The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
How the raid on Among’s home marks the beginning of a revolution and what it tells us about the Uganda Muhoozi seeks
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The Saturday 3am SFC raid at the home of our pre-current speaker of parliament, Anita Annet Among (AAA), is unprecedented. The joint security operation at her home, confiscating anything and everything of value, including cash and other luxury items, speaks volumes. The action required bold decision-making and a stubborn resolution. And it is a vintage signature of the CDF, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Those who doubted him now know what kind of political animal Uganda has to contend with.
Muhoozi had tweeted his displeasure with the speaker for buying a $1m Rolls Royce. He then said the budget of parliament should be cut because it is wasteful. The ministry of finance should take that tweet seriously. Then he issued a statement saying that PLU, the civil society pressure group he leads, had retracted its endorsement of AAA and her deputy, Thomas Tayebwa. He said his choice of the new speaker is Oboth Oboth, the pre current minister of defense. He warned that he was not interested in any discussions. He would dictate.
Many Ugandan elites have failed or refused to understand the political animal that Muhoozi is. They are stuck in the politics of tolerance and compromise that his father, President Yoweri Museveni, has practiced for so long. It is a politics many Ugandan elites and non-elites have come to expect as a permanent fixture of our national life. But it is also a politics that has allowed well-organised demand groups to insist and get favors from the president, often at a high cost to the common good. Muhoozi rejects this kind of politics, not because he thinks it has necessarily been bad, but because he thinks Uganda has outgrown its usefulness.
Muhoozi appreciates that his father’s form of politics, characterized by many compromises and concessions to powerful interest groups, was important for the political reconciliation and social integration that Uganda needed in the first decades of NRM rule. For a country that had been torn asunder by civil wars, military coups and interethnic and religious conflicts, reconciliation required accommodation, forgiveness and tolerance that only Museveni could master. True, Museveni would [sometimes] employ hard measures to get his way. But that was rare – the president always preferred the carrot more than the stick. But this strategy of using the carrot increasingly consolidated a politics of corruption.
Uganda has recovered, the economy grown and society transformed. As a result, these constant compromises and concessions to powerful individuals and interest groups have increasingly become major liabilities. Today, the tolerance of corruption and incompetence which was critical for social integration in the early years has now become a source of social frustrations among young Ugandans seeking a better country.
Ugandans want a government that can deliver jobs and public goods and services, not one that constantly placates the interests of powerful ethnic, business and religious elites. Indeed, Muhoozi believes that the kinds of compromises that made state consolidation possible in the first three decades of NRM’s rule are now making it difficult for the state to pursue its project of economic transformation. And yet this project of transformation is the key to ensuring the sustainability of the state in the long term.
Therefore, people need to understand the raid on Among’s house in this context. It is not really about her. And that is what many analysts have missed. Rather, it is about the broader statement Muhoozi is making: that Uganda can no longer accept or sustain the politics of corruption, incompetence, patronage, bribery and appeasement. Rather, Uganda will insist that public officials follow strict rules and uphold the public spirit in public services. Muhoozi recognizes that this new politics cannot happen in the context of our inherited democratic procedures. This is especially so because we adhere too much to these procedures even when they serve little democratic (and most especially national) value.
Muhoozi is saying that there is a need to reassert the authority of the state over powerful ethnic, religious and business elites who use identity and money to mobilize political constituencies to control power in Uganda. Often, this power is used to divert resources from national purposes to serve selfish and parochial interests. He does not have overwhelming power over decision-making in Uganda. But he is determined to use the little power he has to send a message. And that message is that impunity cannot be tolerated; that corruption and incompetence that hide behind bureaucratic procedures and political sloganeering are injurious to the public good and will be resisted.
For instance, Muhoozi has severally expressed his personal frustration with many things going wrong in the country. He has complained about roads in Kampala City that are in a permanent state of disrepair. He has complained about national truck roads which are collapsing around us. All efforts to repair them have been met with bureaucratic inertia, indifference, apathy, corruption and, in some cases, outright sabotage. In frustration, Muhoozi has promised to take over the procurement and construction of roads. It is possible that people in KCCA and at the ministry of works, long used to Museveni’s politics of tolerance and compromise, think that Muhoozi is not serious. But like Among, they are going to be shocked by his intervention, and many are going to find themselves in jail.
