POWER HAS CORRUPTED BOTH THOSE IN OPPOSITION AND GOVT

By Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba, UK

Power is like a truth-pill that exposes the real character of a person. Former US president, Abraham Lincoln, once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Once you achieve power, the fear of getting punished is reduced and hence people start showing their true character.

However, if you are a person of character, no amount of power can ever corrupt you. There have been few exceptions where even after attaining political power leaders were not corrupt. Few of such names are Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela. In Uganda opposition, we have had Kiiza Besigye, Hussein Kyanjo, Imam Kasozi, Ken Lukyamuzi and a few others. And the bad examples in history are Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Milton Obote, Stalin, Mao, etc.

I personally think that “Power” is a double edge sword thing. Perhaps, Power itself may not corrupt a person, but could definitely become a catalyst of one’s road to self-destruction. An example of that near us would be President Museveni. He wasn’t really corrupt throughout the years he was opposing governments of Amin and Obote, but something changed as soon as he became president.

Basically, you have four options to cope with corruption: 1. Participate in it.2. fight it and be destroyed, 3. pretend you don’t see it. 4.Recognize it but choose not to participate in it. And I think if someone is very smart and very conscientious and very wise, he or she might be able to resist it and perhaps reduce it to some degree without being destroyed.

So, if you work at an organisation as corrupt as, for instance, the Uganda parliament, but you need your paycheck, you will usually find yourself with the same four options. In fact, that’s what the “whistleblower” protection is for – you can bring information to the appropriate authorities without being subject to reprisals (Supposedly).

MUSEVENI’S FAKE LETTER

I am afraid to say that Nupians have fallen again into Museveni’s trap. Did they actually think that Museveni wrote a letter questioning the amount of gratuity, not the legal aspect of it, to benefit NUP and Bobi? It is surprising that they thought that because of Museveni’s ‘fake’ letter, then Mpuuga was in trouble. There is this Igbo proverb that goes like this,”When a small bird is dancing in your path defiantly then know that there’s something or someone beating the drums for it ( encouraging the bird to have no fear)’’.

Mpuuga is undoubtedly a rival to Bobi Wine in NUP. Bobi saw an opportunity to mudsling his opponent and he took it. He even linked him to being a Museveni stooge. Now, with Museveni’s ‘fake’ letter questioning the gratuity the commissioners awarded themselves, it means Mpuuga is now insulated from being a regime apologist. And who knows the fake letter might have been helping Bobi,too, to kick Mpuuga down to the floor in the process. For the record, Statehouse has clarified that the letter in question was forged.The flip side of this situation is that someone managed to play Nupians using their own methods of operation – threw a fake letter out there and see their reaction, which is: Mpuuga, Mpuuga……ha ha ha.

The point is Ugandans must learn to critically analyse Museveni’s actions – nothing is in a black and white. People should learn from Museveni instead of just looking at him as president.

ANITA AMONG

It’s the same with the speaker Anita Among – she became speaker at the backer of majority NRM support, but we all know she was literally nothing in Uganda politics. All of a sudden, she started controlling the parliamentary budget of over shs.200 b a year. Then we read reports of her depositing huge amounts of money on her ‘friends’ accounts for withdraw later for suspicious activities. We all witnessed her unveiling the mother of a mansion in Bukedea that looked like a fiver star hotel. And dopeys think that she did all this without Museveni knowing anything(lol).

In March 2024, Museveni made an attempt to protect Speaker Anita Among from intense public scrutiny following grave allegations implicating her corruption scandals at Parliament.

10th May 2024, Museveni then wondered why the speaker would own houses in the UK, and he wanted to know if she declared them.

In Museveni’s letter to Hon. Jejje Odongo On 2nd May 2024, he indicated that he knew about UK’s intentions to sanction Kitutu and Nandutu for their role in Mabati issue, and UK’s intention to sanction Anita for owning houses in the UK. So, it looks like the issue with Anita is owning houses in the UK, not involvement in corruption, and if this is cleared, she’s as good as a new jet.

Museveni copes with his own corruption by adding more options to the four above: denial, find someone to sacrifice and implicate, brazen it out, counterattack, benefit privately, share and, do not get caught. These are the stages and/or the cardinal principles those with power follow to deal with their own corruption.

I think Anita may be sacrificed eventually if the UK insists on keeping the sanctions against her. Afterall, we can always use a ”Tayebwa” to keep the ship floating for a bit.

