In April, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) will hold its delegates conference to, among other things, elect new top party officials. The independent`s Patrick Kagenda talked to Theodore Ssekikubo (MP Lwemiyaga) who wants to be NRM secretary general.
You are standing against the historical members of the party who include the current Secretary General Amama Mbabazi who have the tentacles everywhere. Do you think you can win?
Absolutely. You could have your strong points, the tentacles and networks, but what message do you have to give to the people? Where else can you ever find this; people who are tired, they have been around for too long, they have been busy, they have been fighting, they have been putting up networks but now they do not have the message to give to the people.
We need to come up with a new message which can tap the voters and I believe, come April in Nambole, I have all it takes to win this election. The historicals have made their mark but the network, the confidence, the attachment, the relatedness I have with the people has made my point.
What prompted you to express interest in the office of the party Secretary General?
Amama Mbabazi has made his contribution moving the NRM from the Movement System to the multi-party political dispensation, but then as a party we must move on. Everybody has his shortcomings. The party has had its fortunes decline from 79%,-69% now at 58% in the last election, this is a pointer that really you need some new approach to issues. We need a new approach to mobilization; the way you appeal to the public. If you consider Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Tanzania, which is an older party but has maintained higher percentages of 78%, you ask how they have retained the higher ratings.
If you became the secretary general, what would be your first task in the office?
 The immediate task would be to re-orient, to repackage NRM as we approach the competitive elections of Feb 2011. It would not only be aimed at winning the elections in percentages of 50s, but to put it back to percentages of 70s and 80s. Ahead of the Delegates Conference and national conference slated for April, we had a problem of the independent candidates in Mbale where the president was dragged into very difficult and disturbing circumstances. Why are we still botching up the internal democracy within the party? That will be a long term issue on how to galvanise and solidify the party and to lead as a team. If you see a ruling party fractured on the eve of its national conference then the problem is much bigger. In the NRM we must sort ourselves out; we must be transparent and fair, firstly within the party, as we move out to take the opposition.
How do you plan to turn the NRM around?
The NRM emerged from a people’s protracted war; it therefore had a base with the population. Something must be wrong. The way we approach political decisions in the country must change; I think that’s where our main weakness is now. It is a question of approach. How do we package our message to Ugandans? That is where the problem lies.
Is NRM popularity declining because of the secretary general?
You can’t put all that to the secretary general but he plays a pivotal role in organising and running the party. The secretary general must detect the weaknesses of the party; always be proactive. You need a pro-people secretary general to start with, a secretary general that will reach out to all the mobilisers of the party; who will be able to blend very perfectly with the lowest to the highest people in the society. Other than that, you need someone who can win the confidence of the public.
 Don’t you think the current secretary general is overstretched by the workload as an MP, top minister, and party boss?
You have to choose. Are you more interested in the constituency; are you more interested in taking up the portfolio for the minister for Security or in working for the party as the secretary general? We must address that as a matter of urgency whether with Amama Mbabazi or with somebody else. We are 33 million Ugandans; why should you overburden yourself and at the end you emerge incompetent at all fronts?
If you became secretary general, would you give up the Lwemiyaga parliamentary seat?
Playing your role as the secretary general of the party is more important than being a constituency member of parliament. You are a national leader. If I find that it is too heavy for one to maintain both, I would rather retain the secretary general. One could be having a heavy work load because he does not use the participatory approach; fails to delegate. He may want to have all the powers around himself and that is a problem. It would sadden me to leave my people of Lwemiyaga, who want and have confidence in me to represent them in parliament.
You talked of higher goals, why don’t you take on the presidency?
This is not a matter of ambition. It depends on where you find the problem. The presidency, we have the chairman of the party and by all standards he has been performing well. I believe I am best suited to serve the secretary generalship.
They have always talked of a queue in the NRM; don’t you think you are jumping it?
You cannot tell me who is number one or who is coming second in that order. I think what is important here is what one can contribute to the party. As you can see, in the NRM even members who joined yesterday are able to rise up to be cabinet ministers. Take Aggrey Awori, Omara Atubo and others. It is a matter of how one can be able to perform and what contribution you can make to your party that matters.
Have you been blessed by the party or you are standing as an independent?
The blessing you are talking about is really untenable. But I must add that I have all the blessings from whoever matters in this country. Being relevant to the voters and in their good books makes the difference between me and the other contestants. My winning spells how the NRM has been criticised as too conservative; not allowing young leaders to emerge is a challenge to the NRM. You cannot always rely on old ideas.
There were challenges of insecurity but now we are coming to fight corruption. Having taken power and consolidating it, and having peace throughout the country, do you look on as people steal public funds?
My competitors have invariably failed at one point or another. The young generation that has basically grown up under the NRM and who are NRM voters, what message do you have for them? You can’t always look back. It would be very prudent for NRM, to blend the past with the present and the future.
As secretary general, how would you address the plight of the young people on the streets; the NRM government is blamed for selling off the state companies that would have absorbed them.
There are some grey areas because you do not privatise everything, particularly the commanding heights of the economy which ought to have been retained by the government. I have a problem with that. But if we had not privatised the so-called industries and the parastatals, we had could not still have absorbed the young graduates that are being churned out by the colleges. We have been talking favourably about having a special scheme to fund the university students so that when they come out they can start paying back; about finding start-up capital for the young graduates. That has not been actualized. Always have policies in place and work on them. Put up measures and policies that can lead to job creation.
 What new thing are you going to bring to the party that has not been there?
My politics will be politics of interaction, and consultations. You have to involve each and everyone. Being a secretary general means being a hands-on person, somebody who can reach out, and somebody who can reach to all the target groups. Amama Mbabazi has done his part but I will do more to reach out to all classes of people from the young generation, to the middle aged to the elders and all that.
If you lose the election to secretary generalship what will be your next move?
There are many challenges; there are many areas that need to be engaged in the party. I think as it arises, as it comes to pass, then I can determine my next course of action.
You are a young man; do you think people will trust a young person like you?
In the 1980`s most of the people who supported President Yoweri Museveni were young people. This is not the first time for a young man to aspire and live up to the challenges. Obama is in his mid 40`s, Medvedev of Russia is much younger than even Obama. Dr. Milton Obote might have had his failings at a later stage but he joined politics in his 20s. President Museveni became the leader of a military/ political outfit the Fronasa at just 27 years. And at the fall of Amin in 1979, Museveni was then appointed as the vice-chairman of the military commission which equates to the vice presidency today. He had made 36 years. I am in my 40s. If I cannot be useful to my party at this age, then I will never be.
NRM senior officials refuse to pass on power to the younger generation. If you served as secretary general for two five year terms, would you cling on?
My mindset is that a leader should come and serve and who knows there are other Ugandans coming up. There could be brighter members of the party emerging; so it’s really being selfish to imagine that I could stick onto that office. The democratisation process that could have put me in would be responsible for setting me aside.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
