January 2010
For how long are we supposed to be beholden to those who fought?
Amos,
For how long are we supposed to be beholden to those who fought?
I have two uncles who fought. One died -in Ugandan parlance, he sat on a bomb after the take over of Kampala. He was one of th young boys who joined up early but wont be mentioned in the 27! He took his younger brother with him who must have been around 16 or 17. He left as soon as the war ended. they were never soldiers. They took up arms to fight for a cause and went back to their lives when the war ended. They had intimate stories of all of the high command! An uncle who did not go to the bush was witch hunted for most of Obote II and lost most of his wealth, his family while spending most of his time in and out of jail. While he was Museveni’s comrade, and stood on a UPM ticket, Museveni did not know him when he returned even though he was one of the casualties of his war. He died in poverty while his children got scattered among various relatives and friends.
Many people died in the cross fire and lost their livelihoods and homes as well as their lives. They are not war heroes -not even post humous.
This war was fought and won by many people who never made it to Kampala or requested voluntary demobilisation as soon as the war ended. They were not interested in Museveni’s rhetoric.
Museveni came to power wih pseudomarxist rhetoric that gave a traumatised population the hope that he was going to be different. That his was a fundamental change from the demagogues and illiterate killers who had preceded him. he of course gave traction to the rumour that he was a reluctant leader. He cobbled together a union of people including former opponents save for the most rabid and extreme. After one termof the inclusive democracy of the CA under Whapakabulo, he received an extension as people thought that it was required for stability in order to build institutions and rebuild infrastructure.
He subsequently unmasked himself when he demanded and got a third term (now called his first term in a semantic coup), followed by a second term. At this point he came up against the road block of term limits that had been though to be necessary in the first parliament after an all inclusive nationwide constitution building process. The “people representatives” in parliament voted to remove term limits!
Museveni promised that this was going to be his last term. He claimed that he still had a job to finish -to create a truly national army.
There are however signs that Museveni has instead been constructing a personal institution constructed around his own person. He has systematically undermined parliament and the judiciary. Instead of training police officers, he has infiltrated its highest ranks with military men. His son graduated from his uncles businesses to the army and has seen a meteoric rise through the ranks punctuated by stints at both fort leavenworth and Sandhurst -a significant achievement for one career officer! As a cadet officer, he embarrassed senior army officers by commissioning a review of the army by his as yet un commissioned son! He went on to put him in charge of his own bodyguard in a ove reminiscent of Mobutu. His brother has continued to enjoy a priviledged life despite his checkered lifestyle and flirtation with scandal and corruption. Yet he has never ever been charged and even went on to become a minister and is now a presidential adviser. His wife has since joined the parliament. His sons in law have been involved in business deals with government worth millions of dollars which smirks of nepotism. His in law Kuteesa has been named in other seriously flawed corruption scandals. his biggest NRM bush war comrades such a Mbabazi, Muhwezi have been mentioned some more than once in corruption scandals involving millions in public funds. His daughter works in his office while other relatives can be demonstrated to be employed withing high levels of government as well as doing business with government.
By lining up his family and cronies, Museveni defeats democracy. By actively undermining the growth of independent institutions and promoting the culture where all ideas and decisions are made by one man, he has built a government where everything is centred around his person. By maintaining a stranglehold over all resources and prolonged incubency, he effectively limits the democratic space. By using the police to actively prevent public discourse against his government instead of them being non partisan providers of security, he again controls nd retards our democratic organisation. His argument was that Ugandans were politically not mature enough to handle democracy so there was a need to suspend political activities and spend more time on national unity. After 24 years in power, we are exactly were we were with a despot albeit one with more control over his army whom a significant part of the population are increasingly hoping to get rid of.
With prolonged incubency and a narrowing of political space, there are signs of an increasing adicalisation of Ugandans. That cannot be good. Those who are watching the situation and watched the almost spontaneous conflagration that followed his stupid decision to curtail the movements of the kabaka within his own kingdom should expect problems in the next election. Museveni of course blamed the opposition but the truth be said, Uganda’s opposition does not have that much power within Uganda and Buganda! While they got regions that were desperate to dislodge Museveni to vote against him in the last election, there is little evidence that the opposition parties themselves actually control those votes! Thats why a “spoiler” like Otunu entering the fray on a UPC ticket has potential to take votes away from the FDC after splitting UPC giving the vistory again to Museveni!
Ours is a brittle “democracy”. One that can break down overnight just lke happened in Kenya. am afraid that an election is going to be the required catalyst. A look at recent elections that ended in widespread civil unrest suggests that there maybe a link between close elections and civil unrest in countries that do not have a mechanism for coalition governments. an increasingly vocal and not insignificant minority of 49% in our country that has a winner take all democracy has potential to break down overnight into street fights.
A look at Museveni’s record suggests that he loses about 10 % of the vote at each subsequent election. This suggests that this is the year when his votes may drop close to the critical 50/50% mark. A close win will trigger the usual calls of “rigged” except that with increased numbers in opposition as well as increasing radicalisation, the populace is more likely to end up in the streets. Coupled with the idiotic response of Uganda’s security forces who will “break skulls”, a demonstration would almost certainly turn into a riot! it is so predictable, one wonders why they always keep making the same mistake. The “bimeeza’s” allowed people to vent and gave them the impression of at least being able to voice their opposition. A demonstration has similar effect and the role of the police should be to provide security rather than go in to break it up violently which almost always leads to a riot and deaths such as happened when the forces shot and killed almost 30 people in the Buganda riots.
Surely 30 million people can produce alternate leadership. And surely a party of 8.5 million people should be able to produce an alternate leader in a period of a quarter of a century! the fact that the NRM itself cannot produce new leaders from within itself tells you the magnitude of our problem. the fact that Museveni could not find anyone willing in his own party or even independents and other parties (Atubo came from UPC) and claimed he had to appoin his own wife minister for Karamoja suggests the problem!
Museveni is setting us up for an “Eyadema” where on the death of the incubent, his son bypassed constitutional protocol and became t
” Jean Barois. Museveni has taken on the vices of the people he vanquished. From being considered to be part of a ‘new breed of rulers in Africa”, it is not uncommon for him to be referred to as a dictator, a despot, a tyrant and even a murderer. This last one I always had trouble accepting until the killing of 30 or more Ugandans during the so called Buganda riots last year! if there was ever any doubt in my mind that Museveni had no problem with killing Ugandans in order to keep himself in power if they disagreed with him, they were dispelled. i have no doubt that had Ugandans gone to the streets, we would be making bigger headlines than Libya. Unfortunately the blood of innocents will always be avenged. the more innocents die, the more likely it is that the man who ordered their deaths will himself suffer a similar fate!
Is Uganda ready for another people’s revolution -my answer is yes. Is it going to happen now -maybe. Is this election going to be the trigger -no. Is it possible that something else could be the trigger -yes. Is facebook going to be the catalyst -probably though this was already started by FM stations which is why Nambooze and CBS became public enemy number one! With FM stations and so called ‘bimeeza’ the government did not control the flow of information -the the media centre and the crackdown on CBS and control of the content of FM stations! Of course the official reason is different -mbu inciting genocide! The ubiquity of cheap mobile phones, mobile broadband internet and FB and twitter on phones will be a possible catalyst.
Should what i previously called the ‘iphone generation’ now called the FB generation https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=433157782680play a role in this debate -the answer is yes. Do they have the power to bring down the government -probably not but they do have a right to participate and many actually have useful opinions and skills honed by exposure!
So if I were in the NRM, I would grow eyes in the back of my head! And I would not trust those hungry soldiers to protect me against the angry masses when they come banging on the door! I would concentrate on fixing the problem before it is too late and whether you like it or not, Museveni is a part of the problem if not the problem!
All members of the NRM should be saying to Museveni “No extension, no resetting the clock, no inheritance” if they want their party to survive into the future! This video of an eight year old Egyptian girl should also be required viewing for all those in the movement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EnxQ5FJozE
The teachers of this country are very angry!
September 6, 2011 at 11:42pm 路
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150358357086259&id=712431258卢if_t=feed_comment_reply
I agree Nina Mbabazi.
Salary increases shouldnt be for a specific group at the exclusion of everyone else. That would be logical to everyone except of course the NRM.
More than 20 years ago, the starting salary of a junior lawyer in the MoJ was a million shillings. Museveni later claimed that this was because of “misinformation” he received presumably from the late Abu Mayanja who was then Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
Asked at the time why he did not increase the pay for Medical Consultants, his response was that doctors were unproductive and that he would pay doctors a living wage when they became “productive” whatever that means! 25 years later a doctor with 15 years post graduate experience is lucky to make a million shillings!
When URA was started, it was rumoured that some people went to their villages and collected all of their boys and girls for jobs. the salary of many high school drop outs in URA top those of a doctor and that of Kagina would make many well paid professionals in the diaspora drool as they wouldn’t even have to leave home! Doctors are still waiting for the promised living wage!
Teachers are even worse paid albeit their numbers are significantly more than doctors and they are easier and cheaper to train and replace. At 200,000 a month, the 20 million shilling bribe paid to MP’s to pass the Kabaka muzzling bill can pay 100 of them for a month or one of them for 8 years! and four months.
As for those ba sirukale in uniform, his government has treated them like basiru ddala ddala! The 160,000 they earn before PAYE, was given in lumpsum to each MP for the equivalent of 12 years and 5 months salary. For that they are required to abuse their fellow citizens so as to keep those who are exploiting them in power!
Now when we start adding up people who are allowed to chose their own salaries of 43 million, others making tens of millions each month, MP’s and ministers with perks costing billions, LC’s at all levels, RDC’s, presidential advisors and all manner of political appointees who Tamale has clearly stated were given jobs as welfare just so they could get a share of the gravy train the rest of Ugandans are locked out of, the billions and trillions wasted on fanciful re elections and expensive toys as well as the billions wasted in corruption with the most high profile cases in the last few years being GAVI, NSSF/Temangalo, CHOGM, Greenland Bank/UCB, AGOA, various public properties and companies sold to well connected politicians and individuals, you have a right mess!
Couple that with the fact that nothing appear s to work. Umeme is a disappointment, roads are crap and expensive to build, mortgages are expensive, people are jobless, and you are really in trouble with a really angry population. Spray them with coloured water and teargas as well as bullets and you have a revolution waiting to happen!
This government has never had a coherent policy on the provision of services including providing a living wage to workers such as teachers.
And all of these nice arguments are not going to make sense to them as they have 25 years of proof that you really do not care about them!
So its teachers today but wait till the others all join in! Tell daddy that ordering angry hungry people around really pisses them off and is likely to backfire! Much better to talk to them!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Letters to Nina, Nina
Too little too late -government by crisis
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 10:04pm 路
Nina Mbabazi says,
Teachers! Should government increase salary by 100% now which is equal to 1 trillion? Doctors, Civil Servants, Police are also threatening strike so we hear. If the army joins them, that will mean 4 trillion. Budget was 9.8 trillion. MPs cut 60 bn in wasteful expenditure and fail to cut more. What can be done without collapsing the economy? Or must it collapse before being rebuilt?
Its all a question of timing. The government missed the boat! They are going to have to negotiate with a very hostile and fed up workforce!
THe government has missed the boat! For 25 years it was obvious that teachers (as well as many other key professionals) were under remunerated!
But like with everything else in this country, public polic is made up on the run!
This day was due to come at some point. Teachers were never going to wait forever. In the 80鈥瞫 when Museveni told Ugandans that everyone had to tighten their belts, people listened.
But now everyone knows that belt tightening was just for the rest of us. Not the Museveni’s, not for the Mbabazi’s or Kutesa’s or Muhwezi’s! In partnership with cronies like the Basajjabalaba’s and various others large sums of taxpayer money finds its way into private pockets.
This government can no longer convince people that they should tighten their belts while waiting for the economy to get better! At this rate they will wait till the afterlife!
Of course there are good reasons to tighten fiscal policy including freezing wages, increasing interest rates and reducing the amount of cash in circulation. Which of course is going to cause a riot among increasingly frustrated and angry workers!
The obvious consumption an fiscal indiscipline of this government and its cronies does not mark them as partners with workers. money in the billions thrown at an election to ensure the re election of a tired old man who has run out of ideas and should be stepping down and handing over the baton to another person. Trillions wasted on fighter jets to keep up with the joneses. Billions wasted on a top heavy political leadership with no dscernible value added. Billions spent on bribes to legislators to pass stupid laws that Ugandans do not need like muzzling the Kabaka all because of the ego of one man!
Prime Minster Mbabazi may not realise this but if he takes on the long suffering workers of this country at this point in time instead of dialoguing with them, it is going to be his waterloo -just like Kayihura met his!
Defending my sweetheart!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 9:54pm 路
A4C does not cease to amaze!
A few weeks ago there was an attack on the 3 admins of A4C in what appeared to be a coordinated “decapitation attack” that ould only have been meant to paralyse A4C!
Interestingly it came from what at first sight would appear to be friendly quarters! the author of that attack has since lost credibility and his allegiance in this fight is now questionable!
I periodically write pieces that make a point at Nina’s expense. Those pieces have become very popular! By mixing fact and satire, a message can be conveyed. it is now common knowledge that Nina is my sweetheart! So today I will do what seethearts do -defend their loved ones!
This late attack on my sweetheart is what can be called below the belt. it relies on speculation, rumour and innuendo and possibly falsehood packaged and presented as “news”! Truthful news at that! It was published on a blog that passes itself off as a news blog http://256news.com/?p=1701 Interestingly the style is in the “scoop” style associated with the author of the recent attacks on A4C!
Unfortunately while the style of this story would do a tabloid proud, it is not particularly useful on A4C and neither is it really informative! I personally do not believe that I come away with any knowledge as to why Nina “attacks”, I would say criticises the government her father serves!
Quite frankly, I do not consider it newsworthy that Nina has got marital problems as alleged. To say the truth, it is to put it mildly insulting to expect readers to believe that Nina criticises the government of which her father is the leader of government business because she is unhappy with her marriage!!! As for the attempts at using the first lady to explain all sorts of intrigue, puhlease, with all due respect, the woman has never been that influential!
This attack is based on the fallacy of “Abusive ad hominem” (also called personal abuse or personal attacks). According to Wikipedia, this “usually involves insulting or belittling one’s opponent in order to attack his claim or invalidate his argument, but can also involve pointing out factual but apparent character flaws or actions that are irrelevant to the opponent’s argument. This tactic is logically fallacious because insults and negative facts about the opponent’s personal character have nothing to do with the logical merits of the opponent’s arguments or assertions.”
The author of this piece of trash would have us believe that certain failings in Nina’s personal life are relevant to understanding why she criticises the government without in anyway informing us whether Nina’s arguments are factual or logical!
By reducing Nina’s motivation to a personal attack on the government for personal revenge, the author is implying that Nina Mbabazi, does not have a good or logical arguments against this government! He does not invite us to examine Nina’s arguments or criticism! Instead he invites us to examine her bedroom and look under her bed like that is relevant!
This post should be deleted from A4C. If A4C is happy to host such posts, then they should have no problem with posts about Anne Mugisha ‘s, Charles Makmots or Mary Kelly’s private life which quite frankly are not relevant to their crriticism of the NRM! Just like the intrusion into Charles life was resisted by A4C members, this intrusion in Nina’s offline life using the A4C wall should be resisted!
We all grew up under the NRM and many of us have conflicted relationships with it. Many come from homes where the parents may have supported or still support the NRM. It is even harder for the children of core insiders to come out and criticise the system their parents created and serve. I would however like to believe that they too find the dust, the chaos, the corruption, the darkness of Kampala as irksome as I do even though their dads and mums may preside over it! Actually it may explain why many children of NRM bigwigs do not reside in Uganda and are residents of other nations!
It takes a very brave person to criticise the system under which they grew up particularly when they happen to be insiders of and direct beneficiaries of that system like Nina is! Of course Nina could be playing a game, but the author of this article really has not proven that! In the meantime, let Nina’s words be allowed to stand for themselves. Of course if she is being cynical, she will ultimately pay the price!
P.S: Facebook needs a dislike button!
Letter to Nina -who exactly is running state house right now?
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 12:17am 路
Nina dearest,
I think that we are living in the end times! Ii told you that your daddy was set up and a number of reports today have bolstered that opinion! How does your daddy manage to work with so many idiots with over inflated egos?
To begin with Tamale Mirundi started off with an interview that quite frankly he should be sacked for! I will not repeat my thoughts about it except to direct you to them! Mbu increasing sugar prices mean Ugandans can afford sugar! What sort of economics is that?
What is with boasting about shooting people dead? Banange amaalo! You know there was a one Odoi and Opondo, both in Presidents office who shot people too and never saw so much as an inquest! And they were both mouthing off at the time for the man in the hat! Can we assume that the man in the hat condones this violence?
The man admitted he was employed by President Museveni for welfare purposes so he could pay school fees. Nagenda already informed us that he was struggling prior to that and had to borrow money to pay his sons fees at uni but did not pay back! Tamale too admits that the former VP Bukenya was donating 1 million shillings to him per month because he was broke! No wonder the man changes his tune the way Baganda say, “yakyukira mukitti nge embazzi”!!! Am told he used to sing a totally different story before his good fortune -a tune decidedly anti Museveni before he started brown nosing him and becoming more Jewish than the Jews!
Then that other man who once tried to bring down the government Kayihura also joined in! Quite frankly whatever stuff he is smoking this time is more potent than whatever he was smoking the last time he ordered his troops to beat up on and kill unarmed Ugandans protesting against the government! Do you people think you can still afford Kayihura? Not even Tamale’s bong can beat this new drug!
The announcements these men make are so childish, its not funny especially considering that they will use them to harrass, arrest and kill people! Mbu A4C is a terrorist organisation training terrorists in Afghanistan! It must be the Americans training them then as they are in charge of that country! Kyokka Kale!!! Not even the malwa boys down in Kisenyi could make this stuff up after downing a whole pot!
This foot and mouth disease that your men are afflicted with will surely bring your government down! Some adolescent over in the media centre is also at it! It must be because the president is away!
The most embarrassing press release aka presidential order has just been let loose on the unsuspecting public! You may believe that I am making this up but it really is for real! To say that it was drafted and written by an adolescent would be an insult to adolescents! I know for certain when I was an adolescent I could never have written anything so embarrassing! That it is issued in the name of the president to me suggests that someone should hang! How dare they bring this country and the office of the president into disrepute?
You my wish to know that in this presidential order, your father is issued orders to bar politicians from being sold sugar by the “NRM” companies! You know it is kind of an oxymoron to talk about NRM companies doing anything in the publics best interests! You am sure have heard about Danze entreprises that NRM company that evaded taxes worth hundreds of billions but still managed to go broke? How about NEC that took over several parastatals years ago? Or better still have you heard about this scam where NRM businessmen are granted licences to operate markets them sacked and rewarded with hundreds of billions from the public coffers -no work done? One man has received more “compensation” for no work done than the money they plan to spend on Mulago hospital 203 billion!