One area that needs urgent change is the Ministry of Works and Transport. Muhoozi has expressed his frustration with the mess at Uganda Airlines, which has been solved by appointing an experienced CEO. Then he has promised to take over all procurement for roads. The people at the ministry slowing down work, obstructing presidential directives, etc. should take notice. And there is the issue of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) given to a Turkish company at exorbitant costs whose contract he has said he will cancel. These frustrations are going to lead to yet another showdown at KCCA and the Ministry of Works if officials there don’t style up.
Muhoozi has cleaned the ministry of defense and in two years, began and completed projects that had been in the process for donkey’s years. He has insisted the ministry be result-orientated and wants accountability for results, not accountability for procedures. Procedures are important. But they are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. If adherence to procedures is used to delay or obstruct the delivery of public goods and services to Ugandans, that will not be accepted in the new political dispensation being born before our eyes.
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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug
Is it MK only or in conjunction with or under instruction from the President, according to correspondences circulating in the public domain? We are eager to believe that this is the beginning of the “no sleep, no corruption” era as proclaimed at Kololo during swearing-in on Tuesday. It’s sad that the first victim of the purge is at the level of Head of the Legislature but that is what it is. It should send tremors down the spines of sharks at large. As long the modus operandi is scientific, unbiased, fact-based and sustained, it is, indeed, a revolution in the offing. Meanwhile, the accompanying photo spoke volumes about what was to come. Salute!!
The media hype and timing of the current corruption scandal looks like another but familiar chapter in Uganda’s corruption fight and my experience is the heroes end up being corrupted themselves by this contagion. A peasant farmer myself, I never complain whenever my crops or animals get stolen not even report to police that is a stone throw away.Rather I spend time thinking how I should strengthen my guard. In Uganda with gazetted financial institutions how do billions of moneies leave the financial vaults and end up in people’s residences. In nyakasanga market – kasese town the sale of firewood from the neighbouring NP is prohibited and to find even a single piece of wood in your private car will put the owner and seller in trouble.Yet sacks of money both local and foreign currencies traverse the streets on daily basis and as it is public knowledge, AAA is not the only one doing this. The question should be why this sudden media interest. I think President Museveni’s approach is more pragmatic and leaves the corrupt to be more useful members of their community. In one case he admitted in the media to giving corruption money to his brother to fight Kony. In another article one elderly New vision columnist Mzee F.D.R Gureme wrote about an incident when he went to statehouse to tell the president about some corrupt people spoiling the name of govt. In his column he reports that the president quietly thanked him with an envelope.
Corrupt people should be left to enjoy their loot and the focus be made on the institutions that facilitate the transmission of the loot. All the monies in the pictures bear the label Bank of Uganda. How did it leave the bank?
Thank you
Well written. We can’t say someone is fighting corruption when they just swore themselves in for a seventh term. That is corruption in and of itself.
Be serious, Andrew. The disconnect between the Mohoozi we know and the Mohoozi you describe is shocking. Mohoozi is dangerous narcissist.
That Andrew is setting the stage for the abolition of democracy and perhaps multiparty politics in Uganda is shocking. Sad.
Could you update us on what happened to the Muhanga case (MP with 10bn unexplained wealth), please ask CDP to investigate that otherwise we see this as selective persecution.
AAA has clearly been targeted because she was building a powerbase which was threatening the succession plan, if she had fallen in line, she would retain her speakership even with the flows
I wish would write at least every two days
Andrew, why do you take us for naive when you know that AAA will never be tried in a public court because she knows too much about the happenings in state house: the true beneficiaries of the constant supplementary budgets, the actual destinations of all the Lubowa billions that were passed by the house when no work was being done, the true destination of the Atiak cash and the other thousands of dubious budget line items to state house. For M7 and MK to take AAA to trial is akin to opening a pandora’s box. It will never happen. Not even in 1000 years.
By the way, you remember Chin Ping:
On 5 December 2018 a federal jury in New York City convicted Chi Ping Patrick Ho of paying bribes to top Ugandan officials Sam Kutesa and Yoweri Museveni. In May 2016, Ho and CEFC China executives traveled to Kampala. Before departing, Ho ensured that $500,000 was wired to the account provided by Kutesa. Ho also advised his boss, the Chairman of CEFC China, to provide $500,000 in cash to President Museveni, supposedly as a campaign donation, even though Museveni had already been reelected. Ho intended these payments as bribes to influence Kutesa and Museveni to use their official power to steer business advantages to CEFC China.