BOBI VS MPUUGA

Corrupt people are drawn to power. Some (I would argue most) people are corruptible to some extent or another, whether it’s something as mundane as making sure a relative gets a job at parliament ticket to embezzling millions of dollars or having someone who threatens your power murdered. Obviously, there’s a major difference between getting a job for a relative and murder, but they’re different ends on the spectrum of corruption.

For instance, the Uganda Citizens Forum for Justice and Equity have petitioned the USA, UK, European Union and South Africa to sanction Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine for suspiciously buying properties in those respective countries using NUP funds and money given to him by the Diaspora community for the struggle. They quote the Magnitsky Act of 2016. But this is the same Bobi claiming to be fighting Mpuuga over corruption.

As long as Ugandans don’t see the clean people as an alternative to Museveni, then corruption will continue even after NRM. Glen David Brin, a well-known American author said wisely, “It’s said that “power corrupts,” but actually it’s truer that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.” Basically, those with pure souls seldom end up in positions of power.

There is that famous saying “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but it’s also important to remember that “just because something is a pithy saying doesn’t make it true.” Why do people start taking bribes or do shady business when they get into politics, for example? I can think of the following reasons:

It doesn’t hurt anyone directly. Corruption is indirectly hurting the country, but it is not directly a form of theft. And as a matter of fact, most citizens prefer to use tax loopholes if they are able to. So, we can’t state that not paying taxes is immoral, because most people would prefer not to pay taxes if they find some way to avoid it.

The second reason is Group pressure. If a person comes into a new group where everyone is doing deals under the table, it would be disloyal for him to refuse. It would put the group in danger and not bring him any benefits.

One upshot of all of this (if you believe it) is that therefore, the most important thing to get right in an organization’s design is how to choose which people are placed into positions of power. This means – in companies: methods of hiring, evaluation, and promotion – and in political systems: systems for elections and appointments. No matter the rules or existing conventions, they will be bent according to the will of those in power, so the overriding concern should be in ensuring that the systems which determine who attains positions of power chooses the right people.

However, anyone who thinks corruption can be eliminated altogether is foolish. Corruption’s weakness is that usually it prefers not to be seen in public. The corrupt prefer to engage in corruption where people aren’t fully aware of it. They don’t like the light of publicity.

WHY IS ELECTRICITY SO EXPENSIVE IN UGANDA?

a typical Yaka UMEME meter in Uganda

WHY IS ELECTRICITY SO EXPENSIVE IN UGANDA?

By Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba, UK.

I applied for Umeme power before lockdown and was given six account numbers for different Yaka meters. The Inspection had been done. The guy who helped us charged me shs.700, 000 for his services. I waited for a long time and there was nothing happening.

Then, some guy I don’t know, but claimed to be a UMEME field engineer, called me directly – I don’t know how he got my number. He wanted to help speed up the process for us. He demanded for shs.700, 000, too. So, feeling as if I had no recourse, I grit my teeth and hastily sent him money on his phone. Few hours later, he called to say that he was on his way to the site but had got an accident. So, he demanded for a quick 200,000 to settle with the guy whose car he had had run into. That’s when I realised that I was being conned, and told him to ‘fuck off’. Interestingly, he replied with a message to my site manager, telling her that your boss had wizened up – we thought we could make more money from him. So, we continued being in darkness, and it’s frustrating.

Recently, we visited UMEME offices, and we found out that we are required to pay shs. 730,000 for each Yaka meter in order to be connected. Apparently, the inspection has to be done again, yet they have all the details. They said that what we, initially, paid for is a government scheme that hasn’t been executed yet.

The 730,000 is only for those who don’t need a pole. If your connection requires 1 or 2 poles or more, the price goes up. Each pole is at shs.2.7m, Plus 41,300 for inspection. Then, Inspection fees remain constant at 41,300. Prices are inclusive of VAT.

It doesn’t make sense for one to pay 702,000 for yaka meters for many houses. It is probably okay if you are buying one meter. Imagine someone who has rentals that bring in a mere 150k per month but requires 730,000 for connecting Yaka. Electricity shouldn’t be expensive in Uganda yet we have our own dams now.

I wish to know what the government is exactly doing to help people investing in estate, especially outside urban centres. Why is the Yaka process so expensive? You charge people rental tax on top of everything else, and I think this is crazy. It’s like you are discouraging people from constructing houses for Ugandans, yet it’s something very necessary. 

