By Pathias Klinn Akabanjuna
Last
week, all newspaper tabloids were awash with headlines and stories of fighting
between top politicians and civil servants. First it was the Rt. Hon. Speaker
of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga’s outburst in response to earlier comments
allegedly made by the Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, suggesting that the former
is an opposition sympathizer. The feud between these two has been going on for
quite a while now but they have never come out to attack each other publicly
before like Ms. Kadaga did last week.
As
the leader of government business in parliament and NRM secretary General,
Mbabazi can be understood for trying to make parliament an appendage of the
Executive. But it seems the speaker is not about to let her powers be trampled
upon by a man who seems to wield so much power not only in NRM as a party but
also in Government, considering she is also a deputy National Vice President in
the party and she ranks number three in the state leadership hierarchy. The NRM
“rebel” MPs saga seems to have put a knife in the already wounded relationship
between the two power houses. Mbabazi wanted them expelled from parliament but
Kadaga defeated that resulting in court cases. Further controversy came in when
Kadaga ignored the ruling of the deputy speaker that the opposition MPs
suspended for causing chaos during the passing of the Public Order Management
Bill should first apologise to the house before they are accepted to resume
attending plenary sessions.
So
one wonders; is this unending exchange of hot air between these two
power-wielding individuals a matter of strong egos or respect issues or
both?
Then
there is the curious case of IGP Kayihura and State Minister for Lands Aidah
Nantaba. Both claim to get instructions from the president directly and yet
they seem to have disagreeing ideas or intentions. The funny thing is that the
president ignores them to fight each other, looking on unbothered as they
wrestle, both claiming to protect the interests of the squatters evicted from
land by so called “Land grabbers”. The truth is that Kayihura has been given
too much power with a close to limitless budget and authority that is visibly
greater than that of any government minister. All this started with kayihura
getting a “blank cheque” both of a job description and literally, to repress
political dissent. Now he seems to have spread his tentacles to wider areas
such as land issues, as much as he claims that his officers are “keeping law
and order.”
The
most recent fight of the titans involves Gen. Tumwine, one of the “27” and a member
of the high command, and one of the few 5 star general against Mr. Pius Bigirimana,
the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Gender, Labour and social development.
Their fight seems to be over rent for Nomo Gallery on National theatre or that
is just what they want us to think. I have learnt over the years that there is
always a story behind the story.
The
recent comments by Gen. Tumwine saying Bigirimana is angry and trying “to
splash dirt on others to resemble him and look[ing] for billions to mismanage
where they are not.” He added that, ”he is angry that he has been removed from
the high-table to a stool.” These statements did not go down well with many
people at Gender ministry and beyond. Gen. Tumwine essentially branded as “a stool”,
the ministry that handles issues of the largest population in Uganda (the
youth), women, workers and the disabled. This is ridiculous. We acknowledge
that the Office of the Prime minister has a much bigger budget than the Gender
Ministry, but that should not warrant anyone to refer to the gender ministry as
a stool, regardless of whether one is an army general or not. This complacency
of “untouchables” in Uganda needs to stop. The differences between Gen. Tumwine
and Bigirimana seem to be personal and therefore should not be brought into the
public fold.
Ever
since the inception of the ninth parliament after the 2011 General elections,
there has been in fighting both in NRM the government and in the party. Whether
this is telling about the regime’s future or not is yet to be seen. But
usually, the clashes seem to have one common denominator: the president
(including his appointees and directives). Usually, he lets the fights play out
for a certain calculated time before he comes to prevail. Again, whether he
reaps from these clashes is not easy to substantiate. But what is for sure is
that he has mastered the game of politics using divide and rule.
He
disappoints just as fast as he appoints and he is the pace setter because he holds
the all the cards in his hands. There’s no NRM without Museveni. There’s no
government without Museveni. Most elites believe he has presided over the death
of institutions in a deliberate move to give him all the power. The day he lets
go of the rope on which everyone is hanging, the entire pack will crumble. The
clashes between senior government officials might not tell us much for now, but
it gives us a clue about where we should look.
The writer is a socio-political commentator and Blogger
Twitter: @PathyKlinn
No comments:
Post a Comment