I am sure that some NRM businessmen are already being lined up to sell the public air mbu they will build two hospitals in Kawempe and Makindye by next year to take up the overflow from Mulago which is going to be closed! He he, kanesekere kko muzukulu wa Gabunga! Anyone who knows anything about your government knows that they would be lucky to construct a kiosk and complete it by next year without running into budget overuns, maldesigns, numerous delays etc let alone a hospital! I can bet you any amount you like that those hospitals will not be finished in time! Now while we are talking about hospitals whats with stealing Entebbe hospital from the public?
Now where were we? Ooh! We were talking about your daddy dear being ordered around not even in person but over the internet! The language used and the large case throughout reminds one of troops being shouted at during a military parade! Now using all capitals in a presidential release or order is a no no! Even I knew that as a preteen! Writing in all capitals is the equivalent of shouting! Oh how we are embarrassed by ill bred and ill educated fools everyday given more power than their little brains can cope with!
Mbu your daddy, if the Vice President and Minister of Trade are not at their stations yet as in if the Vice president oversleeps, then your daddy should take over and follow the orders given from Mumbai drafted by an adolescent in the mediacentre!
If I were your daddy, I would sack whoever released that ‘presidential order’ before the president returns to Kampala!
Before I go, hear the president is having his prostate checked out in India! Isnt’t that what 67 year old men do when they go for medical? Why has a two day “private” visit become a week long visit and counting? Is that why he is not going to attend the CHOGM meeting in Perth? Or was he afraid of the pickets and the embarrassment of being called a dictator? You know these events attract all sorts of dissidents! I wouldn’t be surprised if some A4C terrorists were there too!
Kati wamma gwe banno katubaveeko! I need to join the army naye, I need a fast track to those major/colonel/Brigadier ranks being given out like the world is going to end!
May I ask why Nalweyiso is still in the army? Shouldn’t she have been promoted and retired with full honours for historical reasons as should all of the Bush War Bahima Generals? May I ask why their children are also now becoming Brigadiers while the rest of the country is being left out?
Naye kambuuzeko! Why is it that all of the Generals speak the same language? Surely these 35 year old Brigadiers didn’t also fight in the bush! You guys are confusing us and stealing from us while our eyes are open! Is this a Banyankore kweterana army or a Ugandan army or is one not allowed to ask such things?
When is Museveni going to actually build a national army that actually looks like a national army and not a tribal one? http://www.ugandacorrespondent.com/articles/2011/09/the-%E2%80%98ethnic-army%E2%80%99-keeping-museveni-in-power-2/
Could this perchance be Muhoozi’s army?
Does anyone listen to FB debates?
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 8:03pm 路
Johnson Karengye Mujungu says, “wondering what becomes of some of the rather very serious conversations that frequently take place on facebook. is facebook only an intellectual/emotional therapy of sorts?”
https://www.facebook.com/jmujungu/posts/10150322771489198?cmntid=10150322803429198
Johnson Karengye Mujungu, thanks.
I think it is true that a lot of the time, FB is used for venting.
But its also true that facebook reflects what a section of Ugandans insidie and outside the country are thinking which is very different from the official line fed to the media by the government.
Quite frankly if there is someone in government who is responsive to the mood of the people, they should be paying attention to FB. Its a great resource for government research and policy development. One can formulate which questions to ask and which areas to pay attention to by following the main topics on FB.
There is no doubt that politics, tribalism, corruption, and poor delivery of services are hot topics to be ignored by the government at their own peril. There is also no doubt that patience with foreign companies that fleece Ugandans is wearing thin -Umeme, Tullow, Mehta. Impunity and government brutality are also questioned as have the powers of the presidency.
The benefits of privatisation have been queried as is the myth of economic growth! Term limits and a redundant and overpaid political administration are being queried.
Opposition parties have not been given a free ride too and many of them have been found as wanting as the government they wish to replace.
Overall Ugandans seem to be formulating the questions they wish to see answered by the government but it appears to continue floundering making mistake after mistake!
The shine wore off the NRM a long time ago! Museveni and the NRM were and have been demystified by FB.
TAlk about open source politics!
I know for a fact that many of these talks continue behind the scenes. I personally write more off line (inbox) than I do online if you think at all that thats possible. And I know that some of the stuff I write has been read in some of the highest offices in the land -NOT with joy! But some of the feedback i have had suggests they do understand that they ignore what we write here at their own peril. I know that some facebook discussions have been incorporated into government policy and decision making and that they have had to check the sources of some of their own figures.
Many government apologists faced with real facts and opinions from real people have had to retreat from FB save for those with really tiny brains who cannot see when they are making fools of themselves!
The glossy figures on economic growth fall flat in the face of evidence of widesprea poverty. Either someone is making up the figures or the distribution of wealth is poor and the so called economic growth is not trickling down or improving peoples lives.
The same can be said of health! All I need to do to shut up any government functionary on health is to ask them to visit a ward in Mulago or their local health centre and report back! Only Nina Mbabazi ever took up the challenge and when she came back from Kabale hospital, she was singing my tune as was yellow girl Alice!!! Most of the others faced with the same challenge disappeared or changed their names.
SO no I do not think that everything we say just gets lost in the ether. Self interest is an interesting thing and a powerful motivator. FB is free research for the government and unless they employ analysts, researchers and policy makers instead of spies in responding to the real issues raised in FB debates, they will end up like Gbabo, Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi -of that I am very sure!
Bwindi hospital -why are strangers doing our governments job?
Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 10:07pm 路
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150365667046259&id=712431258卢if_t=feed_comment_reply
@deo mugema, Nina understood my question and answered part of it! I am satisfied with the part she responded to.
The distribution of foreign funded projects in this country can and is sometimes influenced by powerful people in government leading to a skewed access to projects and services. I already knew who the MP for Kinkizi was and Nina knows that this question is derived from another previous discussion about the receipt of scholarships from foreign governments as “gifts” by members of government and their close family members who then distribute them to their relatives and constitutencies. there are laws in the leadership code as well as the civil service code of conduct against that sort of behaviour.
You on the other hand appear to be completely lost! Pray elaborate on the “dangerously close to insanity!” Or better still do not bother!
The Batwa people are not just a tourist curiosity. They are citizens of this country. And like other citizens of this country are entitled to social services from their government including health services. That it took a couple of strangers in the country to see gorillas -and pygmies to recognise their actually well documented plight and actually do something about it while our government are neglecting them should be a cause for shame for all of us.
We should no doubt commend the Kellermans but we should also condemn our government which has divested itself of all of its responsibilities and passed them off to the private sector and private individuals while they indulge themselves!Certainly if individuals can do this, our government should be able to do better!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bwindi-Community-Hospital/133285766709569
Nina, Ssegawa is so off point and is selfish, arrogant, lacks empathy and sensitivity to teachers!!!
Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 11:05am 路
_Nina Mbabazi says,
PM Mbabazi went out on a limb when he started ordering teachers around. Nina is protecting her father. This row with teachers can easily expand into a countrywide workers rebellion and general strike! We know how those end up. In tear gas and water cannons and even tomahawks and dictators arses being hauled out of holes in the ground! And bottomline is the economy will get worse rather than better!
The attitude of this government to workers and their grievances is that because government has no choice, then they should just shut up and put out!
But the government has not done anything about all of its other problems that have contributed to this crisis. Like the boated government. The bloated parliament. The huge number of useless districts that cannot deliver services but are just a vehicle for delivering government patronage to cronies as are the presidential advisors which according to the government spokesman is just a vehicle for welfare payments to the presidents cronies!
The government needs to put its mouth where its money is and demonstrate to workers that its taking steps to rein in government expenditure and practicing fiscal responsibility!
All of these problems have been caused by this government. Teachers and other workers have been waiting for a living wage while NRM cronies continue living in largesse and running the economy into the ground!
Just imagine what effect 1.7 trillion would have made on the local economy if the government had its priorities right and used it to stimulate the domestic economy instead of buying useless baubles aka fighter jets!
So why should they listen to Mbabazi now when he has nothing tangible to offer demonstrating that the government is going to tighten government expenditure and reallocate government expenditure to responsible areas while trimming on wastage? Sack all RDC’s and duplicate structures at all levels of adminstration, Trim districts and parliament to a quarter their current size, reallocate money for health and agriculture from workshops and perdiems to service delivery, improve service delivery efficiency, reduce taxpayer paid politician travel including the presidents, freeze the purchase of new gas guzzlers to all manner of political hangers on etc etc!!!
Our donors and development partners are also spooked by our governments irresponsibility as well as corruption. it would send out the right signals to all of them if the government could make the above areas a priority. As it is we have an incompetent government that takes workers for granted and is now in a panic hoping that threats and guns and teargas will help them instead of applying their brains and getting the confidence of workers and our development partners!!! This government has dug itself in a hole by ignoring the workers of this country and now the chooks are coming home to roost! time to pack those bags for exile and concede it has been a visionless soujourn!!!
God save Uganda!
P.S: I know this was about Ssegawa’s smartarse article but am afraid its all BS and he is talking out of his backside! He is selfish, arrogant, lacks empathy and is insensitive to teachers and other workers of this country!
The first and only question to be answered is whether teachers earn a living wage. And if the answer is no, then the rest of the arguments which are insulting are moot!
You really need to let Ingrid turinawe go free!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 8:50pm 路
Dear Nina,
I was thinking today about what my grandmother would say about your daddy’s and Uncle Kaguta’s and all you NRM’s predicament! She would probably have said that “Kale mwe eyabalooga yafaa tanaaba!” But a friend suggested that whoever bewitched you guys is still stocking the flames of your downfall and that the more correct expression would be, “eyabaloga tannassa mbugo”!!!
When I read and listen to the news coming out of Pot hole city the capital of Kagutaland everyday, I see people bewitched by their own hubris to believe that they will be in power forever! Unfortunately as recently demonstrated by the Gaddafi clan who are now all dead, captives or fugitives, unless your kingly bloodlines go back to antiquity, new modern day dynasties have lost favour even among the ignorant masses of Africa! You know first the ignorant paesants are convinced that their kings must be Gods -but then they see blood! And realise that kings bleed too! And then they are all clamouring to draw some royal blood!
The curse of prolonged incumbency is catching up with Uncle Kaguta and all of you guys! And like Gaddafi, Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gbabo, you are making mistake after mistake, day after day! Ultimately of course, you will be hightailing it to Kigali and Johanesbourg looking for asylum! I hope you have stocked up on property there! You know these things of being a refugee when you were accustomed to a certain lifestyle paid for by tax payers are not cool! You will have to learn new tricks like balancing a budget, driving tiny little cars, living in a box that passes for a house about the size of your dog kennel, using a washing machine and living without servants!!! Oh, and you will find that people have to work real jobs beating the broom to make ends meet without the advantages of having been born a well connected NRM princess for whom multimillion dollar contracts fall from the sky!
That man commander Kale Kayihura who tried to bring down the NRM government was given another term of office! Didnt I say you guys were bewitched? Doomed and irresistably drawn to your fate like blind mice! the man started a riot almost bringing the city and the government down! He should be cooling his heels in Luzira! Instead, you put him back in charge and see what he is doing! The other day he was shooting people in Luwero! He has littered the city with his idle looking mutineers riding tanks and menacing people with water cannon and tear gas launchers! Mbu I hear they are all gay! Anti they love the colour pink! They have been caught prancing around in heels and bras spraying people with pink coloured dye to make them gay! Quite frankly, the ‘kill the gays’ bill should be targeting Kayihura’s men! They are turning unsuspecting people into gays!
I came across this status update by a one @ortega “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”. It reminded me of several useless nuisance prosecutions that the NRM is indulging in against several people! To begin with there are all those prosecutions against all those arrested for exercising their right to use their legs to walk to work! Quite frankly, you guys are funny! Everyone to whom I have tried to explain the concept of the state arresting an individual for chosing to leave their car at home and walk to work, is either baffled at such absurdity and stupidity or just simply rolls all over the floor at the sheer buffoonery! And to add insult to injury, the act of repeatedly arresting the same people again to produce them in court on charges that have already been dismissed and which the arresting and prosecuting officer knows are going to be thrown out by the judge beats comedy! Quite frankly, you guys are a boon to comedians! You just keep giving! One simply cannot make up half of the stuff that your guys have done in the last few months since that election you lost so badly despite declaring yourselves winners! You see I warned you even before the election that that yours was going to be a pyrrhic victory and a pyrrhic victory it was! Need I mention that day of humiliation when Museveni’s visitors to witness him handing over power to himself for the umpteenth time rode the gauntlet of the mammoth crowd that braved Kayihura’s murderous idiots to put on a show that eclipsed the multibillion shillings one at Kololo! Kale you could see the busungu and the nugu with which they beat up and tortured unarmed people!
You guys are amusing! You have a knack for creating heroes and heroines from scratch! Of course I will not repeat the story of Besigye whose publicity the NRM undertook to do free of charge! For every time that you harrass or prosecute him needlessly, his star goes up! Following the election in February, he was down and out until that Kayihura man decided to elevate him to a peoples candidate! For days, you tried to destroy the city and its inhabitants and instead resurrected his waning political credentials! Now you do not even dare arrest him for whatever reason! Even when you do, you do not dare say that you have arrested him and cannot even produce him in court! It was interesting watching you guys try to come up with pseudolegal terms to describe the illegal act of detaining him during Walk to work 2! Mbu simanyi preventive arrest! Mbu ate he has committed no crime. Mbu ate he is under house arrest ate bambi he is not! Which legal schools did your guys go to? No wonder the Auditor General Muwanga found in his report yesterday that the government prosecution is weak and corrupt! i have for years been saying that they were incompetent to prosecute any cases involving more than a chicken thief! But even those fail them repeatedly leading to villagers taking the law into their own hands with mob justice!
Naye kale bantu mwe temuswaala! Even after losing case after case, you continue doing the same things hoping for a different result! Isn’t that the height of lunacy! I forget that it is the full moon at present!
A few months ago, you arrested a little old man from Bushenyi and charged him with the murder of colonel Muzoora! Now you have spirited away a little woman called Turinawe mbu for treason! Under your rule, the word terrorism has lost all meaning! It is used for all sorts of stupid things suggesting that you and your security people are incompetent and have no understanding at all of the meaning of the word terrorism nor that of treason! I would love to eavesdrop on the conversations between your security people and foreign spies like say those from the CIA or MOSSAD! I can bet they can barely suppress their laughter! As usual, you are going to lose all of these cases because they are based on lies and incompetence, your investigative capacity as well as prosecutorial capacity and integrity are weak! i can imagine those goatherds trying to outdo each other to see which one of them can come up with the biggest words!
Now back to Ingrid Turinawe! One year ago, no one had ever heard about her until Kayihura’s people tried to molest and undress her on the steps of parliament! Kale your guys are greedy! In broad daylight right in front of cameras, they molested the poor woman whose only crime was to hold a peaceful protest! So much for the so called democracy that you supposedly ushered in though I hear some of you were eating sausages in Nairobi and Stockholm when some of us were witnessing fireworks and living through hell! So this Ingrid woman has a ka small small meeting to organise how she and her friends will walk to work and your goons arrest her and hold her in jail without bail on the trumped up charge of treason!
I wonder which dimwit came up with that charge of treason! You guys need to let this ka woman go. The longer you detain her, the more popular she will be and trust me when she comes out, her victory parade will make Bad Blacks look like Biweero!
Banange, akivaamu yakiyita ekyaato! You guys were traitors and rebels just yesterday robbing banks and blowing up buses! Many of you have eaten our money and committed economic sabotage! Need I list the many financial scandals from GAVI to Temangalo to KCC markets to oil? Now you know who is a rebel and who is a traitor! Kanesekereko banange! Banange omubbi nga bamubye!!! You guys wouldn’t recognise the rule of law if it were staring you in the face!
Naye banange isn’t your daddy tired of fighting people? In luganda they call that okwepatiika ku batakuliiko! Those friends of his set him up to fail and am sure are the ones engineering his downfall. He needs to be one up from that spineless being Mahogany who almost peed his pants until Museveni abused the courts -twice! First for the selective prosecution, and then for making subjudice comments on a matter before the courts then ‘withdrawing’ the case! If he (daddy dear) really wants to be president of this country, he is going to have to jump out of the queue and form his own! if he is ever brave enough to actually stand up like a man and step out of Kaguta’s shadow, then, just maybe people will respect him. Until then he is Museveni’s lackey and pawn and continues to be seen as such! I agree with him that there is little or no proof of his having been in the pockets of ENI but you know people, “omubi yapaama mu lumbe”! That ka Temangalo thing will not go away and kind of hangs around like a bad smell! But of course you and I know that his attempted censorship from parliament has nothing to do with eating oil money and more to do with toppling him from the queue! First Bukenya is toppled, then Mbabazi is teetering! Do you start to see a pattern emerging? someone is interfering with the queue!
You know me I do not sugar coat! So I tend to piss off many people pardon my french including yourself dear! I hear your daddy too has that knack of rubbing people up the wrong way! Ngu he is arroganti! Daddy dear is getting shafted and he can do little about it! Of course we know who will “save him” thus clearly demonstrating who is the boss! He could of course resign as the current charges are making it difficult for him to perform his duties and head of government business! That would mark him as a man of honour! Or he could fight just like he did on Temangalo and “win” while losing just like he did with Temangalo! Its all unfair but as you know if you hang out with a condemned man, you are likely to be lynched too!
Interesting things are happening. Some ka girl from DP has just whipped all of the NRM bush Generals in Luwero! If I were you I would see that as an omen! That the ‘saviours’ and ‘liberators’ of Luwero have now been toppled in favour of someone who was not there when they were being bitten by mosquitoes or as they claim “fighting”!! Do you see what I see in this? Not even Museveni going to Luwero to campaign on behalf of the NRM candidate made any difference!
P.S: If you wish to buy a ka property in kyeyo land me I have some contacts! For 10% we can work out something! Given when the chips come down, they will be looking for all properties in your name, I could lend you mine for another 10%! You know how those Europeans and American hypocrites who are your friends today will be falling all over themselves to “discover” all of the money, you guys salted away overseas! After the Tony Blairs and the British and American banks got their cuts of the Gaddafi money, they were the first ones to freeze it when he suddenly became a pariah! Just talk to me small small and we shall work out an arrangement! Me you can trust!
I will say this again! Your regime has come to an end! you just have no idea when! Kaguta is tired and he is going. Either you guys retire him or Ugandans will retire him! The options are boundless but Gadafi, Mubarak, Gbabo and Ben Ali have just demonstrated a few. Personally I would prefer the Mbeki way or even the Moi way but a man has got to chose how he would like to die and how he wishes to be remembered! Its not too late for Museveni to negotiate his exit!