Honest to God, I find social media tax and property taxes so unnecessary at this point, because they are killing something bigger than taxation, and that is development of humans and communities. The introduction of taxes on internet use has slowed down internet usage in Uganda, and this has slowed down the creation of online businesses, yet this is the future now, especially after Covid-19.

Property taxes, on the other hand, have slowed down development of descent housing in the country. Uganda has a population of over 40 million people, and the numbers of houses available aren’t enough for the people. This does raise in my mind the interesting question: How is a society to be measured? By the wealth of its most powerful? Or by the welfare of its least powerful? Depends on whether you believe in rugged individualism or pulling together as a team. We can transcend the most bestial, self-centred individualistic aspects of ourselves and learn to scratch each other’s’ backs, making for a healthier society over all. The rich Ugandans, such as Sudhir, pay a whale of a lot of taxes, but I’m prety sure they really don’t mind most of the time because they are not opposed to helping those who are less intelligent and less lucky than they are, though I know that most of the taxes go into stuff we could do without.

 If the government insists on the above taxes, they should make them so small and affordable, just to build an idea of taxation among the population. Our MPs should look into this urgently, though; overall, they, too, have been disappointing so far — I have a pretty strong opinion on that topic. But I hope my tone hasn’t come across as too strident. It’s hard for me to judge, in writing. Thanks for reading my vent!

Do you think maybe that Museveni’s “bribe- donation” defence has something to do with Kutesa being his relative?

Mr.Museveni is huffing and puffing about the bribe allegations that involve him and Sam Kutesa, but a lot of us know he is lying about not knowing that it was a bribe.A federal court in USA has found guilty a Chinese national, a one Patrick Ho Chi-ping for offering a $1,000,000 bribe to two Ugandan public servants namely Yoweri Museveni (Exhibit 1510) and Sam Kutesa (Exhibit 1504).What I don’t understand is why a man as rich as Kutesa is, would accept a bribe of just $500,000. Both he and Museveni are arguably the richest in Uganda. Such “donations” are supposed to be received by us to pay our mortgages.

Do you think maybe that Museveni’s “bribe- donation” defence has something to do with Kutesa being his relative? If I was out working in New York with Kutesa and I did something as incredibly “stupid” as he did and took the bribe “accidentally”, do you think I would be getting the “not at fault” treatment? Mr.Museveni is acting as though the matter is rather routine and not that serious, and that is why Kutesa is still a minister. Another name for this condition is arrogance–exteme, unmitigated arrogance; a “quality” that has long been present in Mr.Museveni. Corruption has always been part of his gov’t since 1986, and it’s too late for him to do anything about it. Even the Nakalema Anti-Corruption Unit is only going to make her a bit richer than probably Tamale Mirundi.

Anyway, little things like this can portend bigger political shifts though I doubt USA will do anything about it. The Americans will most likely use it to blackmail Museveni with something. They’ve got more leverage now!

Only Hon. Ssekikubo can explain why he too picked the shs. 5m ‘bribe’!

I’ve just learnt that Hon.Theodore Ssekikubo was among the MPs that voted for the removal of presidential term limits in 2005. The campaign to remove term limits was launched in 2003. He was the one that had earlier alerted the country about the 5 million fraud. Apparently, he had gone to collect his share but he was turned down because those in charge were not sure of his side. He, however, surprised a lot of people when he voted for the removal of the limits. He has never explained exactly what changed his mind , then. You can’t trust a politician, can you?

M7 SHOULDN’T ‘CRY’ ABOUT HIS SALARY ANYMORE!

Freinds,
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could care less about Museveni’s presidential salary of Ug shs. 3.9 m a month. I’m more worrried about the Uganda teachers who are among the worst paid public workers in East Africa. Primary school teachers earn an average 250,000 shillings ($97.16) a month and their secondary school counterparts take home sh472,079 (Grade V) and sh601,341 per month (graduate) respectively. However, come July or so Grade V and graduate science teachers will get sh1,728,007 and sh2,000,000 per month respectively , if we go by government promises.Teaching isn’t easy to do, especially with the amount of preparation work that goes into each class every day and proven by its high burn-out rate.

Teachers are Uganda’s hope, and we’re failing them.Teachers are serving as bodyguards, therapists, soup kitchens and parents especially in boading schools.They are responsible for producing quality citizens as they spend more time with our kids than the parents themselves.I know a teacher here in the UK that counts the number of successfully saved kids by her to be counted on her fingers.On the other hand she can tell you about a lot of kids that will most likely be incarcerated for one crime or another.She couldn’t change them given the few hours a day she had with them.Then there is my former headmaster of Kibuli S.S i know who went out of his way to secure scholarships for underpriviledged students in the school. Even now as a retired man, he tries hard to get funding to help orphans in our family and those he isn’t related to.

