Museveni's crusade for closer regional ties

It is stated by key actors behind the revival of the East African Community (EAC) bloc that when the former President of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, was about to retire, he held a conversation with his protégé President Yoweri Museveni. The central theme of the discussion between the two leaders at the time, insiders say, was the integration process.

According to Museveni, the leadership of Nyerere, especially on matters of integration was vital, and the bloc, which is considered one of the most successful on the continent, needed the Tanzanian leader to guide the young generation comprising of Museveni and others, on how to propel the EAC revival mission.

In his autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda, Museveni notes that of all the post-independence leaders, the one who took a principled stand on the unity of the African people was Nyerere.

"He led the crusade for the formation of the East African Federation comprising of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar. He was let down at the final moment by Mzee Obote and Mzee Kenyatta. He had even offered to delay the independence of Tanganyika so that all the three territories could become independent at the same time and unite straight away," Museveni said, noting that under the arrangement, it was agreed that Mzee Kenyatta would be the president and Mwalimu would represent the bloc at United Nations (UN).



Museveni notes that as a young man, his interest in the East African federation and political awakening were largely shaped by the fact that his birth place, Ntungamo, is only 14 miles from the border of Rwanda and Tanzania at Kakitumba, but also the political ideology of Nyerere, which rooted for African unity.

"I, therefore, became a fervent supporter of Mwalimu Nyerere. Putting all my three choices at the University of Dar es Salaam was a politicalideological choice and not a mere academic choice,"  Museveni notes in his book.

He adds that apart from his  support for the East African federation, Nyerere also supported anti-colonial resistance movements in southern Africa, another element that endeared the young Museveni to the Tanzanian leader at the time.

"In my extremism of conviction, I had resolved not to go to university if I had not been admitted to the University of Dar es Salaam," he noted, adding that by joining the university, his political awakening continued to take shape and that his Pan-Africanist ideology was also triggered.

"Compared to other universities in the region, Dar es Salaam had a very good, progressive atmosphere, which gave the students a chance to become familiar with pan-Africanist and anticolonialist ideas. This was due to the Pan-Africanist views and policies of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the then President of Tanzania," Museveni notes, adding that the ruling NRM has been like a political doctor trying to solve the problems of Uganda and Africa.



STRATEGIC SURVIVAL

According to Museveni, Africa's strategic survival requires at least four dimensional superiorities — superiority on land, air (air force), sea (the navy) and space (satellites and rockets), for it to defend itself.

This pursuit is consistent with the ideology of Nyerere, Kwame Nkurumah who called for African unity, although Museveni and former Libyan leader, Muamar Gaddafi disagreed on the speed and method that Africa needed to unite.

On one hand, Gaddafi called for a quick formation of the United States of Africa, some leaders, including Museveni, argued that proceeding to the needed ultimate goal of a United States of Africa, requires that the first building blocks, such as the regional blocs are solidified to boost economic development, and then unify as regional blocs.

By building solid regional economic blocs first, Museveni argued, the federation of Africa will be easier. Commenting about Museveni's key role in the revival of the EAC, political scientist Dr Fredrick Golooba-Mutebi said in one of his articles on regional integration:

"Watchers of the evolution of EAC since it revival must recall that Museveni has been the loudest advocate of regional integration. Even when analysts doubted that the revived EAC would make easy progress in the domain of free trade, he was already looking into the future, to when member countries would have a common currency and how they should transition quickly to political federation."

Presidents Benjamin Mkapa and Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania and Daniel arap Moi of Kenya championed the revival of EAC in 1999, following a tripartite agreement of 1993.

The EAC community, which was formed in 1967 by Jomo Kenyatta, Apollo Milton Obote and Julius Nyerere, has since grown from three member states to six (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan).

Speaking about the East African Community (EAC) federation, President Yoweri Museveni in one of his COVID-19 addresses to the nation, described the regional bloc as a "PanAfricanist house" that has got all the required facilities.

"This is naturally a big house with rooms that have got all the necessary facilities each. If it is the sitting room, it will have its own washroom. If it is the dining room, it will have its own place of convenience. If it is one of the bedrooms, each will have its own washroom," he said.

POLITICAL FEDERATION

According to the East African Community Treaty, a political federation is the fourth and highest form of integration. The formative stages tailored towards the total rejuvenation of the EAC, such as the Customs Union, Common Market and Monetary Union, have already be concluded.

At the last EAC Heads of State Summit in Arusha in February last year, Museveni was tasked with supervising a team of experts to work on the constitution of the political confederation. The team, led by the former Ugandan Chief Justice, Benjamin Odoki, was inaugurated by Museveni and it is expected to deliver a preliminary report by next month.

REGIONAL MARKET

The target for the EAC political federation to start is March next year. By that time, the EAC, a regional bloc of six countries — Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan, is expected to have also fast-tracked the admission of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which applied to join, the last year.

The EAC federation, which started in 1963 as a bloc of three regional allies, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, collapsed in 1977 due to what current leaders have described as "minor mistakes".

