COVER STORY: The Untouchables

Generals can cause trouble

In Otafiire’s case, he is accused of grabbing a government research ranch. It is alleged that on Sept. 21, a gang acting on his orders raided the Njeru Stock Farm in Buikwe district and razed workshop and laboratory buildings, equipment, and machinery. They were allegedly led by one Wilberforce Muhangi. The farm has for over 70 years been run by the government’s National Animal Genetic Resource Center and Data Bank. But the Minister has recently acquired a portion of it. Otafiire is not the only one. When the farm started in 1949 it was 1066 acres big but 504 acres have been taken. Otafiire reportedly took 50 acres.

When the matter came up in parliament on Oct.31, Otafiire did not deny his role in taking over part of the government farm and sending the gang that destroyed government property.

“Government was wrongly superimposed on my land and I want Government to quit those pieces of land which I purchased, because the seller is not complaining and neither am I,” Otafiire told parliament.

But Budadiri West MP Nandala Mafabi told parliament that Otafiire acquired the land fraudulently through abuse of his office.

“Hon. Otafiire used his office as a Minister in charge of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and wrote to the Minster for Lands and Housing on the estate of the late Sir Daudi Chwa II and was given 50 acres of that land.

“Hon. Otafiire went with armed men to invade the farm yet they had been stopped by the Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters,” Mafabi said.

He added: “When you have an office and you do contrary things; that’s abuse of office which is corruption. Otafiire and Kavuma grabbed land. If someone can grab public land in the open what about money? This is what is happening in the country”.

Otafiire tabled documents to parliament that he said support his ownership and the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, said she would scrutinize them and report to the House on Nov.05. By the time of writing this, she had not.

Otafiire’s untouchable status is not new.

It was first put on show after President Museveni reshuffled his cabinet on April 5, 1999 and dropped him from being Minister of State for Local Government.

Five days later, on April 10, Otafiire did an interview published by The New Vision newspaper in which he addressed the President.

“I would want to know why he dropped me. I will ask him what happened because I just do not know what is going on,” Otafiire reportedly said in the interview published in The New Vision of April 11, 1999.

Then Otafiire reportedly added:  “I have the capacity to cause trouble because I am a soldier”.

Museveni appointed Otafiire to be military advisor on Democratic Republic of Congo Affairs soon after. In 2001 Otafiire bounced back as Minister of State for Regional Cooperation. His untouchable status was now clear.  Museveni has since then retained Otafiire in his cabinet, switching him between at least three ministries before appointing him minister of Justice in May 2011 to date.

Museveni weakening

Opposition politicians and observers believe that Museveni may be hesitant to act on untouchable individuals in order not to antagonise longstanding ties or simply for  political or other considerations. Some played important roles the guerilla war that brought Museveni to power in 1986.

The untouchable status may depend on one’s standing with the President at a given time.  Until recently, former Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura, was regarded as an untouchable. Then in March 2018 Museveni sacked him and locked him up in a military jail.

Another famous example is former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi.  He had been in the Museveni inner circle and cabinet for over 40 years but Museveni sacked him in September 2014. A few months later in June 2015, Mbabazi announced he would challenge Museveni for the presidency in 2016. He did and lost.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, a renowned Ugandan political scholar who has studied the subject of impunity in the government blames Museveni.

In a paper titled `Collapse, war and reconstruction in Uganda: An analytical narrative on state-making’ and sponsored by the Crisis States Research Centre and London School of Economics,  Golooba-Mutebi  says ”that  the  regime  is  able  to  act  in  this  way  with  impunity  or  with  minimal  restraint  points  to  how  state  organisations  and  institutions  have  fared  under  its  watch.”

He describes how the   army remains strongly allied to Museveni and how other security agencies and the police operate under the military, parliament is a rubber stamp and the  government  does  not  always  respect  the  decisions  of  the  courts.

“These  and  other  recent  developments  pointing  to  deterioration  in  the  government’s  record  raise  questions  about  whether the days of turmoil and instability are over,” Golooba-Mutebi writes.

Paulson Semakula Luttamaguzi, MP (Nakaseke South) says the behaviour of untouchables shows Museveni is weakening.

“Look at Gen. Tumwine; he is supposed to pay Nommo Gallery billions of shillings but the weakening leadership of Museveni gives them leeway.” He says. “They just feel they cannot be punished.”

Nommo Gallery is owned by the Uganda National Cultural Centre (UNCC) and Speaker Kadaga has severally ordered Tumwine to pay arrears of over Shs1billion to the gallery and to vacate it. Tumwine’s company, Creations Limited, has occupied Nommo Gallery since 1998.

In 2013 when Gen. Tumwine, also an artist, was involved in a showdown with Pius Bigirimana, then Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, he said he is part of a group of artists who jointly own the Gallery. Bigirimana and the ministry of Gender, which supervises UNCC, refuted the General’s account and asked him to close shop and pay up.

Luttamaguzi says Tumwine and his ilk behave like princes in a kingdom of their own making. “The way he refused to pay debts shows they are just like princes in a kingdom where the king is just looking on. They all have a history of similar offences.”

Luttamaguzi said that it is the reason they are disrespectful of government institutions. Luttamaguzi tells The Independent that matters are not helped by a powerless parliament.

“Parliament is a castrated bull. Whatever we discuss, it cannot get implemented. There is no way other institutions can bring these people to order, if parliament has failed?” he says.

Tumwine, a former Chairman of the General Court Martial, the army court, once slapped Jacob Oulanyah, before the latter became deputy speaker, in parliament after a disagreement in the early 2000s. MPs like Kira Municipality’s Ibrahim Semujju often cite the incident whenever there is a discussion of errant behavior among UPDF high ranking officers.