And now, we have a crying-baby-president who is tearing his little remaining hair out complaining about his little salary, yet we all know its not technically true, considering that he spends tax payers’ money in any way he wants. At one point while speaking in Mbale, Museveni bragged that he is a rich man and that he left his wife to collect his salary. He gives out money in sacks to groups and calls the money his. He also said around 2006, while meeting Ugandans at Mayflower Hotel in Washington, that he doesn’t need the MO Ibrahim prize because he is a dam rich man, ” if you are used to poor leaders, i am not one of them. You better come and visit me. I do not need money to leave power”.

I would assume that the person who doesn’t need money to leave power, shouldn’t be complaining about the little salary he is getting. He should also be donating the money to the poor like Kabaka Mutesa 11 did for Karamoja while he was president in early 1960s, or be like President Donald J. Trump who isn’t taking any salary at all as US president . And there is also the question of how Museveni got so rich on a little salary.

There are certain people in government that are unfairly earning mega salaries, and are mainly from western Uganda, at the expense of the rest of Ugandans.Let me then introduce “Generalized Pork Barrel” politics, which I define to be government expenditures designed to benefit a well-defined (if not geographically circumscribed) minority for no good reason.An expenditure is referred to as a “pork barrel” when the minority of citizens that it directly benefits happen to be the constituents of a particular politician, particularly when there is a sense that these consituents are getting more than their share of the bread. For instance, Museveni has created unnecessary offices, such as presidential advisors, RDCs,e.t.c and all these people are costing the tax payers an arm and a leg in terms of salaries.

Let me repeat that if the general public is informed of such funding activities and see nothing wrong with it,neither do I.I do not stand for the notion that there are superior reasons for giving higher salaries, however, which would require such funding in spite of the general public’s disinclination. Consider this: the Governor Bank of Uganda earns 53 million Uganda shillings a month.Does that seem fair to you? I see govt spending on the governor, Commissioner General, URA, Executive Director NSSF, and others in that category, as unjustified on grounds of inefficiency, or on specific grounds of unfairness. All that money could be channeled elsewhere and benefit more Ugandans than just a few people.
—

*Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba*

Stalk my blog at: https://semuwemba.wordpress.com

Is it true that Kutesa is now the biggest shareholder of the Crane Bank?

If it’s true as reported in the Red Pepper that Sam Kutesa is considering buying the Cranes Bank after its initial recapitalisation by the government , then Ugandans have all the reasons to be suspicious of everything “Crane Bank “. It’s only a foreign investor who could risk putting his money in a company under receivership or administration, for obvious reasons such as tax breaks. But even a foreigner who buys a struggling business raises suspicion. For instance, here in the UK when a Russian billionaire decided to buy two of UK’s newspapers, The Evening Standard and the Independent, even the locals were surprised, but they turned a blind eye on it, after all, it wasn’t tax payer’s money. But a Sam Kutesa take over means we need to keep an eye on everything Sudhir-CraneBank-Museveni and public funds. Something just doesn’t look right here!

I’m not against local investors or even foreign investors. Actually, right now Uganda needs more foreign investors due to the economic situation in the country. In the UK, they tried this formula during their financial crisis, and it has paid dividends. That’s why the tallest building now in London and western Europe belongs to the Qatars. The thingy is some of you see things too simply. Everything connects to everything in Uganda right now. Find out what interests Sam Kutesa in buying Crane Bank and have them write a report about the recervership of the crane Bank.The man who is buying shares in this bank is very well known as a ‘special’ businessman with both ears of the president.

I hate such deals taking place in developing nations because the poor always pay for them. I dont mind them that much in developed nations, because people’s lives arent so much affected. For instance, the Bush Family has been involved in such dordgy deals in USA for a long time, and the local American can live with it. Just a tip of the iceberg,UAE has direct connections to the Bush family. UAE and Carlyle Group are business partners. John Snow, former Secretary of the Treasury, and former CSX CEO, sold the rail division to UAE one month prior to him becoming Treasury secretary.Then Carlyle Group bought CSX from UAE for double the money it was worth. Carlyle is partly owned by the Bush family. In addition, Neil Bush frequently does business on behalf of the UAE as an emissary.In 1990 a UAE sheik gave Bush Sr.1 million dollars for his presidential library. So, there’s always a connection of ‘SOMETHING’ when you see a member of the first family rushing to buy a business that’s supposedly not doing well.