Mwenda’s article reads less like political analysis and more like a carefully dressed up justification for authoritarianism. He attempts to present Gen. Muhoozi as a disciplined reformer fighting corruption, yet the very examples he gives expose something far more dangerous: impulsive personal rule, militarisation of politics, and contempt for constitutional order.
A 3am armed raid on the Speaker’s home, allegedly triggered after Muhoozi publicly complained on X about a luxury car purchase, is not evidence of decisive leadership. It is evidence of a man who appears to believe state power should follow his moods, tweets and personal frustrations. Mwenda tries to romanticise this as “bold decision making,” but in functioning states, security agencies do not operate like a private enforcement unit for politically connected generals.
Ironically, Mwenda accidentally proves that Muhoozi may be worse than Museveni. Museveni at least understood the importance of balancing power centres, building alliances and masking coercion behind political process. Muhoozi seems impatient with even the pretence of democratic restraint. His language “I will dictate,” “not interested in discussions” reflects intolerance for consultation, institutions or dissent. That is not strength; it is authoritarian immaturity. Mwenda further contradicts himself by celebrating Muhoozi’s unilateral interventions while condemning patronage politics. In reality, replacing institutional governance with the personal will of one unelected military figure is simply another form of patronage only harsher and worse. Wait and you will see. Muhoozi seems to make Amin better.
What Andrew is describing (and wishes for Uganda) is the Gestapo. The official secret police of Nazi Germany.
The Gestapo operated without civil restraints. It had the authority of “arrest,” and its actions were not subject to judicial appeal. Thousands of people simply disappeared into concentration camps after being arrested by the Gestapo. Its political unit could order prisoners to be murdered, tortured, or released. Together with the Schutzstaffel, (SS), the Gestapo managed the treatment of “inferior races,” with disastrous outcomes.
It suppressed partisan activities and carried out reprisals against civilians. Gestapo members were included in the Einsatzgruppen (“deployment groups”), which were mobile death squads that accompanied the German regular army to kill the “undesirables”.
Andrew is smart enough to know this history. Why then is he romanticizing Gestapo like behavior?
This is deliberate misrepresenting what is happening. This is not fundamentally a fight against corruption. If Anita Among had agreed to step down quietly as advised by Museveni at the State House meeting, remained loyal and avoided showing signs of running independently for the Speakership, which was perceived as a future political threat to Muhoozi’s ambitions, she would most likely have walked away untouched with all her wealth, influence and protection intact. But after defying her political godfathers and refusing to step down, the environment around her changed dramatically.
That is why the anti corruption narrative sounds hollow. Ugandans are being encouraged to celebrate this as if these mafias have suddenly discovered corruption after nearly four decades in power. Yet the very system Mwenda now condemns is the same system that elevated and protected these elites for years. The key issue here is not corruption, but mainly political control and succession management. Once Among increasingly became viewed as politically ambitious, internationally embarrassing and potentially unreliable within the future power arrangement, the environment around her changed very quickly.
Mwenda also ignores the international pressure dimension. From what many people close to the situation suggest, pressure from the major funders and strategic partners of Uganda too, played a significant role. Among had increasingly become a growing liability because of corruption allegations, sanctions pressure and the international image problem surrounding Uganda’s governance. Removing or weakening her therefore serves primarily two purposes at once: reducing external pressure while simultaneously consolidating Muhoozi’s internal political positioning. So the real message is not that corruption will no longer be tolerated. The real message is that loyalty and political usefulness determine survival. If this were a genuine war on corruption, the standard would be applied consistently across the entire political establishment, not selectively against figures who appear expendable or politically inconvenient.
We have corruption in all east African countries but the morrass in Uganda takes the cake! Coupled with the erratic and lethargic ways of the officialdom, it certainly needs the shock therapy of general Muhoozi for the public service to wake up to it’s purpose to the Ugandan people.
LOL!!! I’m laughing because only a few years ago, Mwenda assured us that corruption is so good and without it a country can’t move forward. Now what is this?
Are you sure that’s what he stated?
So, has Muhoozi taken over all government functions? Muhoozi is has done this; Muhoozi is going to do this; Muhoozi will do this; Muhoozi is even going to cancel contracts that were awarded following PPDA procedures … Where is this country headed?