While I have your attention, could you please tell the prime minister that akabuga ke kaswaaza! I think that there is merit in the Chinese way of lining up corrupt technocrats against a wall and giving them one bullet each! Could someone please tell them that there is a difference between urban planning and running a cattle kraal! Quite frankly the people who have presided over Kampala’s “development” over the last 25 years merit the chinese way!
As for those UMEME people, I think its time to discuss re-nationalisation! Am sure Ugandans with their knack for mismanaging things can do a much better job of mismanaging our electricity sector! At least then the money will stay at home instead of being repatriated to the UK!
Someone is reshuffling the succession queue!
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 9:27am 路
Someone is reshuffling the queue!
Muhoozi takes a sudden interest in soccer. He donates 5000 USD to the Cranes.
Mbabazi also takes a sudden interest in soccer. He too donates to the Cranes -10,000 USD!
Neither man is known for their interest in soccer!
Bukenya is removed from the succession queue -in a rather abrupt and nasty manner. He is dragged off in chains to luzira!
The power centres around the succession queue are the Museveni’s (Janet Kataaha Museveni, Ainerugaba Muhoozi Museveni, and Akandanwaho Salim Saleh), Sam Kutesa an inlaw to the Museveni’s, and Amama Mbabazi who first declared the existence of a queue many years ago when Besigye tried to jump it!
The Museveni’s are at the head of the Bahororo brigade, Kutesa at the head of the Bahima/Banyarwanda brigade and Mbabazi heads the Bakiga brigade! Bukenya previously headed the progressive brigade as well as the catholic and Buganda brigades but he squandered all of his capital and remained with the Wakiso paesant brigade! It is questionable just how much more command he retains there!
Bukenya is sacked and in jail. Kutesa with Nasasira and Rukutana are also threatened with jail. Museveni is sending mixed messages feebly saying Bukenya is innocent!
But one man seemingly remains outside all of this despite he too having been mentioned in CHOGM as well as Temangalo. Recently there have been several rulings both political and legal declaring Mr “clean” Amama Mbabazi to be clean of both CHOGM and Temangalo!
Why all of a sudden this whitewshing exercise and why is the queue getting shorter? Why is there remaining only one candidate? Could it be perchance that that candidate or his boss are pulling the ropes and pruning the succession queue?
And then one looks at the instrument -IGG Baku. And one asks to who does the instrument of execution belong?
Does the fact that the instrument of execution belong to Mr “Clean” Amama Mbabazi now become relevant?
Is there a palace coup going on or is Museveni pruning his succession queue! Does any of this really have anything to do with corruption or is it plain old power politics? And which way will the Bahima Generals jump or the newly minted ethnically unbalanced Muhoozi compatriots given new ranks of najor, Colonel and Brigadier?
If I were any of the above men, I would grow eyes in the back of my head!!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Mbabazi, Succession
With you guys in power, Ugandans need to count their knives and forks!
Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 3:52pm 路
Dearest Nina,
Ombuzze ko!
Since they mentioned you in parliament mbu you had your fingers dug deeply into the oil pie, you have been hiding from me!
Naye kati given MASTko has taken the heat away and diverted the attention of the chattering masses, you are free to come out of ‘kava’!
LOL!
You know that man Apollo Kakwenzire from Kiruhura made me laugh with his staus update! He must have some lingering nugu for your daddy! Mbu;
“Mbabazi is fighting Bukenya, Kahinda Otafiire is fighting Mbabazi & Kutesa, Jim Muhwezi is fighting Mbabazi, Sekikubo is Fighting Kutesa & Mbabazi, Baryomunsi is fighting Hope Mwesigye, and the cycle continues! The only pillar, anchor, reed that is holding this group together is President Museveni. How’s NRM insured against collapse after president Museveni leaves the political scene?”
Museveni is a classical narcissist!
As long as this rat pack are tearing at each other, his own position as the only ‘man with a vision’ and the only one who can keep things together and the NRM in power remains intact!
He plays all of them like the master that he is! They all fight each other hoping to be noticed by the master and have some crumbs drop their way! Like kids one moment jostling to have their head patted and vicious dogs the next fighting to lead the pack as second lieutinants they fight for the position of favourite child!
The reality is that all of these men except Bukenya are historicals! As historicals, they all have legitimate reasons to believe themselves to be in the queue! But Museveni has held up the queue so they while the time away by turning on each other jostling for the closest position to the door!
In the 25 years that Museveni has been in power, 3 or more of these men could have been top dog! But no, Museveni has to be the top dog!
These men are frustrated! Ambitious men whose progress has been stymied, they watch time go by and their own chances of ever being president of this country passing by!
The reality is that if it were not so important to play benevolent dictator, these men would have long been executed in the name of the Ugandan revolution that never was! Thats what revolutions do. From England in Oliver Cromwells times to Paris when the dauphin and his queen Marie Antoinette became careless with their heads and lost them to Russia in the times of Lenin and Stalin when revolutionaries whose own ambitions became excess baggage to the revolution and they were carted off to the gulags and Siberia to China where various ‘cleansings’ of the revolution resulted in purges of previously powerful men, these too would have long been eaten up by the revolution!
But to call what happened in Uganda a revolution is a misnomer! What happened in Uganda was a change of guards! A rotation of the cake for while to be from north of the Karuma was once the mark of priviledge or the right to bear arms, those rights now moved to the west! With those rights of course came the right to loot the national coffers with impunity! Furthermore, those who cried for their victims murdered in cold blood, their women raped, their children made orphans also changed! The wheel moved to a different part of the country!
Uganda is cursed! Cursed with the devil of tribalism. So much blood has been spilt in Uganda. So many dead people whose ghosts remain to haunt this country! One wonders how people like museveni sleep at night with the hundreds of thousands of people who are dead in their name!
When one looks at these men, squabbling, fighting each other, one gets a feeling of karma! Truth be said, most of them will never ever get to be president of Uganda! Not to mention the fact that they will have to ride over Janet Kataaha and her son as well as Gen Saleh and a host of other Generals who have a vested interest and have taken out mortgages on this country!
You see Ugandans are a captive nation! People continue in their delusion of freedom! The reality is that the country is captured and owned by a few people. It is called the phenomenon of ‘state capture’! They have of course camouflaged themselves so well that most Ugandans believe that they are being held hostage by the presidents tribe, the Banyankole! That of course raises the sceptre of future massacres and reprisals! But the last time I ventured those sides of Rushere and beyond, I did not see any difference compared to other parts of the country! Paesants are paesants and paesants all over Uganda look the same be it from Ankole or elsewhere! Quite frankly while there are plenty of well off Banyankole, I know more Baganda and people from other regions who are as well off if not more well off!
But then this week it was announced in the papers that the state was not captured by Banyankole! No it was owned by Indians who own 80% of the economy! But I have heard it said that the real story behind the wealth of many Indians in Kampala is that they are really ‘beards”! Frontmen for the real captors of our state who remain powerful in this state, dismantling it bit by bit and selling it to themselves!!!
These demons have caused so much chaos that the whole country is now in an uproar. All parties are disorganised! While many in the opposition will be happy to watch these men tear at each other, their own huts are burning! In ths week alone, it has become obvious that A4C on FB is just not the vehicle that will led Ugandans to heaven! The old demon of tribalism is thriving there too! Ugandans are their own enemies! UPC are tearing each other apart in a battle that is likely to see Otunnu looking for another job while poor DP appears to have gone to sleep! It has been months since I last saw any comment of any relevance to Uganda’s predicament come from president Mao of DP! As for FDC, one wonders these days who runs that place! Not quite sure when i last heard Muntu say anything? Does he still belong to the party?
Now for more interesting news closer to home! i hear that princess from Bunyoro who heckles like a market woman finally fell on her sword, under duress of course! Am sure daddy Museveni will be there to soothe her with a new posting to Paris! After all her only crime was to get caught being that she was an amateur thief among pros! If she were a man caught stealing a chicken, she would have been burnt to death by the mob! And if she were a woman caught stealing matooke from a neighbours garden, she would have been paraded naked through the village with the matooke tied around her neck! But given she is an NRM thief, all sorts of words other than thief are used to try and make it appear right! Some even want to make her out to be a heroine forgetting she really had no choice and resigned through no choice of her own!
Or maybe some oil job or microfinance bank like Muky Kazibwe will be her solace! The news on twitter is so interesting. Some of it is so wild, its hard to believe what they are saying! Mbu she has so many names! Nsomba byuma, Kabasuma, Kabakumpanya , banange! Meanwhile the village boys from her home wrote a petition to the ‘fountain of honour’ to annoint her once again with a baptism like he did Bukenya, so she can be cleansed and retake her place at the table eating on their behalf! Somethimes I think that we are not ready for democracy! Shouldnt people making decisions have the intellect to understand the dcisions they make? Should the Ugandans who keep revoting this motley crew back into power really be allowed to vote? Thats not elitist -its just a fact!
I keep wondering. Are we now going to see that IGG of your daddy, Baku move to charge Ms Kabakumba with something? Surely, there must be a charge in there that attracts a generous holiday in Luzira or Nakasongola! Now is the time to see how independent Baku is!
Mbu the woman carted a 75 metre mulongooti from UBC to Masindi! There are even some cartoons claiming they were true likenesses of her dragging the mast along!
But one wonders whether giving Kabakumba to the crowd is not like a robber throwing some dollar bills to the crowd to obstruct the chase by the police as people squabble for the bills! How about those other people who have been named in other UBC deals resulting in the loss of all of its assets? Land worth billions handed free to Basajja he of the contract, cancel, compensate scandals? You know its the latest NRM scam in Kampala not to mention the UBC land allocate, sale pocket scandals! Or that woman of mbwa zirume now minister for information and LOL, ‘national guidance’! who comes up with these titles!
But I digress! She of the mbwa zirume fame who made up a story to vilify a whole tribe and serve her masters interests also partook of the UBC feast and together with another Muhanga made off with several billion shillings worth of land. All of the other people who received land worth billions free from UBC transferred their interest to thrid parties within days in exchange for billions of shillings! How is this not a scam? Shouldn’t all of these people be resigning?
How about those other oil ministers who resigned without resigning? Daddy dear confirmed yesterday that Kutesa is on “leave” and did not resign! Talk about playing the public!
Those young turks are really making noise in parliament! If your daddy and uncle Kaguta do not throw them a bone soon, they are going to eat someone! Right now your daddy dear and two other minsiters are on the menu save for the reprieve of a high court order staying proceedings! I get the feeling that your daddy was the target here as the evidence against him in the oil scandals is the weakest! You kow its an old truism that whe the old bull hangs around too long, the young bulls start to get impatient! Watching the NRM young turks in parliament is like watching a herd of buffalo with the young bulls challenging the alpha male who is now ageing and arthritic!
I had a chat with uncle Kagame yesterday on twitter! He was not very pleased with me! Anti i asked him about the third term project which he said was a matter for Rwandans! If he knew how many battles I have fought for him against some really naive and ignorant western journalists, he would be more polite! Mbu he didnt like me suggesting that he was spoilt like his daddy Uncle Kagu! So touchy! Seriously if he is taking this third term talk seriously, me am giving up on him! Shouldn’t it be obvious to everyone by now that this third term talk is destabilising rather than promotes stability? But i must give it to him for confidence! Now when is Uncle Kaguta going to learn how to use modern technology?
Today there were a number of stories in the papers. One shows that Uganda is leading from the bottom in literacy and numeracy on the continent -so much for UPE! The others were photos from red pepper different from their usual trash showing various UPE schools! Quite frankly all NRM party leaders should be forced to take their children an grandchildren to these schools just like they should be forced to get treatment in our hospitals! Seriously those photos were not in the glossy NRM pre election manifesto!
Uganda needs a major reboot! You guys need to work out your gratuities and pack up! Ugandans need to get their country back! But as usual, if you are looking for a hiding place from the angry peasants with pitchforks, you can forever count on me to hide you under my bed!!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Letter to Nina
When winners lose by winning!
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 11:20pm 路
Dear Nina,
Its been a while since I last wrote you a love note. I had planned to allow you to pop that bab in peace but your people are getting so annoying they have inspired me once again!
What exactly is wrong with you people? Do you have any political analysts or are you so inured against the reality in Uganda that you do not see whats going on? I told you the peasants will come for you with pitchforks. The masses are getting stirred up and not by external forces as you would like to believe! You guys are your own worst enemies!
Did you see the photo of Besigye in his cell as a guest of Kaguta? I am sure the presidents cows and dogs have better abodes! The utter contempt in which you people hold Ugandans is interesting. I wonder when its your turn which prisons you believe you are going to be held in? Given you have set the standards, do you expect that new spanky prisons will be built just for you? This man in Malawi who just won an elction not too long ago was in Besigye’s position for many years – in opposition. But there came a time when people asked Banda to leave and go back to his farm or whatever it is that presidents are supposed to do when they retire! I think I know what president Museveni’s problem is -never having done any other work save shooting people and being president, he is afraid he will become irrelevant if he ever retires! But he needs to take a cue from Gaddafi whose people fired him when he refused to read the writing on the wall!
A few months ago, uncle Kaguta was offended that the men of God instead of begging him for 4WD’s pointed out that the last election was bought with massive voter bribery! You and many members of the NRM have vehemently denied that you used state funds to buy votes. You have also denied having triggered the current inflation pointing out that it is a global phenomenon. I of course disagree. In Uganda the fundamentals are flawed and you cannot blame global factors. And fiscal indiscipline by your government triggered this inflation. The CBR used as the main instrument by BOU to mop up liquidity and reduce inflation is not likely to achieve that goal and will more than likely just slow down economic growth.
A blogger who has read the BOU reports using intuition and logic like myself has pointed out a very interesting graph! http://mugumya.com/2012/01/12/why-does-bou-insist-on-high-cbr-when-they-know-itll-do-more-harm/inflation-4/ You really need to see it and read the blogger, proudugandan’s take on the whole CBR thing! All of this shows that you guys in the NRM are economic saboteurs and triggered this inflation and have caused untold damage to many mums and dads just struggling to survive! First you flooded the larket with money. BOU says they didnt print any new money but this graph says otherwise! Then you depleted the reserves to buy some baubles aka fighter jets just for the bragging rights so you could compare ‘nankani’ with the regional big boys! You cannot even fly the machines and therefore continue to deplete the country of 800 million shillings each month to pay the Russian pilots while Ugandans starve and teachers remain unpaid!
I wonder whats with those military fatigues in Kyankwanzi! You guys really look ridiculous in military fatigues and paunches testifying to all of the good food and beer you have eaten at the expense of our citizens! What message exactly are you trying to convey anyway? All of you look soft and too well fed to do any fighting! Who do you believe you are kidding anyway? If a real war broke out, you guys would be flying off to South America and Kigali while Kayihura’s bully boys would be discarding their uniforms and running off to the villages. You think they would stand arouund and get killed for you? If you think so, you haven’t seen where and how policemen live! If you think that Besigye’s cell looks fit for a pig, then you really need to see where policemen live!
I laughed when I read that the overfed NRM politicians probably after smoking too much of an illegal substance at Kyankwanzi proposed the firing squad for economic saboteurs! I wonder whether they realise that the gun is pointing right at them!
Do you guys listen to the streets? Like really have your ars to the ground? You are so out of touch with the sentiment on the streets its not funny!
Think about this. There was a time when you guys didnt need to showforce at every corner and every 200 metres to rule the country. Now you are practically pooping your pants and think that guns will protect you from angry Ugandans whereas before it was goodwill and HUMINT voluntarily given by the population!
Methinks the level of security speaks for itself! Did you watch those videos of the new heroine created by your dumb goons exercising their neanderthal instincts? Ingrid Turinawe is fast becoming the face of resistance against NRM idiocy! You guys never learn. Besigye would have been an unknown if you guys hadnt decided to beat him to a pulp. The more you beat him up and the more stories you made up about him, the higher his star arose. I hear that woman Kutesa who you rewarded with secondment to Interpol was just offered a lucrative post. But I also hear that she may not enjoy it for very long if Ugandan activists have their way!
Now this Ingrid woman. Did you see how she led Kayihura’s boys on a wild goose chase all over the city? The idiots are so slow its painful to watch them! But what is even more interesting to watch is the publics response to her antics. if that does not tell you something then you must be very slow. But I can break it down for you gently -abantu babakoowa! Mubesibila ko bweerere! Dont Kale’s boys have anything useful to do?
If thats not convincing enough just evaluate the last year since you ‘won’ the elections. I told you it would be a pyrrhic victory and pyrrhic it has been. Am sure uncle Kaguta wishes he had retired while he was still ahead! The man who once said that the problem with africa was leaders who did not know when to retire, the one who claims to have fought against life president, is now a life president. Afraid of his own shadow. Scared that some small woman without an army is going to topple him from his confort!
Naye kale bantu mwe mulina ababbi! Even uncle Kaguta told uncle Paul the other day when he was in Kigali that his government was full of thieves. And as soon as he came back to Kampala, they proved him right.
How can a cabinet function with so many ministers accused of stealing? Now I hear 35 ministers were also stealing from UBC -35 out of 79 ministers is virtually half the cabinet!
You guys are tripping all over yourselves everyday. Mistakeafter mistake after mistake. I love it when you delude yourselves that you are under attack. People are questioning you -your running of this country and if you cannot take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Stop telling lies about terrorists. There are no terroristsout to get you! You are only victims of your own incompetence and intolerance! And jumping at your own shadows!
At this rate if you cannot see that you need to start planning your exit, then you are in plenty of trouble! I told you before that you will lose when you win! You have been checkmated and you can only go down. As a party, the NRM will like UPC need to be destroyed before you can build a new party!
P.S: Good luck with the bab.
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Elections, Letter to Nina
The NRM is corrupt -no amount of spin is going to change that!
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 1:28pm 路
Normally I write to my sweetheart Nina but today I will respond directly to you as some of the things I say today may distress her!
The NRM has been in power for more than 25 years. The only reason we are at this point is NRM incompetence in fighting corruption primarily because it is the key cadres of the NRM who are corrupt.
That corruption is abetted by the highest office in the land, President Museveni as evidenced by the claims of his ministers and Attorney General as well as the case study of Basajjabalaba. Of course other cases such as the junk helicopter scandal involving his brother Saleh, the collapse of UCB-Greenland due to its fradulent purchase of a state bank through Westmont, the defence of Mbabazi and other cadres even before investigations are out, making sub judice statements that prejudice such investigations and the courts, as well as inactivity and empirical evidence of the lack of successful prosecutions and convictions in part due to executive interference in the judicial process increase the perception that the whole party and leadership are corrupt.
Of course as one would expect, Museveni threw all of his men and women before the advancing crowd. He continues to maintain that he is clean while its the people around him who are not! if I were an NRM politician, I would be wary!
I have more than once stated clearly that i have not seen the evidence for Mbabazi’s involvement save for the claims of ambassador Lanier in his leaked cables to the US government. In those cables, he claimed no evidence other than the claims of one of the oil companies that was interested in the outcome of the negotiations with ENI. The claim that ENI a competitor had bribed Ugandan officials specifically Mbabazi was never presented with proof. the request that the US embassy imposes travel bans on Ugandan officials with the capacity to influence oil negotiations was blackmail and coercion by one of the beneficiaries to those oil negotiations.
