won its guerrilla warfare without coercing the masses towards obtaining induced cooperation also depended on the extent to which the NRA was committed to its own pursuit of military victory by generating the support of the masses as a means to defeat the government of the day.

While the NRA was committed to its own pursuit of military victory, the leadership of the NRA during guerrilla warfare identified, as one of the rallying points, the failure of the ruling elite to focus on the interests of ordinary Ugandans, coupled with their selfish personal development, as the underlying cause of disorder and dictatorship in Uganda at that time.  

The fundamental argument, advanced by the NRA leaders as the basis for launching a guerrilla war in my view was that, instead of the Obote government focusing on development to achieve the substantive interests of the people, the NRA leaders propagated the argument that post-independence Ugandan politicians and military officers-maintained power by exacerbating sectarian divisionism on the basis of corroding issues such as region and ethnicity. I recall as a young boy in my teen years being demeaningly and segregatively called a mulalo boy and sometimes referred to as a Munyarwanda boy in my own home village in Bugisu simply because I was born from a Ruanda-Urudian born mother whose parents were refugees in Uganda.

I submit that it is within the context of this historical reality that the NRA Leadership pursued the narrative that elections that had been conducted in Uganda, based on these divisions, diverted popular attention away from pressing problems of poverty and lack of development. 

To recalibrate a new Uganda, the NRA under the insightful leadership of President Museveni including our leading political luminaries from the Bugisu sub-region such as the late James Wapakhabulo, the late Maumbe Mukhwana, the late Wadada Musani and the indomitable first 3^rd division commander, the late Colonel Patrick Lumumba of Kazo launched successful regime change in 1986.

What is the current reality in our country? Is there a necessity to re-craft a post-Museveni progressive dispensation which addresses some of the reasons such as ethnicity for which the NRA launched a guerilla war in 1981 which also provided the motivation for some of us to voluntarily support the NRA revolution during our teen years under the tutelage of our sectional leaders such as Comrade Mzee Mukhwana, Elder Wadada Musani during the liberation period and later under Comrade Col Patrick Lumumba after the overthrow of Kampala (May the Souls of these indomitable gallant lions Rest in Peace), yet some are reasons that have not been in my view, adequately resolved in President Museveni’s current dispensation?

Just to recap, the failure of the ruling elite to focus on the interests of ordinary Ugandans, coupled with their selfish personal development was, at that time identified as one of the underlying causes of disorder and dictatorship in Uganda.  In addition, there was evidence that instead of the Obote government focusing on development to achieve the substantive interests of the people, Ugandan politicians and military officers-maintained power by exacerbating sectarian divisions on the basis of region and ethnicity.   

While our beloved National Resistance Movement-led government has opened up and consolidated the democratic space for multi-party elections, characterized by a dispensation of stability and economic progress, albeit, in the midst of excruciating poverty amongst those with the greatest need particularly in rural areas, it can be observed that the failure of the current ruling elite to focus on the interests of ordinary Ugandans especially those with the greatest need in rural settings, coupled with their selfish personal development, which has been exasperated more visibly by evident sectarian divisions based on ethnicity still persist.

In this context, there are those who have the view that seems to suggest that Uganda’s current system of governance is in essence an authoritarian patronage-based regime and that our government acquires and dispenses public goods and services to inequitably consolidate authoritarian patronage-based power. This view implies that the architecture of governance in our motherland is characterized by what various commentaries postulate as an insidiously overpowering presidency which is sculptured around patronage, grounded in ethnic bonding and punctuated by a hierarchical network of the patron-client form of state organisation.

Nonetheless, a highly centralized and overpowering presidency generates the misguided impression that our leaders require to exercise extensive capabilities of control and dominance of both the economy and politics in order to organize the necessary resources which are needed for national development.

The assumption of such extensive powers undermines transparency, and accountability, weakens citizen participation, as well as, the right to free expression, stifles the rule of law, creates a breeding environment for both corruption and poverty, as well as, increased incidences of violence all of which have depilating effects on the ability of government to effectively dispense inclusive development to all its citizens.

The writer is an evaluation professional based in South Africa