Saying that dodgy deals happen in USA too doesnt make it right or legal in any way. USA especially under Bush wasnt any different from a Uganda under Museveni: No respect for the laws. For instance, FISA is a law which was passed in 1978 to prohibit wire-tapping.Bush asked for the ability to wiretap without a warrant in 2001, was denied it but went ahead and did it anyway, as the Amama Mbabazis used to do while in govt. Bush never sought any changes to FISA, instead he just ignored it. So, please, dont look at the Kutesa-Crane bank deal as in black and white.There’s nothing like that anymore in the Museveni government.It matters not what laws limit museveni because no laws apply to him.No law ever written and no law ever to be written affects him and his family.That is exactly what he has claimed as his right as a “plenary executive.”

Abbey

Don’t Feel Betrayed by Beti Kamya!

For the record, I do not feel betrayed by Ms.Beti Kamya! Calling her out for being a sellout to Museveni and rarely going out on a limb for common people unless it suits her own agenda of advancement is not something I feel betrayed by. Most Uganda politicians are all like that.i.e. most are pretenders.

1.I feel betrayed by the Electoral Commission for failure to conduct free and fair elections;
2.I feel betrayed by the opposition for wasting everyone’s time.I feel more betrayed by the parties than an individual.I have no trust in the integrity of any other major political party;
3.I feel betrayed by the media for failure to stand with the people of Uganda when they need them most;
4.I feel betrayed by my government, police forces that no longer protect, and countless other things.

I DO NOT feel betrayed by Ms.Kamya. I feel she has pulled the curtain back on all that has betrayed my trust.She has given us a glimpse of what Uganda politics is mainly about–eating. I even don’t believe the nonsense that she has been working for Museveni all along. I’m sure she was approached at some point before or after the presidential elections.

Abbey Semuwemba
———————–
Beti Olive Namisango Kamya-Turomwe, also known as Betty Kamya and Beti Kamya, is a businesswoman and politician in Uganda, the third-largest economy in the East African Community. She is the Minister for Kampala Capital City Authority in the Cabinet of Uganda. She was named to that position on 6 June 2016.

She is the founder and president of the Uganda Federal Alliance (UFA), one of the registered political parties in the country.[2][3] She was a candidate in the 2011 Ugandan presidential elections, coming in fifth with 52,782 votes. She previously served as the Member of Parliament representing Lubaga North Constituency on the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) ticket from 2006 until 2010.

She was born in Nakuru, Kenya on 30 November 1955 to George Wilson Kamya, a Ugandan, and Margaret Wairimu Kamya, a Kenyan. Beti was the fourth born of nine children. In 1961, when Beti was six years old, the family relocated to Uganda.

She attended McKay Memorial School in Kampala and Saint Hellen’s Primary School in western Uganda for her primary education. She then attended Wanyange Girls’ School for her O-Level education and Kings College Budo for her A-Level education. She studied at Makerere University, the oldest and largest public university in the country, graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in marketing.

In the mid 1980s, she joined Uganda Leather and Tanning Industries Limited in Jinja in the sales department, working there until 1988. She then joined Nyanza Textiles Industries Limited, working there as a sales executive until 1992. She then relocated to Kampala, Uganda’s capital and largest city with her husband.

From 1996 until 1999, she worked as the marketing manager at Uganda Breweries Limited in Port Bell, a Kampala suburb. From 1999 until 2004, she was the executive director of the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) in Entebbe, about 36 kilometres (22 mi), by road, south of Kampala on the northern shores of Lake Victoria.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

Diasporans: buy your dream house abroad because Uganda is a mess at the moment!

Friends,

A lot of Ugandans abroad are being conned into bad land deals back home and I’m putting the blame squarely on the land brokers.Brokers play a dangerous role, and it is also true that most land sales,particularly in the central, are done through treacherous methods.The land brokers sell the deals to the prospective buyer using fraudulent methods.

The most common is forged land tittle which they give to the prospective buyers as photocopies to lure you into buying the land.If you verify the block number and names on the land title, they will be genuine, but when you get to buy land, they will show you a piece that doesn’t match with that on the land title. That’s why you need a surveyor to spot this anomaly for you before you pay for anything. Other people around like LCs cannot spot such problems. All they care about is their commission/cuts not anything else. The land deals that aren’t fake are done through circuitous means:’etaka’ was for so and so and then so and so sold to so and so………….In Palestine, these land brokers have caused a lot of problems as they’ve contributed a lot to land grabbing by the Jews. That’s why, when Palestinians can capture these land brokers, they are killed so savagely.