Such interference by foreign oil companies leaning on and coercing or blackmailing Ugandan government officials should be taken seriously as they are as bad as if not worse than bribery! Either way whether using bribery or blackmail and coercion the goal is for the company to get advantage in oil negotiations. I have therefore personally stated that i have not seen the evidence for Mbabazi’s involvement in oil corruption which of course is not the same as saying that he is not corrupt.
As you may already be aware, despite him being “cleared” by the IGG etc, I disagree that Temangalo was above board -it was not! NSSF was robbed of its money by politicians! There was conflict of interest and all sorts of isms in that transaction. W also know that at the time, buying land was not part of the NSSF’s investment policy having been burnt in a previous land deal!
Mbabazi would have been a lot better off if he had sold his land on the open market. But we do know that he had a deadline to beat and needed a certain amount of money in a fixed timeframe, an amount no single body or individual could have raised. We know how hard it would have been to do so because Akright which later aborted the purchase of Jim Muhwezi’s land in the same area failed to pay even when the payments were stretched out over time. This is relevant because it is this figure offered to Muhwezi by Akwright that was usued to bolster the claim that NSSF received value for money.
That says that the market at the time simply could not pay the figures they claim to have been the market value. For them to get anywhere near the prices they claim, they would have had to parcel the land into plots and sell one by one over months to years! They simply did not have that time so they raided the single largest cache of cash in Uganda -NSSF by coercing and leaning on the boss, an impressionable young man who later ended up in jail on unrelated charges for not shutting his mouth up when the dung hit the fan!!
Remember its the market that determines the price of a property, not the seller. if the property is overpriced, buyers will not buy at that price. Furthermore, the urgency of the sellers need for money and the relative scarcity of finance would mean that a bulk seller would attract a lower price if he does not have time and resources to redevelop their holding into smaller parcels! The method an argument used by Mbabazi and his supporters including Andrew Mwenda was therefore flawed because it did not take into account the fact that they needed large amounts of cash at short notice in a country where there are few people with that kind of cash lying around. If they existed anyway, they would dictate the price and would have paid much less for the land than NSSF did!
There is of course the defence that what they did “was not illegal”. Am sure its the very same defence that Karooro Okurut is going to use to dismiss the charges of enriching herself at the states expense when she and Mwenda’s sister Muhanga got a multi billion shilling property free from the state on fraudulent grounds -fraudulent because the purpose of the allocation was for them to build a shoe factory but they just transferred their interest in the lease for cash within months! If they were genuine why didnt they return the land if it was unsuitable and demand another more suited to their purpose? If they failed to raise funding for their venture, how does the Ugandan tax payer benefit? As far as one can see UBC, the tax payer and the state lost a multi billion dollar asset which asset could have been sold competitively by auction and the proceeds used for other infrastructure development for UBC or the country! As it is an indiviudal who is connected essentially a crony ends up becoming a billionaire for free!
The request for Mbabazi to step aside can be justified as he is the head of government business in a corrupt government and has been a key minister for a long time. As a matter of fact he is and has always been one of the most powerful minsters in the NRM. If a government fails, someone has got to take responsibility. The head of the government actually happens to be the prime minister, Mbabazi! The use of oil charges without reasonable verifiable evidence instead of stating this simple fact maybe a criticism of the framers of the charges in parliament. of course it should not be forgotten that in Uganda we have an executive president ven though the PM is the leader of government business an ultimately it comes back to Museveni. If the country demands that someones head should be given up to them on a platter and that person happens to be Mbabazi and Museveni dcsides to stand by Mbabazi, depending on the countrys mood, it is then Museveni’s head on a platter that will be demanded in recompense!
You oversimplify Mpirirwe’s opinion. He essentially stated the steps taken in verifying that documents claimed to be proof or forged are indeed forged. WHat he did was raise questions but not prove that they were forged. He systematically demonstrates that the documents were very close to authentic and could only have originated from true originals or the work of a perfect forgery. He acknowledged that he did not have access to the work of the Malta police and that the presence of the mentioned bank accounts needed to be confirmed by a competent authority. As a matter of fact he as careful to state that his comments were based on the information available in the public domain. If I remember correctly the previous investigations did not actually say that none of those entities existed. All they said was that they could not ascertain the veracity of those claims! This does not close the case.
Neither do the denials of the oil companies close the case. The proof of bribery payments to government officials is now a prosecutable offence in the UK and other parts of the world and would also prejudice their current tax arbitration proceedings in London as well as future dealings with the government and people of Uganda. It will subject them to a lot of future scrutiny in addition to ensuring that they have a hostile PM in Kampala who they will have to deal with not to mention a minster for energy! These companies try to put themselves above the law in Uganda which so far is what they have tried to do at the expense of Ugandans and their resources! This story is as a much a story of the greed and corruption of Ugandan officials as that of oil companies!
Of course there are internal wrangles and political schemes esigned to bring down presidnt Museveni and his most powerful minster Mbabazi. Thast politics and when you refuse to retire, opposition mounts as well as resolve against you. Baganda say that “ensi egula milambo” -nations are built on top of corpses. Museveni and Mababzi have detroyed a lot of people in their rise to and continued hold on power. In addition they block the advance and ambitions of many young politicians. None of the young turks is going to go anywhere while Mbabazi, Museveni and their children are involved in Uganda’s politics and security. You are a cattle keeper, so you are well aware what happens to the alpha male when the young bull grows up. It will be a fight until one gives up or dies. Humans are not very different from animals and none of this should surprise you. It will only get worse and the only way for it to end is for the selfish old men who have hogged our politics and positions of power to signal their own retirement. That way they can control the process. The alternative is chaos and will be bloody! this is an irreversible process!
The fact that Uganda and the NRM were just a change of guards as they have proven over the years rather than a revolution means that you will not have the power to stem the tide. You have to adapt with the flow. Make concessions. Negotiate. Or fight it out to death -like Gaddafi!
As for Rugunda, he was at his zenith after the Juba “peace jokes”! True to form, Museveni moved him aside and out of sight to New York guaranteeing that by the time he came home, everyone had forgotten about him! Of course the little known fact that he is one of the major shareholders in the Temangalo bank will be brought out at the right and opportune moment if he dares to raise his head. You of course know what happened to Mahogany polofessa bukenya when he over reached himself! He was taught a lesson he is not going to forget in a hurry!
Mbabazi declared the presence of a queue many years ago. Most Ugandans didn’t even know one existed. They thought it was “individual merit” whatever that means until Mbabazi let the cat out of the bag! Baganda say, that when a co wife sees the stick that beat their co wife, they would be stupid to return that stick to the house as it will sooner or later be used to beat them too! Mbabazi is the stick that Museveni has used for many years to bet his opponents inside and outside the movement. Mbabazi too has used his authority to maintain him at the end of the queue!
But again Baganda say that “awakula ennume, tewakula emu”. Thats a proverb you as a cattle keeper should understand well. The kraal that raised one alpha bull can not fail to raise another! Sooner or later with the passage of time, the bull is faced with younger bulls ready to take up their mantle whether he wants it or not! Thats the reality facing Museveni and his right hand man Mbabazi -the young bulls are not going to wait for them to die off of old age. Unless they have an old trick up their sleeve to defeat the young bulls both within and without the NRM, they are going down! only a matter of time! Change is coming and neither you, Mbabazi nor Museveni will be able to stop it! All they can do is to ensure that that change is as orderly as it can be!
There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the oil bribery scandal and Jasper Mpirirwe just articulated some of them!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Kakwenzire, Nina
Does the NRM really need new laws to fight corruption?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:46pm 路
Nina Mbabazi,
We have discussed this and similar issues before.
Each time you demonstrate that you can see the problems but evade allocating blame using the subterfuge that we do not have enabling laws.
I have previously demonstrated to you that both the Civil servants code of conduct as well as the Leadership code have laws which if applied can control corruption and conflict of interest which are rife in the NRM circles of power!
I today will add something I came across from the Anti corruption act:
Section 9(1) & (2) of the Anti-Corruption Act, 2009 which provides that;
(1) An employee, or a member of a public Body, public company or public undertaking who, in course of his or her official duties, deals with a matter in which he or she or his or her immediate family has a direct or indirect interest or is in a position to influence the matter directly or indirectly and he or she knowingly, fails to disclose the nature of that interest and votes or participates in the proceedings of that body, company or undertaking, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not exceeding ten years or a fine not exceeding two hundred and forty currency points or both.
(2) Conflict of interest shall arise where the person referred to in subsection (1)-
(a) deals with a matter in which he or she has personal interest and where he or she is in a position to influence the matter directly or indirectly, in the course of his or her official duties;
(c) participates in the deliberations of a public body, board, council, commission or committee, of which he or she is a member at any meeting at which any matter in which he or she has personal interest is to be discussed.
“Public undertaking”would cover political appointees and overlaps with the Leadership code which also refers to close family members doing business with government and receiving gifts from parties and governments doing business with government.
Today you bring up the issue of taxation. This issue was confused by the NRM government and Museveni. Since the earliest days of the colonial government it was well established that as soon as one ws an adult, they had to pay taxes. Graduated tax, hut tax etc are taxes that were levied and collected by local chiefs and helped run local governments.” If you had no job, the local chiefs gave you one and you earned the money for your taxes. It became part of the culture that one was not a man if they did not pay taxes.
Museveni for short term political reasons scrapped graduated tax without replacing it with any other revenue source making local government even more dependent on central government. Ironically this coincided with so called decentralisation”!
Cost sharing in health was scrapped again for short term political gains. As I remember it, he made the announcement during a presidential campaign. While our people are poor, the reality is that they already pay a lot of money for very poor healthcare. Improving the formal healthcare services with a simple, basic means tested service fee would have helped local units generate extra money. As someone who has been on the coal face I can tell you that even very poor people try to bribe doctors. The same people are already paying for quack medical services and witch doctors. Amudoi Sabina, can tell you that health insurance is possible in poor developing nations if there is accountability. Now Rwanda is leading the way and we shall be followers!
THE URA is already mandated to collect taxes from Ugandans. The law gives Kagina a lot of leeway as has been seen in the cases against Sudhir, Heritage and Tullow and Basajjabalaba.
What we have not seen is the URA going after Amama Mbabazi for our cut of the capital gains on Temangalo, after Salim Salehs daughter for her tax returns against the 250,000 USD that was stolen from under her pillow, against her father for his taxes for the last 25 years and making sure they are commensurate with his income and against all those pastors driving fancy cars that do not tally with their stated incomes.
Using available laws anyone whose lifestyle does not tally with their stated income is in essence inviting a tax audit and you do not need a new law for this. If cannot substantiate their income then the URA can use an estimate and issue a demand note together with a fine for undeclared income and tax dodging. Together with heavy fines with or without custodial sentences, all of the nouveau riche NRM billionaires can be brought back under control. People like Ezra. If they are flashing around 1 million dollars in cash, URA should just issue a bill for their 30 % and its upto Ezra to prove that he paid taxes! I would like to know how much tax Basajjabalaba pays.
This idea that we need new laws is a dodge you have used before. We do not. Its the same thing that Museveni does by coming up with new laws when the old ones are notbeing enforced as in the land bill or they are being undermined by his own people! Its powerful NRM connected people with guns who evict people including some high profile cases involving people from the presidents office!
THat talk shop called government is just a den of thieves. Do we need 400 of them with all of their perks? Do they really add any vlue to the process of governance? How about the many political appointees at all levels of government including those useless presidential advisors who do no advising. TAmale Mirundi said it was some sort of pension club for people the president wishes to gve welfare. Certainly when one looks at appointments like that of Rwakasisi afellon previously on death row for 25 years one can believe this! The semi literate administrators at distric level aka CAO’s and DISO’s all useless sycophants who only serve to embed a party’s political machinery into state business just like the RC’s do!
The NRM is tired. They just keep recycling old twerp but quite frankly are really lost! They flounder each time demonstrating they do not even read their wn laws gathering dust in their expensively bound reports!
WE need fresh thinkers, fresh minds!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Corruption, Letter to Nina
When are you guys going to go home?
Friday, August 17, 2012 at 10:09pm 路
My Dear Nina,
Today is my birthday -the birthday i was not supposed to have, but here I am all fine save for some mending broken bones! All of course thanks to the country that your uncle Kaguta, daddy PM and all the cult worshippers of the one and only visionary have created! A country where security of person is just a word, a myth and a lullaby to lull the people into keeping him in power in perpetuity!
i have had the most wonderful messages wishing me a happy birthday and probably for the first time ever in my life, i am glad to be celebrating it. Normally I do not really care and I have been known to forget my own birthday!
But just like that time a few weeks ago when some idiot tried to snuff my life out with a crowbar, you my dear sweetheart seem to be the last person to notice that i have a birthday to celebrate and a reason to be happy that am alive.
Even 2 and a half year old Sanyu was happy for me. In the morning she sang Happy birthday dear daddy, and she helped me cut a mouth watering chocolate cake not to mention handing me a nice birthday present. nevermind her little eyes were virtually popping out at the very prospect of eating birthday cake! But this time you will not be able to say, you did not know!
In a few weeks Ugandans in uganda and all over the world will be celebrating Uganda at 50! I have been wracking my brains for days and weeks trying to find a reason to celebrate! i am afraid i just cannot find a good reason to celebrate Uganda at 50!
You know for more than half of that 50 years your daddy and his friend have been dragging us to hell in a basket. We are a laughing stock -to be pitied and ridiculed! the other day a Prime Minister who dragged his country to the brink of disaster said that spain was not Uganda. never mind he was at the same time holding his hand out for handouts -like Uganda but of course not from Uganda!
Quite frankly it was only a few days ago at the end of the olympics that ugandans finally found some reason to be happy in their 50 year old existence as a country but not a nation! kiprotich hereto virtually unknown pushed past the Kenyans powered no doubt by posho and beans and pipped them for the marathon!
this of course was no thanks to the ugandan government which in addition to denying him facilitation and training facilities found the money to fly pot bellied officials and a half sleepy vice President to london but not to facilitate the athletes!
i can bet that no one in the NRM cabinet knew his name least of all the sports minister who claimed that the athletes were very well facilitated nevermind being contracdicted by the athletes themselves! just a paltry 4 athletes and we couldnt even look after them.
But as one would predict, the malindirizzi were ready to benefit from the success of Kiprotich! when i talk about he malindirizi am not referring the the karooli’s and sekanyolya’s around the cities garbage dumps! Am referring to the NRM leadership. i will not even mention the corporate vultures like tullow who donated a paltry 10,000 USD despite receiving the country’s oil resources virtually free! did they even pay our taxes yet? as far as i remeber they owed us a lot more than 10k!
Poor Kiprotich was waylaid at entebbe, kidnapped and driven to state house so that the visonary could bask in his glory and get rejuvenated! i hear he initially thought that kiprotich was one of these opposition politicians who have made a habit of thumping his party at each and every by election! poor guy kati assula akukunadde anti buli akakuba wabweru! i wonder why people torture themselves so! one would have thought that he would have learned from his friend Gaddafi the most recent victim of his own hubris! Banange kale mwesiba kubatabagaala! abantu babkoowa dda! siba munno nyo, i would not be able to tell you what others are afraid of telling you! Abantu mwesibye my governmenent like you were born there! Mudeeyo ewamwe!
If i were kiprotich, i would have got off the plane in Nairobi and gone to my village via Busia! Ndabbe nyabula bwemunoonyaayo through the non existent roads! but the poor guy was forced to endure a breakfast and a lengthy speech -the same one ugandans have heard for the last 26 years of we have not done anything apart from enrich ourselves because we fought! no roads, no sports facilities, no schools apart from bufumbo college and bonna bakoone bagende bakube amatafali oba bateme empuuta -oba obutayimbwa! All i could think of was ‘laba bwebamwesipaata nga gyobela nti bali balya naye!
The most nauseating and mindless of gestures of course was the ‘promotion’! And then the paltry 80,000 dollars to a man who in one instant brought more free publicity for the country than the million dollars given to Glenevin for “PR”, nor the other million given to uncle Kaguta’s son in law rwabwogo for the fated “gifted by nature” campaign! the name of the campaign should have been “Gifted by nature but jinxed by the NRM”. At the very least, he is worth 2 million dollars from this government! 80,000 is less than the cost of that merc your daddy bought the minute he became PM nevermind he has feasted on the best this land can offer for almost 3 decades! and i don’[t remember him ever garnering equal support and goodwill not to mention publicity for this country!
Now about those junk helicopters that continue to haunt the country! I would really love to know if they were fitted with appropriate navigation and communication equipment or whether whoever signed the contract left them out!
just when we had a ka little goo news to celebrate you guys spoilt it for us! 3 helicopter gunships ( an millions of dollars down) as well as 10 men so far and no one is taking the fall. instead afande saleh has been appointed to look into the issue! 4 gunchips, one crashlanded, 3 destroyed and men killed -what shame. The Kenyans are having an absolute ball! i could direct you to a few websites where they are wondering what kind of imbeciles we are to be downed even before Al Shabaab fire one rocket! is there any wonder that Kony continues to mock us? with enemies like ourselves, Al Shabaab can rejoice as we are kiloing ourselves with incompetence even before getting to the battlefield!
With all due respect, his brother having forgiven him or not, didnt he take 800,000 USD in enjawulo from the original helicopter gunship deal? And shouldnt that disqualify him from having any part to play in the inquiry if only to give it some modicum of respectability? I can guarantee that with afande Saleh in charge, any report will be ignored by the public as a cover up however professional it maybe! but then again, judging by 26 years of the NRM in power, we can assume there will be no report! And if there is, we can trust the NRM to undermine it themselves using the constitutional court etc! as they have done several times in the past! need i mention the GAVI scandal or the oil corruption scandal where the culprits never even got to have their day in court having invalidated the very instrument that supposedly had proof of malfaesance!
Now you my love i can see are getting more and more frustrated. Anti daddy dear appears to be in the line of sight of the Capo! I undertsand that daddy dear thought that the cosa nostra was a democratic institution where the boss got to retire and someone else from a different family got to take over! munange hate to break it to you naye uncle kaguta tayina gyalaga! the man owns the state, its resources and its army. he has a Queen and a Prince in waiting all trained for the express purpose of offering an alternate king. and now the noose is tightening on the PM for daring to do what besigye and bukenya did before him -covet the throne! this is high treason in a kingdom my friend! Kakati daddy is going to be rendered useless in both the NRM secretariat his refusal to step down from the position of SG notwithstanding! with a deputy who reports directly to the oracle, in both the SG’s office as well as the OPM, it is going to be fun watching this new game! Nasasira of course is not going to play second fiddle -I can see Bahima/Bairu/Bakiga politics playing itself out here! slowly by slowly, like Bukenya before him, the PM is being encircled and being made redundant not to mention being blamed in public by the visionary himself for not being efficient!