Over the years, these minor mistakes have been resolved and the revival of the EAC has taken shape. Commenting about the need for EAC integration, Museveni said in the 20162021 National Resistance Movement (NRM) manifesto that: "We will continue to work vigorously for the deeper integration of the East African Community and co-operate with our partners in the eastern Africa region, to guarantee our security and long-term development."

"We will, in the same vein, work to strengthen regional organisations, such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Southern Africa Development Co-operation (SADC) and the EAC, SADC and COMESA tripartite agreement," he added.

The President's argument is that as a cattle farmer, when he produces milk and beef, it is unlikely that the people from Ankole, where he hails from, will buy his farm produce because they also produce the same or similar products as cattle keepers. Yet if Uganda integrates with EAC and also embraces the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Museveni adds, the country will have automatic market to cater for surplus of production of products.

The AfCFTA, a trade arrangement comprising of 54 African countries, which Uganda signed last year, is expected to create the largest free trade area in the world. The pact connects about 1.3 billion people, who are expected to trade directly without any interference.



STRATEGIC SECURITY

According to Museveni, strategic security compliments economic prosperity. "How do we secure Africa? How do we ensure that Africa will not be colonised again? In the Second World War, the first victims of German aggression were the highly developed  but militarily insecure countries like Belgium, France and Poland," he said.

He added: "Today, even countries like Israel and South Korea which are very developed still need military support of the US to guarantee their security. The Americans are talking of four-dimension superiority; on land, air, sea and space. Where does this leave Africa?"

Museveni argues that economic prosperity and strategic security lies in the complete integration of regional blocs. "My view here is that we start with integration of the regional blocs, where we are more compatible and similar than going for the big continental political integration as was pushed by other leaders," he said in his Kenyatta University lecture, adding that for the case of the EAC bloc, the use of Swahili, a neutral language, would make the process of integration much easier.

In the spirit of PanAfricanism, Uganda has also exported peace in various countries, including South Sudan, where Ugandan soldiers were deployed in December 2013, to avert a possible re-occurrence of genocide as a result of the conflict there, and also sent peacekeeping troops to the Central African Republic (CAR) and Somalia, where Uganda was the first African state to deploy troops in 2007, under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

"At the African Union level, we will continue contributing to the peace-keeping missions and working for the consolidation of the African economic community," Museveni said in the NRM manifesto of 2016-2021.

In his lecture at Kenyatta University, Museveni said, in most African countries, the illness also stretches to the vice of sectarianism, which has stirred conflicts as Africans who are supposed to be one, fall out over religious, ethnic and tribal differences.

The President argued that after independence in Uganda, instead of organising people along unified interests as a country, leaders organised people along sectarian lines — Uganda People's Congress was Protestant leaning, the Democratic Party was for Catholics while the Baganda rallied around the Kabaka Yekka party.

"We rejected this idea of sectarianism and, therefore, had to craft an ideology that made a case for prosperity and not sectarianism. That is how we arrived at patriotism. Here, our view was that rather than just your tribe, you must love and support your country," Museveni said in his Africa Integration lecture.

"If some members are not ready for the political federation, let those who are ready go ahead, rather than be paralysed," he said. The President said while the primary goal of leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Dedan Kimathi, Nnamdi Azikiwe and others was to resist colonialism, freedom fighters like him must ensure that Africa regains its shine and place within the global inter-play of events.

"This was largely accomplished. Africans were able to defeat and outlive the colonialists because they were resilient and did not become extinct, like some of the races in America and elsewhere. We have strong genes. But the Europeans, driven by greed on how to share colonies, became weak after this greed led to the two world wars," he said, rooting for integration as the only sure deal that will propel Africa to the front bench of global politics, economic and international influence.

PROSPERITY QUESTION

The problem, Museveni said, lies in fi ve key issues — the prosperity question, ensuring that Africa is completely emancipated from colonial infl uence, democracy, strategic security and PanAfricanism.

"But even love for your country alone is not enough. Uganda now produces 2.7 billion litres of milk annually, but consumes only 800 million litres. The surplus is sold in the region. This example showed us that beyond the country, we needed to ally with our neighbours hence another parameter of our ideology— Pan-Africanism," Museveni said in his lecture, adding that the Pan-Africanism was the ideological bedrock on which organisations like the EAC and the African Union (AU) were founded.

The President added that besides creating a bigger market, these regional blocs were also important when it came to negotiating with stronger third parties like the US and China, and strategic security.



INFRASTRUCTURE

Building the infrastructure base to propel interconnectedness of the African continent to enable free movement of goods and people from Uganda to Ghana or from DR Congo to Algeria, and from Egypt to South Africa without any requirement of visa, passport-related bottlenecks, is the other idea that African leaders are rooting for.

For instance, on top of the proposed major northern corridor infrastructure projects, such as the oil pipeline from Hoima in Uganda to Tanga in Tanzania, the Standard Gauge Railway from Mombasa in Kenya to Malaba in Uganda, among other projects connecting Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania to South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda and DRC, the Ugandan government and DRC recently agreed to pave some roads in DRC.

The construction of the 223km road network inside DRC by Uganda, Museveni during his 58th Independence Day celebration speech, said will open up the DRC market to Ugandan goods. Uganda earns $500m from DRC per year in trade activities.