On another note, old man bidandi now wants the taxpayer to pay for his self initiated referral to Taiwan for medical treatment without even bothering to go through the queue. he is appealing direct to the oracle! Banange the politics of patronage! the man who has been in government for decades and served to entrench the movement and its leader now thinks that Ugandans owe him after maintaining him in luxury for decades! this sense of entitlement among Ugandan politicians is annoying! you guys neglect Uganda’s health system at your own peril no matter how much money you make nor power you have!
Kakati nno munange when the Kaguta’s kick you out before the paesants come along with pitchforks you could end up like Mzee bidandi begging to be let back into the tent of resources and patronage!
I have prepared for that day munange -as I have sid before nze nja kukweeka wansi w’omufaliiso!
Beera bulungi!
Drew
P.S: I think I just may hang around a long while just so that i can piss you guys off a little more till you retire from the countries politics and go back to look after your cows and goats!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Letter to Nina
Now you think you can teach me about patriotism?
Thursday, August 9, 2012 at 11:55pm 路
https://www.facebook.com/notes/nina-mbabazi/drew-and-his-katayimbwa-goons/10151089035384449?notif_t=comment_mention
Nina, dearest,
You are now acknowledging what has been common knowledge for many weeks and feigning ignorance? Ekyo bambi ekigali nkibuusse mu togya kumalilla budde. Those who really wanted to know or express their concern did so a very long time ago while the details are all online for those interested in them.
Am not quite sure whats wrong with the Mbabazi household as one of your relatives Patrick has been asking similar annoying questions like he didn’t know how to read! Dude was so confused that if I didnt know he was not a recipient of the crappy UPE education of bonna bakone, I would have thought that he too was a UPE graduate. My grandmother would have put it best by saying, “bambi musassire. anti yakoona!”! “Enoo simanyi UPE yaMuseveni bambi ebabugumyako bubugumya!”
I will however respond to one question as it raises serious public health and law abiding ramifications. I would never sit on a boda boda if it were the last transport available! those things kill and maim people. Under the NRM, they have flourished and are everywhere like flies on poo! Nothing demonstrates the lawlessness over which Kayihura presides than watching boda bodas ride through the city breaking all the rules right in front of police officers!
Of course the other people who demonstrate just how mucu the NRM has lost control of the city is butayimbwa. I can see that you demonstrate your ignorance by assuming that its only boda bodas who are targeted! i assume that you are trying to imply that they would never be able to get to you in your big fuel guzzling 4WD and that if i was mugged, i must have been using my God given 2WD or a boda boda! i am afraid i will have to disabuse you of that ignorance of the security situation in Kampala! contrary to what you believe, all sorts of people and all sorts of surburbs have been besieged by butayimbwa wielders!
Am sorry if you were under the impression that i accused you of hiring thugs to finish me off. When i say you, i mean your as representing the NRM, the party you personally helped to grab power last year and received a public acknowledgement by president Museveni. i know that you now want to forget just like your dad would like us to forget that he is one of the architects of the chaos over which the NRM has presided! if the NRM and Museveni have brought chaos and corruption to Uganda, his bossom buddy, hatchetman and chief strategist Amama Mbabazi has got to be condmned together with him. This shall not be the time to say, “mbu silya nyama ndyamu supu!” i nowhere implied that you had gone out and hired goons to finish me off but that YOU (you, AM, NRM, Pres Kaguta) have created the conditions for the lawlessness that now characterises Kampala and almost resulted in my death!
i notice that all of you, yourself, daddy and uncle Kaguta use the same strategy! Blame the lowest common denominator, the guy at the bottom! so in the PM’s office blame Kazinda but let the PS OPM as well as that of finance get away scott free for presiding over a fraud that now spans 3 decades.You use the same disingenuous excuse in Mulago! you mention the video from abim hospital. i wonder whether you really bothered to watch that video. if you had, you would have listened to the voices of frontline staff -the people who work everyday in the mud and muck upto their elbows and eyeballs in human refuse and virus infected blood minus protective gear! instead, you chose to be jingoistic just like the PM and the president have been -focus on the little man and woman who often times are helpless!
Mulago has a computer -God save us all! Now that mulago has a computer I assume we do not need doctors. I find it interesting listening to your account of doctors or the lack of in Mulago casualty and contrasting it with my personal experience as well as my recent chats with interns in Mulago. Are you aware that an intern in Mulago may work a longer than 12 hour shift for 7 days a week, several weeks in a row without any breaks? That they have got to pay for their own hepatitis vaccine jabs to protect themselves from hepatitis which is endemic in uganda? That protective equipment may often be in short supply? Are you awrae that at least one study shows that the mortality rate of a ugandan doctor exceeds greatly that of international averages?
That Ugandan midwives often abused and maligned may have an HIV rate far exceeding that of nurses, the only difference being that midwives are exposed to more patients blood? and what these midwives and junior doctors get paid a month you blow on a meal in a restaurant or just airtime! its all nice and good for you to sit on your high chairs pontificating about the hippocratic oath of which you wouldnt even have the slightest clue without even bothering to look at them as human beings like yourself. human beings who have needs, pay rent, have school fees etc. Ever wondered how they survive on the pitiful salaries you pay them? the other day, your thieving members of parliament increased their own salaries. just a year ago, they robbed the tax payer to pay themselves and help your daddy and uncle Kaguta buy and steal an election! The practice of medicine is both a vocation and a profession. Being a vocation does not grant you the right to exploit and abuse doctors who like yourself want the conforts of life as well as the luxuries! As a profession they are entitled just like you to demand to be paid for their professional services for as a profession, many of them devote decades to training to acquire the skills you wish them to give away free while you guys live it up!
I read with amusement a MoH official describe an MRI scanner as an more advanced CT scan! What ignorance! The story of the dysfunctional MRI, actually never functioned reminds me of some anecdotes from my days in mulago! If you gave me a day, i could go on non stop and still would not run out of stories non of them amusing!
During my intern days, the labour suite received a donation of a fancy looking and very modern delivery bed. The kind that you no doubt have seen in the fancy private labour suites you have been to. trust me it was out of bed in mulago. white and shiny, it was electric. To function properly, it required a power source -you know those outlets in the wall? but the plug it came with didnt fit a ugandan socket. having travelled you would be aware that the british plug used in uganda is not really universal.
A fancy do was put on with ministers posing for photo ops and the New vision wasted some trees on a front page spread! For the next few months, that bed was stuck in the corner, unused. i asked the sister in charge why, and she said it was because they couldnt plug it in the wall. i pointed out that it was just a matter of changing the plug, something i could do myself in five minutes and all they needed to do was to get someone from engineering to do it. a few months later, the bed disappeared presumably to engineering never to return. Having been covered in a layer of dust, it could very easily be passed off as scrap!
in the same unit at another fancy photo op for the politicians and administrators, a batch of fancy new vacuum delivery kits with soft cups that are more kind to little tots brains were delivered. Sister in charge locked them up for fear of them getting stolen and they never saw the light of day. we continued to use old and rusty metal cups.
in another department the casualty I was involved with a project funded by the french government. A young french medical attache was all gung ho about creating an efficient emergency unit. Equipment was installed, theatres, x-ray units, monitors, anaesthesia machines, ECG etc!
These things always require consumables like ECG paper on which to print. once the paper the French had provided got finished, the ECG machines became mueseum pieces. Soon they too found their way to the equipment morgue and never got back!
there are a lot of things wrong with the health system and most of them are leadership and administration. Specifically the lack of leadership at all levels of the NRM government and the corruption that is now firmly embedded in our culture!
I find it amusing that you deign to lecture me on my duties to my country and people! i know my duties and responsibilities. and these start with my civic duty to speak out on issues that affect me and mine. My parents and siblings have got to attend the crappy health care system that you guys have run down. for them to get even a minimum of care, i have to subsidise the crap all that you provide. So dont tell me about patriotism. I contribute to the Ugandan economy including charity! on my last visit, i contributed a significant amount of dollars to your flagging economy as i have done over the years. I even pay taxes! So i have all the right in the world to question the way that you have run this country for 26 years!
As for ‘decampaigning’ the country, I am very sure you have a misunderstanding there. I was injured in uganda. Te injuries are visible as are the prostheses i have to wear. i have both trauma and surgical scars. of course people who see them ask and given I interface with tens to hundreds of people face to face everyday, i get asked a lot how i got injured. Do you want me to say that i was mugged in Nigeria which by the way has a murder rate less than one sixth of uganda? My comment was that people ask. i respond with the truth while inwardly angry. angry that i know that by telling them the truth i am confirming and reinforcing already established biases and prejudices. but ten or fifteen years ago, i would confidently tell them whene they asked me patronising questions that uganda was getting better under a focused bunch of new politicians who had fought their way to power pushing out murderous dinosaurs.
Now i cannot with confidence say the same thing for truth be told, uganda is now an occupied state. Security everywhere which unfortunately does not prevent people from getting killed. Makes one wonder if the security are the ones knocking off people. actually a shoot out last week netted escurity men who had been robbing people.All i can now say is that the country has gone to the dogs and the sooner we get some change to reignite some hope, the better!
And yes the donors and westerners are biased and prejudiced but who can blame them after watching our buffoons in power who forget to go home?
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Letter to Nina
Katayimbwa murders and the elusive NRM peace and security!
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 2:02am 路
Nina dear,
Obulamu.
These days you have gone quiet! Must be those naughty Chinese people who wanted to jail you! Kale obuChina bumanyiira! mbu you stole their motorbikes and refused to pay even after receiving the goods and disposing of them! naye kale mwana wabayisaawo! Am surprised uncle Kaguta has not as yet reprimanded you for mistreating investors!
Tomorrow am having an operation to fix the effects of your regimes little boys 3 weeks ago! Kale mwaali mumazzewo! Am sure you are going to feign ignorance of what am talking about but you would have to be the only person in the Ugandan blogosphere who does not know what am talking about! you may deny that there are your little boys but given they phenomenon of katayimbwa is one that has been nurtured and grown under the NRM, you cannot deny ownership! Your bu boys must have figured that I needed some re education about the “peace and security” ushered in by the NRM! And they did really re educate me and trust me, I can see the irony even more clearly than i ever did before!
Naye kale mwana gwe oli musezi olya n’abafu, as my grandmother would have said! Kale nali simanyi nti olina akatima akabi bwekatyo! If I ever doubted it before, now I know that among those who wish me dead, you have got a front seat. But knowledge is power!
You see in her village in Masaka, Rakai as in all civilised Buganda, if someone fell gravely ill or died, everyone on the village was expected to drop what they were doing and commiserate with the bereaved or the sick. Failure to do so would mark one as being a person of ill will and if there was a question as to whether there was witchcraft or poison involved or other mercenary motive, would identify them as the culprit! In my grandmothers village, your behavior would qualify you and identify you as the museezi or mulogo and you would be very lucky to escape with your life! Bandi pisse gwe emizingonyo …I shudder to state where they would shove them! But as you know i have a soft spot for you so i will tell them to “beat you gently”!!!
You know I have always thought that if you guys were stupid enough to want to bump me off you would have to try and make it look like a random attack! People keep telling me i should not go to Uganda but I have always rubbished them! I did not believe that your regime are stupid enough to bump people off for disagreeing with the way you run the country -like village bumpkins!On a serious note I still do not believe that you are stupid enough to try to bump me off nevermind I shouldn’t be so sure given the actions of your fathers regime! The reality remains that someone did seriously try to bump me off! I still have the bump on my head and a fracture to prove it!
Which does raise the issue of security in Uganda! You know security is the one thing that you guys have always claimed you brought! Its the opium by which you continue to drug the masses! Mbu ‘twebaka ku tullo!”
Assuming this was a random act of violence which I prefer to believe it was despite what everyone else appears to believe, my immediate interest of course was how common was it! Imagine my surprise to find that this kind of assault is a very common occurence in virtually all surburbs of Kampala! there is even a name for it -katayimbwa. Some random comments I can quote include that of a neurosurgeon who testified that katayimbwa is the most common cause of head injuries on his unit in Mulago!
A pathologist in Mulago cites it as the most common cause of violent death in the morgue! At least two people showed me their injuries while two others told me their brothers had been attacked in similar circumstances and barely escaped with their lives following prolonged hospitalisation. Several people testified to knowing people killed with katayimbwa to the head within the last few days from places as diverse as Mukono, a surburb on Entebbe road, Kawempe etc!
A radio programme debated the phenomenon of katayimbwa and several newspaper reports on deaths appeared in the two weeks I was in Kampala! Several businessmen were shot and killed or butchered with many of these murders remaining unsolved. An article quoted a murder report that suggested at least 10 people were killed in Kampala each night in such similar incidents!
You know I was attacked very early in the evening at 8:30 right next to a police barracks in a spot that. It also happened to be on a night that commemorated the first anniversary of the 7/11 Rugby club bombings. Kayihura’s men had a show of power out that day -enough for everyone to feel safe if they really had any faith in the police! But Ugandans have learnt not to have any faith in a politicised police! The role of Kayihura’s police is to keep the government in power not to protect the community! Thats why despite the heavy presence of policemen and women everywhere, people continue to be murdered everyday! Thats why places the community considers to be red spots are not monitored by the police! Do you know that many people are convinced that the police themselves are a part of these attacks on innocent people?
In the two weeks i spent in kampala, i got to get an intimate knowledge of at least 5 hospitals in kampala, 3 in one night! my experiences which i will write further about go on to reinforce my previous opinions about the health system in Uganda under the NRM! Am not quite sure that there any words that can really describe the mess that you guys have presided over and produced in the last 26 years and counting! Its no wonder you steal 350 million USD of taxpayer money a year to have yourself treated overseas while the hospitals at home are rotting!
i was amused when a few days ago your father the Prime minister listed on twitter the so called health achievements of the NRM government! Munange daddy wo mugambe he should not embarrass himself again without getting proper briefing! As a matter of fact as a leader of government business and an aspiring president of this country who has been one of the longest serving ministers and architect of the movement, he really needs to acquaint himself with the mess over which he presides!
One does not have to be a specialist to know that the health system in Uganda is a mess! you probably know by now that he was robustly rebutted and retreated never to return after he cited the uganda Heart Institute and the uganda Cancer institute among the ‘achievements of the NRM! Quite frankly if you guys do not know what you are doing you really need to step down and go back to rearing ducks and goats!Uganda does not have a functioning emergency care, primary care, critical care as well as many recognised specialties and subspecialties! And this is not because i am being elitist or comparing Ugandan with western countries!
Ugandans die everyday from simple things for which no one should die in this day and age! And for the PM to cite cardiac care and cancer care as “achievements” is at beast ignorant and at the worst mendacious! if he really wishes to become president he needs to start setting himself aside and informing himself rather than parroting what is written in the NRM manifesto which quite frankly is lies! the mortality rate of a Ugandan woman with breast cancer is 200% the international average! that figure lone should give you some idea just how bad the situation is! I wouldnt even wish to hazard a guess what the cardiac mortality rate is compared to international and even regional standards unless you are comparing Uganda with Somalia and Congo!
Kampala is insecure! The myth of the NRM having brought peace and security is just a myth. People are dying everyday in preventable homicides with the police looking on! the people consider the police to be useless and actually the enemy!
Within days of my assault 2 other people reported being assaulted on twitter and one notified your father in a tweet! His very laughable response was -go tell the police! I think you guys must be deluded! The police is useless and to report yet another assault when they have done nothing about the previous ones nor taken any steps to prevent future assaults and homicides is a waste of time! Me I refused to waste my time! The police have got enough statistics and do not need any new ones. they just need to act and to be seen to be acting!
When i arrived in Uganda 2 days earlier, it was as usual to see what new changes there were in Kampala. Among those changes is personal security! As a member of the Ugandan diaspora who also happens to hold a foreign passport, security is important. One assault almost left me dead, almost left my children orphaned and given my head and my dominant hand were involved almost left me unable to work! As it is while i am back to work, my driving is limited and i will need to take off extra time for another operation. So two weeks in Uganda have ended up having lasting impact that of course also determines how i view Uganda!
Can you imagine i had only spent two days in Uganda and my 2 and a half year old daughter was visiting Uganda for the first time! It would be a day she would forever remember as she had just been baptised the day before and for the rest of her life, thats all she would ever remember of Uganda! my sons experience of lawlessness has always been on visits to Uganda with at least three robberies, and this attempted murder! That 2 days before we had paid 200 dollars for visas to Uganda expecting to have a holiday and instead experiencing a nightmare!
It is interesting that your NRM talks about investment, mining and tourism without paying any attention to personal security and primary and acute healthcare services! it makes one wonder whether you guys really understand the fundamentals! That for businessmen and tourists to visit Uganda and spend money as well as invest, they have to be assured of security. And security is not about the vulgarised visible but inneffective security in Kampala that is pervasive but basically run by ignorant people who would miss a bomb if it were right in front of their eyes! Security can be very effective even when invisible and unintimidating!
i found it interesting that your brother in law, Patrick, who i used to consider to be a friend put my assault down to a mere statistic! He even suggested that i made up the whole thing to make your government look bad! Quite frankly one does not need to make up anything to make you look bad -you do a good enough job of that already!
I have been asked to give a talk about health in Uganda in a forum that will include members of the diaspora as well as investors with mining interests and potential tourists!
I remain conflicted! Do I promote my country while covering up incompetence or do i lay out the whole naked and bare truth? Given that i do not like telling lies, you know exactly what i am going to say! It would actually be unethical to cover up the truth -that the NRM has been lying to people about having brought peace and security and that it is common and quite possible for one to be killed in a random event for simple things like pocket change, a watch or a phone! The NRM also needs to know that if it wishes to attract investors and tourists, many of whom are retirees with chronic illnesses, they need to pay attention to the healthcare system! When i called my travel insurance company, I was told verbatim, that i was calling from the middle of nowhere in Africa! As you can see the millions of dollars given the first son to “sell” the country went the way of those wasted on the police!
I wonder what you guys see when you travel to other countries to study, to do business or even to have babies at our tax payer expense! Or are you so blind you cannot see that your so called development falls far short of the mark?
Munange yadde you wished me dead, me i will hide you under my bed when the peasants come for you with pitchforks as they certainly shall! Don’t think that those idiots with katayimbwa will not one day come knocking at your gate! for as long as the NRM continues to create these problems, you and your children shall never be safe in Kampala just like the rest of us are not now!
So much for the NRM peace and security! Needless to say while I have no choice and will be visiting Uganda again in future, none of my acquaintances and friends are likely to be visiting Uganda as tourists or investors at any time in the near future!
P.S: I wish to make it clear that despite many suggestions that the attack on me was politically motivated i believe it was a random attack reflective of the lack of peace and poor personal security in Uganda under the NRM government! While i am aware that my articles upset some people in the NRM, i have got no evidence that this was a politically motivated attack. I also wish to state that I am not and have never been a politician!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Katayimbwa, Letter to Nina, Security
Will the children of NRM politicians help Ugandans escort their fathers back to their villages?
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 8:51pm ·
@Muhiire says,
- Robert Kabushenga
- Kwame Rugunda
- Rugaba Hussein Kashillingi
- Eva Rukikaire Mwine
- Annette Mirembe Kategaya
- Nina Mbabazi
Give them more mash and add concentrates, Mukene, Spinach, & cabbages and let the fattened birds remain in their deep slumber for the rest of their useful time. A brilliant Idea! Talk of fattened, castrated bulls! well kept in an electric enclosure. no worries about tomorrow as long as there is enough grass and piped water in their paddocks and you can even rap and get away with it as you prolong their slumber!
TALK OF WASTED INTELLECT!
Give the broilers ten years in the same state, they will be as good as local crude waragi drinkers in terms of ‘nationalism’ achievements. ‘mbu’ they also have five sense! The old generation in power today, might be on a mission to render the young generation useless. The broilers are enemies of themselves! There is a big diffence between a man & manhood. I can see a wasted generation in making!”
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=433728849983575&set=a.100120663344397.48.100000393901179&type=1&ref=notif¬if_t=photo_comment_tagged
Barbra Natifu,
I believe these six were chosen because they are the children of prominent politicians who have at some point or other had some prominence or involvement in public life -or not.
I believe the targeting presupposes that being born into priviledge and recipients of the benefits of being the children of politicians who have benefited financially and otherwise from the longevity of the NRM, they are somehow obliged to make a contribution to society.
In fact the post insinuates that they are disappointments for having taken the ‘wrong side” in or not taking any side at all!
To some extent its true despite protestations to the contrary that all of the above have been priviledged whether they acknowledge it or not. It is normal for all of us to assume that we have our headstart in life because we are uniquely talented and those less fortunate souls who fall off the treadmill of life or live close to the bottom are just plain lazy!
Reality however is that our backgrounds are very much dictated by the station in life that our parents hold and if those parents have greater access to public goods which they can leverage to get us a better education and lifestyle, seats on company boards, contracts from foreign companies that are simply interested in the real or imagined patronage that our family name brings to them even when we bring little in the way of real skills we have to be really stupid to fail. So the above people can protest all they like but reality is that they were given a head start regardless of whether they acknowledge it or not.
Those of us who have been priviledged could be said to have some sort of obligation to return something to the society that has been so kind to us. But is this really an obligation or a personal choice?
The NRM and Museveni as well as his wife have made it obligatory for Ugandans to “be patriotic”. As a matter of fact some of the above have tried to use the patriotic argument to counter any accusations by those who believe that their fathers have mismanaged our country and economy. If we all have to be patriotic then one would have to demand that those who have had most priviledge be the first ones to put their words where their mouths are! Certainly if these people who are clearly benfiting from the animal their fathers killed are not ready to step up and defend it, what business do I have defending it for them?
But again one has got to ask -do these people have an obligation to fight for and defend what their fathers fought and killed for?
That presupposes that they are happy that our society is well managed and their fathers and mothers are doing a very good job and should not be retired in the publics best interest!
I happen to believe that the countries top managers, the parents of the above six have done their job and have reached the limits of their own skills and need to hand over.
However I believe in merit and not inheritance. The above six even if they viewed public life as their obligation have no more right than any other suitably qualified person to take on as leaders of the next generation.
In my humble opinion if they wish to take part in future leadership, it should not be from a position of priviledge and right of inheritance but because they actually have got something to donate back to society. They have to chose the side of the people. This is true whether they chose to stay in the run down and increasingly decadent NRM or chose to break with their parents.
The NRM is in need of reform to come back in line with peoples aspirations. In its current form and leadership, it is going to die whether the owners accept it or not! It is where KANU and UPC were in the past! Whether these young people want to die with it or not is upto them!
As an aside, I note the comments of Hussein and Nina with regard to their childhood sacrifices.
There is a tendency for some children of NRM bigwigs to play the poor little rich me card ie the Marie Antoinette card. Poor me had to live in a flat in Sweden on sausages kind and endure house arrest kind of thing.
With all due respect, there are many Ugandans who lost more in a war that was not theirs. Unlike Kabushenga and Hussein, the rest here did not lose their parents and they went on to become the most priviledged members of our society for more than half of Ugandan’s post independence life. Parents pass on their priviledges to their children and while one can fail even with a priviledged background, one is less likely to if they have priviledge. Do not take the difference with which people treat you for granted -it does confer certain priviledges and advantages.
Reality is that there are those of us whose grandparents and parents were well on their way to comfort and priviledge who have been direct or indirect victims of the chaos and wars the parents of the above were involved in. Its always assumed that the grass is not important but in reality it is. Actually it should always be about the grass! but is it ever? The people who ride to power and stay in power on the blood and livelihoods of others somehow always believe that its their right rather than a priviledge that confers greater responsibility upon them!
Lives were lost and dreams destroyed and were it not for the wars, those families that were already ahead by the 60′s would have been much farther ahead if their fathers were not killed, their property looted, their mothers raped or their childhood traumatised. And unlike those who were connected they did not have access to state house scholarships to help them out even if they were bright enough and neither have they completed masters degrees abroad on state scholarship ahead of their brighter peers nor got accelerated promotions or choice appointments as a result of their connections.
I have the advantage of having relatives who gave up everything to join the NRM and UPM but got nothing out of it but death, jail, lost dreams and destroyed livelihoods so those who believe they “sacrificed’ need to have more humility!
So I would submit that while the comments above may not apply individually, humility is important. I also submit that the use of the word broiler is unwarranted and kind of stiffles the debate as to whether the above men and women who may have something to give to the country need to step up and take a more active role and use their priviledge and good education as well as financial ‘biens’ to advance our society.
And this will of course include shaping the future of this country and will more than likely include taking the side of Ugandans in escorting their parents back home to their villages and ranches and asking them to learn other skills like rocking grandchildren and counting cows and goats!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Nina
Sugar is going to topple your regime!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 12:01am 路
Nina dear,
Sukali akutte wansi ne wagulu! At this rate it appears that the nemesis of Uncle Kaguta will be sugar!
You know these things bitandika nga ebyokusaaga but then they get serious! In Tunisia, it all started with a pathetic man who couldnt find himself a job. So he in entreprising fashion or was it in deperation tried his hand at selling vegetables on the street. But the police would have none of that. You see in Ben Ali’s Tunisia, people like him did not exist! The lived under the radar and the state would rather convince themselves they were just lazy! Poor man in desperation took his own life!
But in that one act of self imolation, he set into movement a great force -the wind of change. Some know it as the Jasmine revolution or the jasmine train. It flowed and wafted and caused seismic waves all over north Africa and the middle east. In an act of powerlessness and desperation, a great power was born! The power Ben ali of Tunisia was brought down by vegetables and had to hop from one country to another looking for asylum!
The catalyst in neighbouring Egypt was not vegetables. It was the price of bread. You see, Egypt is one of the worlds biggest importers of wheat! For as long as people had their daily bread, the Mubaraks could go about their daily stealing with impunity! But once the price of bread was tampered with, Mubarak had to go! Now he is a wizened little octogenarian in a cage -a pitiful sight! Very far from the man who dubbed himself “father of the nation” and presided over a state of emergency for 30 years. Pundits opined that without him Egypt would collapse, in much the same way that they opine about Uncle Kaguta! But you see Egypt has been around for millions of years. Pharaohs come and go but the country and the people remain! The last pharaoh of Egypt is no more -brought down by bread!
For a brief while, it looked like fuel would be the downfall of Kaguta but you know, the price of fuel simply does not have as much power in a country like Uganda where only a handful will ever even dream of owning a car! So to most Ugandan’s it is an abstract concept. Few even relate it directly to the price they have to pay for transport!
But sugar, thats another story! Thats something all Ugandans understand. You see Ugandans have a sweet tooth. If you doubt it, look around you at the tummies and generous behinds! Ugandans do not care about the price of fuel and neither do they care for the price of wheat and bread. Most Ugandans do not eat bread anyway save for the wannabee middle classes in the city!
I first found out the power of sugar a long time ago on a visit to the village. My parents never took us much to the village save for this one time -actually the second time they ever allowed us out of their sight for a month! We went to grandma’s place in Masaka for the holiday! As part of the gifts, we carried sugar, salt, soap and of course omupunga! Such were the deprivations of Amins Uganda that people had to carry essential foodstuffs hundreds of kilometres to the villages. these days one can buy most of these thigs locally if they have the money -money of course being the key word.
I find it interesting when people wax lyrical about the economy during Amins regime! I was a child but I know for a fact that there was only one “supermarket” at drapers building near the taxi park and that towards the end of his regime, it was empty. I know for a fact that sugar had to be bought from the back of Hajjis shop in Nakasero -you see Hajji was a hoarder who hoarded sugar for economic gain and sold it on the black market then called magendo! A neighbour Peter, whose son I went to high school with was in and out of jail for economic crimes -essentially hoarding petrol and paraffin and selling it under the cover of darkness, while another neighbour was a dealer in “kasse” or blackmarket coffee which was exported at great profit to a neighbouring country. You see the only buyer of farmers coffee produce in those days was the state through the coffee marketing board -daylight robbery if you asked me!
Grandma was a hoarder -of sugar! While it was common knowledge that sugar was scarce in those days, she always managed to have some sugar hoarded away for the visitors from Kampala! Villagers had learnt the art of surviving without sugar. Omupunga was a treat att christmas while salt was a luxury that made one friends on the village!
In came Obote in 1980! And with him came insecurity and runaway inflation. Sugar was once again a rare and valued comodity! Manufacturing broke down completely with the major producers relocating their manufacturing to Kenya. If the Kenyans sneezed, ugandans caught a cold!
Ugandans also got a new disease -chits! There was a whole industry built around the buying a selling of chits from ministers and well connected people. These chits could get you sugar, beer, cement at prices that others would kill for. You paid someone to get you an “allocation” of a scarce commodity. This allocation came in the form of a chit from the minster which you presented to the manager. It even served as an IOU and was tradeable goods against which one could borrow money! Fortunes were built around the business of chits! Even getting your half brained son into an elite school could be achieved using a chit! At a certain time of the year, this was the main business in the Min of Education!
Zimbabweans think they invented runaway inflation! They should have been in Uganda in the early 80鈥瞫! If a shopkeeper opened shop in the morning and sold his goods before checking the going rate for the USD on the street, they could very easily go bankrupt! One literally needed a kikapu and millions of shillings to buy bread -and of course the valuable crystals of sugar! Owning USD was an economic crime! The state had this thing they called window one and window two and made it illegal to trade foreign currency outside those two! But entreprising Ugandans traded forex on the street at exchange rates tens to hundreds of times the official rate! And woe betide you if you were caught with “adui” or the enemy which is what Obote’s soldiers dubbed forex!
But back to this thing of sugar! In those days only the lucky ones had sugar everyday. My mother became just like her mother an expert hoarder of sugar! The best friends were the local traders. People lined up to buy sugar but my parents made friends with the traders and got theirs delivered at the back door! My mum always had sugar stored awaty somewhere under lock and key!When Museveni came into power, he rubbished the need for people to line up for sugar! In the initial days of 1986, one of the main functions of the LC’s was to distribute sugar at a government price. No budget was complete without the price of beans and sugar! Being friends with LC’s allowed one to get a bigger allocation of sugar! Every family had to have their name ticked off a list and their allocation given to them!
Ugandans soon moved on from this basic economics. For 25 years, Museveni has presented rosy economic figures demonstrating how Uganda was developing significantly! For most people the economics of sugar and salt were no longer an issue and people had moved on to other things!
For the last few months however, Ugandans are consumed with the price of sugar! Its on the lips of everyone including in the rarefied spaces of the internet and facebook! it is testimony to the air or in Ugaspeak “kiwani” or the smoke and mirrors that Ugandans hae been sold for the last two and a half decades. Following the arrogant speeches prior to and after the last election claiming the fundamentals of the economy were sound, despite evidence to the contrary while spending money on getting re elected like money was going out of fashion, it is interesting to watch the chickens come home to roost! After 25 years, we are right back were we were in 1986 with the price of sugar being the dominant question on everyones lips! One wonders what happened to the funamental change and all of that economic growth!A look at other countries has shown that the spark that saw the demise of the sitting government has been something that most people can identify with!
Ugandans can identify with the price of sugar. Nothing brings home to them the fact that things are bad like the inability to afford sugar! Right now if I were this government I would not be sleeping easy! But see what they managed to think up -Kyambadde wants traders to line up in her office for chits! Chits you say? Isnt that what they used to do in 1980? Exactly! Thats how far back we have gone or did we ever move on from there! Has it all been an illusion? And poor old Kaguta could only think of two things to say -that his father does not eat imported foodstuffs and that traders were economic saboteurs! Banange did this man ever hear of supply and demand?
Kale mwe mbasassidde! Me I learnt how to hoard from my mother and grandmother! the moment I say you guys spending 650 billions on buying votes and another 1.7 trillion you dont own on jets you cannot afford to fly, I knew inflation was coming! You scoffed at me!
He who laughs last, laughs best! Sugar is going to be the nemesis of Kaguta, just like vegetables toppled Ben Ali and bread toppled Mubarak!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Letter to Nina
Nina -the confirmation hearings are a sham!
Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 10:32pm 路
Nina Mbabazi says,
Nina, I disagree.
The ninth parliament defined itself by kicking journalists out so they could discuss their obscene allowances even before they had done anything at all.
These so called confirmation hearings aren’t worth the time spent on them. Twelve minutes per candidate is a joke.
Furthermore the people kicked out so far are so obvious, the real question should be why they were included in the first place.
Ssebagala is a no brainer. Quite frankly if your dad agreed to serve in the same cabinet with Ssebagala, even you should doubt him. Kajura too is a no brainer -but he had to be played along with in order to avoid upsetting Banyoro. So they are given byoya byanswa to hoodwink them.
The other two rejections are really evidence of lack of due diligence. No one who is obviously unfit by virtue of such an obvious and challengeable problem as academic qualifications should even make it to the hearing. Someone in the presidents and prime ministers office failed to do due diligence! Who draws up these lists and what are their criteria? Do they draw up the lists over a pot of malwa? i think that someone should be fired for these names having ever appeared on the list at all!
I have not caught up yet but quite frankly if Otafiire is passed by the committee for Justice, the committee should be considered a joke. Ssebagala should not be the criteria by which the quality of the committee is assessed!
The way i see it, the committee has done exactly what the executive wanted them to do -unless the executive are incompetent. The ninth parliament is yet to prove itself and so far they have started off really badly!
Ugandans need lean efficient government with the training and capacity to deliver. Listen to the new CEO of the Kampala authority speak. Now thats a woman who speaks with confidence -like she knows what she is talking about and is clear regarding her plans. The only problem is that Kampala city like the rest of Uganda is top heavy with politicians interested in posturing while being maintained at public expense and they are not likely to let her do her job. Personally I do not care for Lord Mayors and all of that sort of crap. What Kampala needed was a CEO appointed on a performance based contract with full powers and authority who does not have to waste her time placating and playing games with politicians and semi literate councillors! She also needs to have the powers to hire and fire and build her own team without interference and has got to be facilitated in doing her job.
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Letter to Nina
Hospital beds and NRM incompetence in health.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 12:30am ·
Dear Nina,
Its a few days since I last wrote to you.
I did write you a letter which I started off as a letter to Patrick then realised I was duplicating the same things you raised in your letter. An accident with my power cable put paid to that letter for now but you will get it in due course. Half of it has already been published on FB inadvertently -its the changes to Patricks letter that got lost.
You do however ask a question below that I will try to answer.
_“Illustration to Drew from World Bank Report (Health Sector) by Nina Mbabazi on Monday, May 23, 2011 at 7:55pm
Mr Ddembe,
Can you explain if this drop in government expenditure in health is because we are having more babies or there is a policy flaw? I think the second chart shows the impact of the failed IMF/World bank Structural reforms in the Health sector 1994″_
The answer to your question is BOTH.While your question refers to health expenditure, your illustration actually shows a decline in the number of hospital beds per capita.
We are far behind the expected and agreed upon 15% of GDP that our governments pledged for Health expenditure (Christine Lalobo has the figures on that). We are over reliant on NGO and donor support and the bulk of expenditure on health is shifted to the consumer in addition to paying taxes. this of course has the effect of freeing our resources for wars we dont need and fighter jets we cannot really afford! This is one of the reasons that AID does not work!
The number of beds per capita in a third world country is a direct reflection of expenditure on health rather than efficiency because we are short of beds rather than oversupplied. In the west there is a trend towards decreasing the number of beds per capita by using them more efficiently, reducing lengths of stay, spending on primary and preventive care and funding General practitioners and community based health services. In a country like Uganda, there are virtually no state funded community based healthcare services, admission, diagnostics, treatment and discharge are inneficient thus long lengths of stay, General practice is 100% private funded, and medications and health personnel in short supply. Other bottlenecks to the management and discharge of patients from public hospitals are lack of medications, lack of theatre space and trained personnel and lack of social services.
For example a patient who comes to Mulago with a treatable condition for which there is a shortage of drugs will occupy a bed until the relatives can sell a goat or call their daughter in Boston to send money by Western Union. Sometimes the time between getting admitted, diagnosed and actually accessing treatment maybe days. I have seen doctors in Mulago pay for a patients medications from their own meagre salaries just to get the patient out of hospital! There are also many patients from upcountry who refuse to go home until they complete their treatment. This maybe many months for example say cancer patients. Other patients may again refuse to go home for months because socially their conditions have made them outcasts like say vaginal fistulae. But the operations for these conditions due to shortages in trained specialists may take months to organise. If a patient needs say a CT in Mulago which they have to fund because it is not a part of the NRM’s “free healthcare”, they or their relatives have to go back to the village and fundraise or sell a cow while the patient is occupying a bed!
The NRM claims to have built new health centres. MoH reports show that many of these health centres are non functional, that staffing levels are only 34% and that they do not have drugs. The benefits in building these facilities went only to the people who got contracts to build them with substandard materials at inflated price (there is evidence for this), as well as those who signed the contracts for a kickback but not the community.
I have previously on FB challenged every NRM supporter who quoted the NRM’s official line on having built new hospitals to give me the names of those hospitals. All have dissappeared and not returned. I have also challenged them to visit a ward, any ward in Mulago and speak to real patients then come back and report their findings. None has ever come back. This challenge has been here for months.
I would like to challenge you now that you have taken up researching what I write seriously to go to Ugandan Cancer Institute and just speak to patients on the wards. One day, one visit will give you a very clear picture of what a real Ugandan patient goes through and trust me it is not reflected in the NRM’s fancy manifesto or the fancy figures in President Museveni’s speeches. You will realise that Museveni and all your official spokespersons havent the slightest clue what they are really talking about when they regurgitate those figure!
You guys capitalise on Ugandans ignorance for if elections were really based on issues, there is no way you would be in government!
Uganda’s population has gone up almost 4 times since 1980 and ten times since independence. Most if not all of Uganda’s hospital except Rusherwe which of course is near Rwakitura and was started at Museveni’s insistence, were built in the 60′s and earlier. Essentially while the population has gone up several times, the number of beds has shrunk as has the number of beds per capita but the efficiency has gone down too due to the longer length of stay resulting from the diagnostic, management and discharge bottlenecks.
I wrote the note below in 2006 in response to an annoying Ugandan Kony supporter. The langage I used of course was appropriate for him so I will not edit it. It discusses similar issues.
To Mr holding my nose!
authored by Ddembe on 19. January 2006 at 06:22
Mulindwa says, “ Think about it my fellow Ugandan, and you know I refused to respond to your comments due to your very un acceptable language in a public forum but this time I will hold my nose and respond to you for you are misleading the populace..”
Lets get a few things straight!
- Your language is patronising, rude and unnacceptable. It is for this reason that I do not waste my time debating anything with you! If you care to do so you can roll back here and see your first response to my first very polite question to you!
- Your posts are full of junk much of which is innaccurate! You indulge in circular logic and long winded posts in an effort to fatigue other discussants while losing the point of the discussion! You indulge in a flight of ideas and jump from one topic to another which makes a discussion with you pointless!
- You did not refuse to respond to my questions! You attempted to respond to my questions but failed because you did not know the answers so lets not delude ourselves! You failed to stick to the point of the questions and meandered all over the place!
- You indulge in made up “facts” and drop pseudofacts and technical jargon in an effort to impress and confuse the gullible! Unfortunately it not so impressive! You mix a few facts, string them together with a few misinterpretations and come up with erroneous opinions that lack objectivity that you peddle as fact -that you do not wish to be questioned!!
As for the rest of your post, I believe I made more than one point! When you stop holding your nose and address them, then we can have a “discussion”!
If you know the 22 hospitals list them -Miria Kalule Obote your preferred presidential hopefull does not! Better still let her know about them so that she does not embarrass herself again in future!
I cannot say that Uganda’s hospitals are good and upto the required standard! I cannot however say that they were any better during Obote II -because I know for a fact that they were not!! You may if you wish comment on the 1960′s -I was not there but I can comment on the 80′s -I was there! In many ways while the blame for the slow recovery needs to be placed squarely at Museveni’s governments root, we are still recovering from the rot of Obote and his henchman Amin’s misrule!
A Ugandan doctor or other health practitioner is paid crap now in Museveni’s government! But in Obote’s government they were paid even more crap with even less purchasing power moreover several months in arrears!! And they were not facilitated any better than they are now!
My understanding of healthcare is more sophisticated than your simplistic “number of hospitals”!
By clinical health indicators, Uganda’s population particularly Buganda’s was more healthy in the 1950′s than it is now with more hospitals! There was better prevention, better health education, better grassroots involvement and better primary care!
In contrast we now have poor prevention with more overloading at the top in the tertiary hospitals of cases that should never have got to hospital in the first place!! That my friend is a sign of a failed healthcare system!
If and whenever your friend Miria wins an election which is not in this life, I can bet that those hospitals you wish them to build will never be built!
For one Uganda is a sovereign nation in name alone! Donors determine what gets built and what does not! Medicine underwent a paradigm shift in the 80′s with a greater emphasis on downsizing hospitals, upgrading systems and transferring the emphasis to the community! You will find that this is the case even in Cananda if you check out your very own Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI)!
Coincident with the NRA governments rule, our supervisors in WHO, IMF and the World Bank decided that we needed to move from building larger amd more hospitals to laying more emphasis on primary healthcare and public health! A healthcare restructuring exercise was then embarked upon with the goal of a district hospital in every district, as well as a healthcare centre with a medical officer in every county! A major health centre restructuring and upgrading project was embarked upon in Museveni’s 80′s and 90′s to achieve the very same goal you claim was Obote’s governments goal with some new units being built, others expanded or upgraded with theatres and investigative facilities!! My problems with Uganda’s healthcare facilities have less to do with numbers of healthcare facilities and more to do with the appropriately skilled and motivated manpower to run those facilities which problem Obote’s insecurity, lack of consumables and inflated shilling would not have fixed!
Funding for specialist medical training shifted from the traditional specialties to public health while local specialist training was scrapped from the governments “burden”! Specialists in training have since the mid 1990′s had to pay for their own training while being forced to resign their jobs and work for Mulago as unpaid supernumeraries with full workload and oncall -essentially unpaid doctors for a minimum of four years! This after a minimum of 3 years in a peripheral/rural hospital! This is the root of the recent Senior house Officer strike (Attending Residents in your Canada) in Mulago where they downed their tools until the government agrees to pay them 400,000 “allowance!
Other options like freezing recruitment of doctors in a country with a shortage, capping recruitment, deliberately downgrading the training and training are strategies that have documentation in International NGO fora! Keep them barefoot and hungry (and preganant) is a strategy that works as well for the village woman as for the third world doctor! the wife becomes the husbands slave while the doctor becomes the governments slave to provide “free” health care -except if those same doctors happen to be your brightest students from an old medical school with a good record of passing exams in other countres and a curriculum that is modelled on that of the external world!!
Most if not all scholarships from western governments in the same time for medical training abroad are for public health or related fields!
Bottomline is that the current model like the various economic experiments the World Bank and IMF have had in Africa is a prescribed model -as was the previous model of building large undersubscribed (check Iganga and I believe it is Rukungiri hospitals with more beds than patients!)! So too is the Cost shifting to the private sector to encourage the private sector to take on more of the public hospital burden! The same general principles are the current shift in much of the western world!!
Whenever UPC comes into power (God forbid) there will be a bright new pHD at the Worldbank with a new prescription for our health system and believe me it will not be the one you or the UPC promote unless Miria has the money in her Obote foundation through which she controls her late husbands party!
As for the good and bad in each government, I do not expect anyone in the camps to feel well disposed towards Museveni -I would not if I lived in a camp while the rest of the country was moving on! By the same token do not expect me to say anything good about Obote’s government -particularly as there is little good to say about it anyway!! My enduring view of Obote’s government is wanton violence and lawlessness, runaway inflation and shortages, gunshots and terrorism by the state and state agents, fear and death daily!
I have no doubt that Obote’s election was rigged and while I do not see how Museveni who lost an election miserably could have been the most qualified person to go to the bush save for his own personal aspirations, the subsequent behaviour of Obote’s goons convinced me then and now that they needed to go -permanently! So my friend it does not matter who started the fire, I will continue to blame he who stoked that fire which decimated my childhood!
As for idiots, any person who denies and abuses his origins surely is befitting of the name -n’est ce pas? You must be breathless by now after holding your nose for so long! May it drop off!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Health, Hospitals, Letter to Nina
Ugandan roads. When potholes are an insult to potholes!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 1:11am 路
Dear Nina,
While trying to answer your question on policy gaps in health, I came across this note written a few years ago on Kampala’s roads.
I would be grateful if you could share it with uncle Nasasira. I think he is the one who has been in charge of mimanaging our roads for now over two decades!
Intellectual dishonesty!
February 2008 at 12:44
NRM cadre says,
_“This argument can keep winding around and around until Jesus comes back without any of us seeing sense in the other’s points! Let us just cut the long story short.
You have now acknowledged that indeed there are roads! Now, do you know how long a road can last without maintenance? If there was no work being done on those fabled roads for the last 21 years, would you have roads or even cattle trucks to talk about?”_
My friend,
You remain an inverterate spin master!!!
Where exactly did I say that there were zero roads?
I awarded marks for performance on roads and on the basis of the current statu of roads in Uganda and the NRM’s record on road maintenance I awarded a mark of zero!
There is no evidence of ongoing road maintenance in Uganda! Even after the money spent /mispent onn the recent CHOGM, our roads are still crap and out road maintenance even more so!
I have lived in a number of coutries that actually have road maintenance. If what you see in kampal is evidence of road maintenance, then i do not know what the word means! you may have to redefine it!
There have been a number of donor funded road reconstruction projects over the last twenty two years with no maintenance in between! We do not have a maintenance culture in Uganda -there is more money in kickbacks to be made from reconstruction projects than from maintenance. We are a bit like those beggars on the street -the more miserable we look, the more we are likely to get millions of dollars to spend on building mansions with no access roads in the name of reconstruction! As for servicing the debts from those “grants” and reconstruction loans, “abazukulu balilabileeyo”!!!
A nine year old who was visiting Uganda for the first time since he was three after driving down Wakaliga road which has the worlds highest number of humps, (not sure where the engineer who designed it got his degree from) asked me why Ugandan roads needed humps!!! In his nine year old wisdom, he failed to see why roads with so many potholes needed humps for peed control for the way he saw it, there were more potholes than road surface! i must say i couldn’t fault him and i now wonder why you cannot ee something that is so obvious to a nine year old!!!
Trust me unless you are comparing yourself with Congo or Somalia, Uganda even in Africa has some of the worst roads!
You are free to comment or not to comment on the subject! I do know that you ae being dishonest. i know for a fact that you have been to Asia and europe but I will not insist on those. I know that you have been to Tanzania, Kenya, Zimbabwe and probably South Africa! As far as roads and road maintenance goes, Uganda is in a very bad place! When you are in Europe, Australia or America on could think that Zimbabwe has the worst roads in Africa! Before I travelled to Zimbabwe, many white people told me the roads were really bad and full of potholes! After travelling to Zimbabwe,and driving on their roads and those of Kampala, am now embarrassed to compare their roads to our own! If Harare has potholes, then calling Uganda’s roads pot holed is an insult to potholes! we should find another word to describe them!
Anyone who has driven on Kampala’s roads particularly someone who has travelled to other countries has got to be dishonest to award any marks for road maintenance!
P.S ;I have driven on Namugongo road and i really pity you if thats what you call a good and well maintained road!!!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Letter to Nina, Potholes
Ugandan health services -why does Uganda lose doctors to Rwanda!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 9:31pm 路
Dear Nina,
I hear that you guys fell into bigger things!!! When is the party? Enjoy your five minutes of reprieve. Its not going to last for very long.
Hope you haven’t abandoned your research yet. I just found this note I wrote about a year ago on physician migration in Uganda and some of the condidtions that may contribute to it. Given your new found interest in the subject, I will make your research easier.
You know that your people have no strategy at all for health services which continue to hamorrahage trained personeel not to western countries but to poor third world countries like Rwanda where they are better paid and have better job satisfaction!
In the late 90鈥瞫 the government of Uganda sacked all junior doctors from Mulago following a strike for a living wage. It subsequently froze further recruitment for the next three years. The official line was that Uganda had more than enough doctors!
When did Ugandan ever have more than enough doctors? Whiy does the oldest medical school in Africa outside Alexandria have such problems keeping Uganda supplied with doctors? Are you aware that Makerere graduates started the medical schools in both Kenya and Tanzania?
How do you explain that other than serious policy deficits?
You are right about migrating being a personal lifestyle choice and an individual lifestyle right. You maybe aware that i did a small study in med sch (reviewed by and selected best student project by Prof. Bukenya) on the plans and choices of final year medical students.
Uganda is not the only country affected by drain. Even developed countries are always losing doctors. In Africa South Africa is one of the most developed but it also has one of the most acute brain drain problems. The UK continuously loses doctors to other anglo countries in the developed world. Canada continuously loses doctors to the US. Australia and New Zealand continuously lose doctors to the UK, Canada and the US. In general they expect that the majority of those professionals who migrate will return at some point in their career but more than 10 % are lost permanently. India and south east Asia continuously lose doctors to the west.
It is upto the states to ensure that they make their countries an attractive destination not only to their own doctors but also to those who have graduated elsewhere
It is true brain drain contributes but as Dr Lubega says, its contribution is over rated. He is wrong when he says there are less than 10 Ugandan doctors outside Uganda between 1997 and 2002. I am aware of at least 25 Ugandan doctors who graduated between 1995 and 2002 on facebook alone!
Thats because there is little guarantee that those who migrate out of Uganda would be gainfully employed in providing health services or as paediatricians. it is also important to find efficient ways of benefiting from those who have migrated and stayed within the profession. While we think about those professionasl who have migrated out of Uganda, we never talk about those resident in Uganda who have migrated out of the ranks into politics, public health and administration as well as business and private entreprise.
We never think of providing health services as a business and are trained to think of it as a vocation! Medicine as a business is not taught in medical school. But basic business skills and billable hours are part and parcel of legal training as well as engineering! Most doctors will end up providing private fee for service services as GP’s or specialists. While Ugandans think of specialist only as those employed by the public hospitals are view specialists in private practice as moonlighting in areas left to nurses, medical assistants and sweepers, that is not the model elsewhere!
If you think of medical services provded by a doctor in economic terms, you will understand why a country like Uganda is short of doctors in absolute terms but not short of doctors in economic terms. Every locality or community has as many doctors as it can afford to employ. this applies to every village, township, state or country. Apart from places like Alaska and desert towns where other factors may explain why doctors chose not to live there, most other place will only employ as many doctors as the local populace can afford to provide with reasonably remunerated employment. It does not matter what the population is or the “needs”, if you cannot pay doctors, you will not get doctors. So you will never get a surplus of doctors in a place like Karamoja. In places where there is a need, but the local population cannot sustain private medical services, the state has got to subsidise. In other coutries, rural and remote services are subsidised by the state even in private clinics. The medicare system where it exists pays the doctors fees but the state may top this up with bonuses to provide incentive to doctors who chose to practice in these “areas of need”. The NHS or equivalent state funding pays those employed in the local hopitals.
Frequently it is the same people providing services in both systems but their employment terms allow for this unlike Uganda where it is criminalised even though it is very clear that the state cannot or will not pay a living wage to doctors it employs! What happens to “surplus doctors” -they move on to places that do not have a surplus. In the market the supply of doctors is controlled by economic “surplus and demand forces” -so Karamoja has a high demand but a low ability to pay -therefore less doctors, while Kampala has a higher but limited ability to pay so has more doctors. it also has more public hospitals so again more doctors. Plus the lifestyle choices are better than those on offer in Nakapiririt!
While there is a vocational side to being a doctor, we need to be pragmatic. In many medical schools around the world, doctors are drawn from middle class, competitive and usually not cheap schools. Education costs money. In medicine, it also costs time as training takes a very long time. In addition to a quite lengthy undergraduate degree, many doctors undergo lengthy graduate/postgraduate training costing themselves or their families a lot of money. People get to medical school because their parents invested time and money in them. Along the way, they also impart similar values to them so they too want to send their children to good scholls (read expensive in Uganda as their is no cheap school worth going to as their pass rates are abysmal and admissions to university let alone medical school zero). Individuals travelling overseas to study go through horrors unimaginable to those who stay in UG. I know doctors who have swallowed their pride to work as carers in nursing homes, cleaners, labourers, taxi drivers in foreign countries to continue their training. Of course when they specialise and do well, Ugandan politcians point at them and say -brain drain!!!
I once worked out that on my salary as a doctor in Uganda, having been the first private medical student, it would take me 20 years if I remitted all of my salary to my parents in repayment! My first admission letter from Makerere quoted fees in USD and the fees were on par with those paid by foreign students! When I first applied to a bank for a mortgage -as an intern, I was knocked back -because i was a doctor. The loan officer could not see how a doctor was going to be able to afford the repayments on a paltry 20 milion! The bank manager later because i had the chutzpah to walk into his office and demand an audience approved my loan on faith alone! He was never dissappointed -but there was no way I would have been able to repay the bank if i worked in Mulago!
There are of course other factors that make Makerere a doctor exporter medical school and Uganda a doctor exporter country. Medical programs that are more suitable to host than donor countrie mean that a Ugandan doctor is probably more confortable working in a London hospital than one in Karamoja, being of English speaking background and having completed an undergraduate course modelled on the British system makes him potentially employable and easy to intergrate into many commonwealth countries health systems! A long pedigree and long history of migration helps -my first job interview was offered me by a white Kenyan who knew all about Makerere and had worked in several Arican countries before migrating to the west. Another was arranged by a South African who had worked in Uganda for 17 years before migrating after Idi Amin kicked him out in 1972. A recent MUK graduate got his first interview after talking to me 2 weeks before his visa expired and a few phone calls and was interviewed by someone I worked with as a colleague which probably smoothed his entry into the system.
If you told me that the 120 paediatricians we have are well paid and confortable, I would think that our government considers them to be a valuable resource. Of course, Museveni will say that they cannot afford to pay you a better wage. That would be acceptable if there wasn’t evidence of rampant corruption even within the ministry of health and countries like Rwanda without better resources than we do were not offering our specialists better employment terms! To me it means that someone either does not understand or does not care.
Filed under: Nina Tagged: brain drain, doctors, Health, Letter to Nina
Temangalo -response from the people
Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 6:50am 路
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1880182644958&set=a.1385608760920.55855.1253045398&theater
@Your honour Twinoburyo,
I am wondering why this trial was convened in camera and my name taken in vain as I do not remember being party to the proceedings recorded here! Counsel may have mistaken me for another or tampered with the court record! Your honour, I move that any comments on the court record fraudulently attributed to me be struck from the court record and that opposing counsel be cautioned!
Am also wondering why the defence introduced new evidence during the trial that they did not avail to the prosecution prior to the case. Am also wondering why this “new evidence” was not tabled during previous trials. Does the defendent have something to hide?
I move therefore that evidence introduced during the trial be struck off the public record and that court be reconvened in an open court as these matters are of interest to the general public!
There is a public interest to defend here. The public as stakeholders in government as well as in the NSSF have a right to know and court has the duty to allow them access to this court session. On the 19th Oct 2008, the Monitor Newspaper reported that “Security Minister Amama Mbabazi peddled political influence and had a conflict of interest in the controversial Shs11 billion National Social Security Fund-Temangalo land deal, the parliamentary committee investigating this matter concluded on Saturday.” the same opinion was carried by the “Legal Brief Africa’ a newsletter of Legal Brief international, the “global voice of the legal profession”.
It is true that Power of Attorney is a legal instrument designed to distance one actor with a potential conflict of interest from the proceedings. It is not however an instrument designed to avoid responsibility. The donor in this case Hon. Mbabazi, retains responsibility for the activities of Amos Nzeyi, his POA! Counsel attempts to use this instrument as a subterfuge to suggest that Hon. Mbabazi had no knowledge of and played no part in the proceedings of the land sale. Most importantly, he attempts to infer that the donor of a POA in this case Hon Mbabazi is not responsible for the actions of the donee, in this case Mr Amos Nzeyi! I wish to respectfully say, your honour, that this is not true! Hon Mbabazi is bound by any actions that his attorney enters into on his behalf in completing the transaction that is the subject of that POA.
The prosecution will present confessions from Mr Chandi Jamwa widely published in the newspapers and now a matter of public record, demonstrating that this deal was characterised by corrupt behaviour including influence peddling, conflict of interest, misrepresentation, political pressure, impunity and cronism. That undue political pressure and influence were imposed upon the Manager of NSSF by Hon Mbabazi’s attorney for whose actions Mbabazi himself remains responsible, Suruuma, the supervising Minister for NSSF, Mbabaazi’s tribesmate, business partner and compatriot. That the NSSF board was compromised in that at least two members, Edward Gaamuwa and Ms Joyce Acigwa, not including the manager and the deputy manager another crony of Mbabazi and Suruuma as well as a tribesmate of both Mbabazi and Nzeyi and all four shareholders in the “Bakiga bank”, were partners of Suruuma in a microfinance institution! Suruuma as shown in evidence tabled before you in this court had in interest in this matter that went beyond his role as the supervising minsietr for the NSSF. As Jamwa’s confession demonstrated, he also played an active part in pressuring his subordinate to approve this deal!
This your honour, was a “loaded” board that should have disqualified themselves from having anything to do with the proceedings of the purchase of this land as should have Suruuma and Kagonyera!
Your honour, the defence at this stage attempt to introduce “new evidence” disputing the number and authenticity of “bona fide” squatters! Evidence that they did not produce in the parliamentary inquiry where Mbabazi, Suruma, Kagonyera and Nzeyi were all interviewed about this matter! I submit that this evidence be struck from the public record too as counsel is trying to be creative with the law! Under the new land law brought in by among others Hon Mbabazi, ‘bona fide’ squatters do not have to have a historical. Furthermore the fact that Hon. Mbabazi and his partners knowingly sold land to the NSSF without acknowledging the presence of squatters is fraudulent as they should have compensated them first. Your honour no evidence has been presented to this court by opposing counsel to demonstrate that those squatters that he now acknowledges, were catered for in the contract of sale! (Correction -the contract of sale stipulated that the vendors had to compensate the existing squatters. The vendors breached this term as squatters were not compensated and are still claiming compensation)
At least 5 led by one Mpagi as late as dec 2010 contacted parliament seeking compensation. this was reported by the Monitor
“Reported By Turyatemba David
Five Tenants led by Mzee Paul Mpagi today stormed proceedings of the parliamentary committee on Statutory and State Enterprises that was meeting officials from NSSF led by the Acting Managing Director Grace Isabirye.
The Committee Chairperson Regan Okumu asked NSSF to deal with the complaining tenants to avoid damaging their image before the public.
Grace Isabirye has promised to handle the matter with parties that sold the land to the Fund.
Mpagi said they have tried in vain to meet the Security minister ever since the controversial transaction in vain.
The testimony of this article contradicts counsels claim that there were only two squatters who were both compensated on the purchase of the land long before the sale to NSSF! It also demonstrates the lie in counsels implication that the Temangalo was sold to the NSSF without encumbraces!
On the 15th oct 2010, Mr Byarugaba, the new MD of the NSSF informed the parliamentary committee on commissions, that while the titles for Temangalo had been availed to the NSSF, 3 years after paying for Temangalo, the NSSF had failed to take possession due to encumbrances including squatters that the vendors have not paid contrary to agreements they signed that required the vendor to clear them. http://allafrica.com/stories/201010150047.html With impunity, Mr Nzeyi continues to occupy the house he sold to the NSSF and received payment for! The seller should therefore be compelled to pay interest on all monies advanced to them due to this breach of contract!
In this story reported in the Observer in 2009 (Temangalo squatters say ‘no’ to Mbabazi, Written by Edris Kiggundu Sunday, 12 July 2009), 2 of 5 squatters accepted agreements to accept smaller acreage in exchange for titles. 3 others refused and are still contesting for compensation. They is also an allegation of pressure and coercion in trying to get bona fide tenants to accept the contracts drawn up by hon Mbabazi and his partners!
Under the new land law to which Hon. Mbabazi was a party, the sale of squatters and their interest in land is a felony punished by upto 14 years in prison. I submit therefore that hon Mbabazi and his partners in addition to flouting all of the above laws, are guilty of abusing the new land laws of this land.
Opposing counsel tables as defence that many other big men in this government continue to deal with government and are guilty of influence peddling too! She also attempts in mitigation to claim the absence of a law sanctioning such deals. This apparently should be taken to mean that powerful governemtn ministers should be a llowed to do as they wish with public money because there is no law sanctioning it! Your honour, that is anarchy. It belies the confidence that ugandans place in their leaders which includes the duty to maintain ethics and basic morality in their transactions involving public money!
As a senior minister in this government that has for the last 25 years presided over unprecedented corruption, Hon Mbabazi should inform this court whether it was official policy for his government to leave such obvious loopholes that allow him and his cronies to profit from the absence of conflict of interest laws. It would also be of interest to know whether this is the reason we do not have proceeds of crime laws under which the proceeds of crime as well as any assets used in the commission of a crime should be seized by the state! The public has got a right to know if he and his colleagues in this government have deliberately stunted our anti corruption laws in order to continue enriching themselves with impunity!
The NSSF is a cash cow that holds workers money to the tune of trillions of shillings. It is the largest single deposit of cash in the country. In the past money has been lost in shady transactions some involving ministers and government cronies. It is in the interests of the public that this case be treated with utmost seriousness. Consider the message that this court will send out to the general public if your conclusion is that the most powerful minister in this government together with his cronies maybe allowed to raid workers money whenever it suits them and be allowed to get away with impunity without even so much as a slap on the wrist! that the people who are supposed to protect our money are the same people leaving windows open so they and their cronies can sneak in at night without consequences!
It is also relevant too given that counsel for the defence will attempt to ‘prove’ to this court that Mr Mbabazi has already been tried in parliament and found to be innocent of all charges. He was also declared ‘innocent’ by his boss, the president of this government with whom they have presided over corruption in this country for 25 years citing ‘political persecution’!
Your honour, recent events in this country have clearly demonstrated that we cannot take the word of this government as well as that of the parliament which is so biased in numbers towards the ruling party as to be a rubberstamp for the ruling party and the executive of which Mr Mbabazi is a member!
The people therefore need to have their own trial which they were denied in the political circus that passed for a parliamentary inquiry! Could you believe that Mr Mbabazi was allowed to access and influence MP’s and members of the committee during their inquiry outside of formal hearings and that the government machinery was lent to his defence through paid hacks like Karooro, Nagenda, Opondo and Cheeye and that the speaker of parliament was himself partisan!
Could this be all of these big wigs defending themselves from the effects of retruning a guilty verdict as they all as opposing counsel demonstrates do business with this government? Your honour, this is an example of the left hand doing business with the right hand and the brain pretending it does not know what is going on!
The people have already passed their verdict in the court of public opinion and have stated clearly that much as the politicians may continue to claim that Mr Mbabazi and his mates were not guilty of influence peddling and conflict of interest in addition to flouting numerous rules in the Temangalo affair all of which amount to corruption for which he should have resigned his post, the people do not believe them!
That all of the legalese and fancy terms thrown around so glibly by my learned colleague will not convince them that this government is serious on corruption as long as powerful people like Hon Mbabazi clearly and with impunity manipulate the system without any consequences for themselves or their political careers and reputation!
Lastly your honour, for having accepted comments that were clearly fraudulently attributed to me to remain a part of the court record, I submit that you have allowed yourself to be unduly influenced just like is everyone else in this country! I respectfully submit that you have demonstrated a conflict of interest and move that you should disqualify yourself from further proceedings in this matter and a new court reconvened to deal with this matter in the publics best interest!
Your honour, I hearby rest my case!
http://www.independent.co.ug/reports/special-report/585-nssf-jamwa-exposes-suruma-nzeyi-trickery
http://ugandanpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/10/nssf-scandal-jamwa-spills-more-beans.html
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Mbabazi, Nina, Temangalo
Stories of war
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 9:10pm 路
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150124597924449&comments
I like the fact that people are writing about their personal experiences. So I have to thank Nina for her story.
Like Philip, my personal experiences of Obote II justify even in retrospect any war to oust him! Nothing that happened after will make me change that opinion! The Obote II government was a bad government full stop!
As to whether or not Nina’s dad and others were justified in going to war, the jury is still out. But the response of the Obote government and army turned what may have initially been an illegitimate war into a legitimate war! unfortunately the NRM does not seem to have internalised the lessons of that war -for every man, woman, or child killed, tortured, maimed or raped by Obote’s goons, more recruits fixed in their resolve to see it end volunteered!
it is important to recognise that nina’s is only one perspective -and story. Everyone else here has a story.
Nina talks about children of the revolution. Am not sure if she refers to herself and fellow children of the 27 who were lucky enough to be put under house arrest in Nairobi or flown off to Sweden for I can guarantee that if there are any children of the revolution, its those children who stayed behind. Whose parents did not run away. whether they were fighter or not, the children suffered the effects of war.
I and Philip are such children. Killings, massacres, rapes, tortures -name it we saw or heard of it however much our parents tried to protect us. We saw things that children should never see! My uncles were involved in the war -as fighters and before that at least one in UPM. My father bought drugs for the fighters in the bush at the request of my uncle who was a fighter since 1981. He had taken his 15 year old brother with him and they practically grew up in the army. Those people are never mentioned, never received any medals, and neither did they ‘benefit” financially. At least one paid the final sacrifice -on a land mine in Gulu! Another paid the final sacrifice -in a destroyed family and finances. But none of them would ever regret having fought Obote!
They did not get to ‘eat”! But this is not their story! Point is that their perspective on the narrative of the war as to who sacrificed and who didnt am sure would be very different from that of Nina or myself!
For so long we have been fed the narrative of 27 men fighting a war while the rest of us were hiding under the bed! No the rest of us were not hiding under the bed! We were out there surviving, dying, sacrificing so that Museveni and his 27 men could share the spoils of the hunt while the rest of us get to watch them!
This war belongs to all of us. It represents the childhood that we lost! The innocence that we lost! the country that we lost! Before this war, everyone in my school did not have a tribe! During and after this war, suddenly everyone had a tribe -and there were good tribes and bad tribes, eating tribes and non eating tribes, killing tribes and victimised tribes! today we think local -in tribes! from kingdoms to small non viable tribal districtlets to balancing the eaters in cabinet to tribe in just about everything!
The narrative of this war has got to be changed. And this will only be when everyone tells their story! the reason that the heroes proclaimed at kololo mean nothing to the rest of ugandans is that this story does not have a narrative the rest of us can relate to! Its a story of 27 men who went out one day to hunt, chased down their animal and killed it and will not share the spoils because according to them, they brought down the animal alone! So they do not have to share!
Until most Ugandans can identify in some way personally with this war, it cannot be compared with the european wars or the fervopur with which Europeans respect and worship their war dead a century later!
If this war is every to be considered as a liberation war, so that we can give our dead all around the country the respect that they should have, its got to be more than the stories of one man and his family and his cronies! Then the medals stuck on peoples chests in a selective fashion Kabalega but not Mwanga, Mugisha Muntu but not Besigye) will mean something! Until then its those in the kintu congratulating themselves on having hunted and killed the animal alone -thus eating alone or deciding who gets to eat!
Let everybody tell their story. And for Nina, trust me, those who got away were the lucky ones!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Nina, War
What does it profit a man, to gain the world, and lose his soul?
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 6:36pm 路
Nina Mbabazi -What does it profit a man, to gain the world, and lose his soul?
It profits a man very little to gain the world but lose his soul.
- It profits Museveni very little to rule forever but lose his credibility
- It profits the NRM very little to lead a revolution and be buried in the narrative of one man
- A man is only as good as his word, without which he is doomed
- A politician whose word is meaningless can never claim to be a statesman
- For each time that Museveni goes back on his word, and moves the goal posts yet again ahead, he will forever be stuck in the soulless limbo of political purgatory
- Of what benefit is it to build a country and watch it destroyed before your eyes -like Ghadaffi
- Of what benefit is it to raise your sons to follow in your steps and have them be killed before your eyes -like Saddam
- Of what benefit is it to be declared a hero yet become a villain in your lifetime -like Mugabe
- Of what use is it to attain the lofty limits of wealth and power, yet have it all come crashing down -like Mobutu, Obote, Amin
- Why is it so hard for a man to retire and hand over intact to future generations his lifes work and bask in the glory of being a statesman -like Mandela
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150174637456259&id=712431258卢if_t=like
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Letter to Nina
How a man could regain his soul
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 9:27pm 路
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150174637456259&id=712431258&ref=notif卢if_t=feed_comment_reply
Nina, in 1986, it looked like we were on our way to regaining our soul.
In 2011, its clear that w are on our way to losing it.
But there’s one man who could make the difference between us losing our soul and regaining it -by making the ultimate sacrifice and giving up that which he obviously holds most dear -power!
Mandela set the standard for SA when he unlike other ‘revolutionary” leaders like Mugabe, Museveni, Aferwaki, etc, gave up power voluntarily and took up his place as a statesman.
In this we are not talking about giving up power to the son, wife, brother, in -law or crony.
Museveni has got the unique opportunity to create history in Uganda -giving up power without waiting for his arse to be kicked and retiring within his own country. Its only then that he will have regained his soul which he lost a long time ago. Power appears to be his only drive and motivation. But of course he has the option of following in the footsteps of other life presidents who didnt quite realise their dream of ruling for their natural life and watched their lifes work crumble around them.
It is not illegal or immoral for sons and daughters to play a part in their fathers government. But its a mistake to mistake priviledge for ability or acumen, opportunity for a right or entitlement.
While equality and equal opportunity are dreams largely unattainable for most, the ideal is a meritocracy in which ability is rewarded and put to work in the service of the nation not nepotism determining who are the leaders and who are the led!
Filed under: Nina Tagged: Nina
First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist…..
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 3:33pm 路
Nina Mbabazi sitting in the road has never been annoyance. I sat on the sides of the road on sunday when I could no longer walk from exhaustion. IS that arrestable?
Nina, thats arrestable behaviour going by Kulayigye’s orders!
You are well known, an NRM cadre, the daughter of the super minister and married into a well known family.
For you to walk or sit by the road side may attract the attention of other people going by their own business and even incite them to join you causing a traffic jam and chaos! Even the boda boda boys would be concerned and falling all over themselves to give you a lift!
That kind of behaviour could be called terrorism and could incite people to bring the government down!
By your own admission, Kayihura’s boys should be paying you a visit! You should be charged with incitement and causing chaos as well as sitting by the roadside -idel and disorderliness! Misinforming and confusing the public possibly with the intention of embarrassing the government and plotting to topple the government!
It would be good if people like Banda really listened to themselves and realised how stupid they sound when they blindly try to justify every stupidity the NRM indulges in!
_First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me_
By Nienmoller
Filed under: Nina
Bad manners fighting over food
Monday, April 25, 2011 at 11:05am 路
http://www.facebook.com/notes/mugerwa-james/nina-mbabazi-officially-against-nrmmuseveni-the-oppositions-big-fish-or-should-i/216921605001221?ref=notif卢if_t=like
Christine, this Mugerwa man has got some really bad manners. He starts a fight whenever there is food. Interestingly its always with people he wishes to wrest food from.
In the past he started a fight with Muhiire. He hoped to divert Muhire’s forum to his own devices and present it to his handlers as a trophy. When he was rebuffed he became peevish. You remember those peeved teenage wannabee boyfriends who would never accept no for an answer and continued harrassing the object of their desire, stalking them, picking fights and otherwise becoming a nuisance. Nathan had to put out a virtual restraining order but the man kept inviting himself, climbing in through the window, peeping into bathrooms etc. He even formed upto 6 online personas just to get a peep into Muhire’s forum after each of them was blocked. He became angry and obnoxious and even obscene and invited ex girlfriends to vouch for him too. Sometimes he hired people to write letters for him when his own English just couldn’t do the trick.
At all times he tries to portray himself as an insider which he obviously is not. At the very best he is a lackey, a minion, paid to do a job, hoping to get a leg up. That he or one of his handlers knows a bit of the NRA’s military history especially the Congo and South sudanese conflicts is not in doubt. Actually he has at times said more than he should have said and more than likely put his handlers in a difficult position. the problem with talking too much is one needs a brain to keep track of the lies and contradictions. Being under the influence sometimes does not really help.
When Nina first came here and took me on, a bad idea, Mugerwa tried to ingratiate himself. Identify himself with the princess. Present his loyal arms. Unfortunately toadies are not impressive and neither do they get respect. they are simply paid to do a job and when they fail to know their position, they are put in their place. Mugerwa now acts like the houseboy who was hoping to score with the lady of the house and got angry when he was reminded he was just the house help. Now he is getting even.
Now this fight with Nina is to portray him as a loyal cadre more loyal than those and brought up in the movement. In effect he is saying that his boss Amama cannot maintain his own household so its upto him a minion to discipline the bosses daughter. Not only to do so but to make the humiliation as public as possible. One then starts to get a feel for who the real target maybe.
Did the NRm suddenly become democratic overnight, unlikely. I take Chwezi’s point about other parties including the FDC. I will point him to one of my notes on the issue. Interestingly the same people who criticised Kamya such as Anne Mugisha are the ones who have come out recently to complain about the same. But this here is not about FDC. This is about whether it is an expression of disloyalty for a daughter brought up in priviledge which priviledge depends on the party has got the right to question the party structures and masters. Whether a son or daughter is allowed to have an independent mind or whether they have got to be assumed to have to toe the party line or remain silent. Whether for them to express an independent mind is supposed to make them fair targets for anyone who wishes to do so. I had a chat with my father just yesterday. Without going into details while my father has nowhere near the party pedigree that Nina’s father has, he and I are in opposite camps when we discuss Museveni and his government. That does not make me disloyal to him when I make it clear that I would be very happy when Museveni returns to his farm in kisozi or Rwakitura to count his cows and Uganda has a peaceful handover of power. I know he is proud that i have an independent mind even though I do not agree with him but then again he and I have very different experiences of living in Uganda having been born at different times.
I would like to believe that the next few years are going to be years of realignment of interests not blind political party ideology. Its the only way that the NRM will survive if they so wish. In embracing a more liberal and questioning youth the NRM may be able to survive. if they leave party policy to be dictated by autocratic and mindless cadres such as Mugerwa, they will sure as hell be washed down the dust bin of history. this same process is happening in the other parties. DP is realigning as is UPC. In FDC questions are being asked. Mamdani put it best when he suggested that the W2W campaign was the beginning of a reform in both the NRM and in other parties and the victor would be the one who started a reform first.
Nina could be independent. She could be a priviledged girl having her eureka moment and like an adolescent girl being recklessly dangerous. Or she maybe a well trained party cadre playing a game to win, skillfully playing everyone in a game people of average intelligence like Mugerwa cannot begin to fathom.
If Mugerwa is out on a lone campaign, I can guarantee him his paycheck is about to end and he is about to lose his head. If he is being paid, again its because he is dispensable and he will still lose his head. This fight is way above Mugerwa’s pay grade.