For Ugandans in diaspora:
1-if you want to buy land, please buy it from someone you know very well or someone who knows someone you know VERY WELL;

2- If you already posses a house back home, save the money to buy a house where you live. A residential area will always remain a residential area in developed nations. Not even the PM of the country will fraudulently take the house away from you;

3- If you have nobody you trust back home to buy you a piece of land to construct a house, take a mortgage out and buy a house/s where you live. Trust me, It will save you a lot of headache;

4. Never trust brokers back home whatever they tell you, even if they offer to kiss your ………. Most of them are crooks in ties and suits!

Abbey Semuwemba
UK

I’VE NEVER RECEIVED EVEN A SINGLE CENT FROM THE MUSEVENI GOVT

Friends,
The rumour that i was bribed to close the Ugandans At Heart (UAH ) Community Facebook group seems to be growing but I can tell you right now that its not true that I have ever been bribed or ever received any cent from the Museveni government. Why should anybody bribe me, anyway? What for?

The people who are making these allegations have got their own agenda, but they’re largely being sponsored to say those things because they’re up against the wall.Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

The UAH group was closed ten days ago on 2nd Dec 2014 but they are surprised to see us up and running again. They would love to kick us more in the teeth when when we are still down on the ground but we just keep getting up. The new forum already has over 20,000 members and I can assure you that it will be over 25,000 members before the end of next week, because I know people love what the forum has been doing for years. So, I think closing it or getting it to be closed will not help anybody. We have always been ready for such situations, and that is why all our regular members are already back in it. We are just disappointed in Facebook for closing such a large valuable group(over 67000 members) with a lot of historical records that may be difficult to recover.

I read the following message from an IT specialist, and apparently this’s how the government people got Facebook to close the UAH group:

“in reality for FB, it is based on the number of complaints which trigger a thresh hold in a computer application and nothing is reviewed by humans. So if you want to shut down someone’s account or page, get a lot of people onto it, get them to all send in complaints at the same time (within 24hrs usually), it triggers the shut down and you get standard messages like “you have violated our policies so your account is suspended”, something like that. I used to write a lot of triggers and algorithms..hahahaa BUT let me do the news. I am not here to teach Uganda Computer Programming, mbu they learn that on Naseero Rd and Nkruma Rd where they even get degrees.”

So, as you can see, there is no group that is safe on Facebook ,not even pro-NRMs, as long as they are people out there that are uncomfortable with it. Facebook has got a workforce of about 55000 employees serving about 1.5 billion people. So, they aren’t bothered about finding out if any group was fairly reported as long as they get various complaints from several people. They just close the group and then send you a well crafted standard message. I have written to them several times since the closure but I haven’t got any response.

I just think that something is rotten in our society. I believe a lot of people have faced similar allegations of having received bribes when they are actually innocent. The root cause of all this is that NRM have changed the face of politics in Uganda. Whoever wants to stand for political office has to put money aside for bribing the voters. Nobody is doing anybody free favours anymore, not even the police.We have seen the growth of this attitude in the growing number of people over the years. As a result, we have ended up with a weak parliament because most of the good brains don’t want to be part of it. For instance,one time I was on a phone begging Imam Idi Kasozi(JEEMA) to stand for parliament but he didnt want anything to do with it. Some Ugandans have even stopped voting because they rightly see that it doesn’t make much difference, and they’re disgusted by the whole process. The one who controls the Bank of Uganda always wins the elections as evidenced in the 2011 elections.

Some have even lost interest in politics altogether.They don’t want to have anything to do with the government. They just want to take care of themselves and their families, and they hope that the government will leave them alone. At some point, I also took that option but unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Its just difficult for the government to leave us alone. We cannot afford to just ignore what the government is doing.

My fellow Ugandans: we are in a bad situation at the moment. Let us stop ignoring it. Let us begin deciding what we’re going to do about it. I’m doing what I can do in speaking out about it and grouping others to speak out. You must decide what you are able and willing to do and then begin doing it. Begin by adding all your Ugandan friends to UAH again such that we start building again what others are capable of destroying in seconds.You can always, and i mean always count on me when it comes to speaking out whether you are in NRM, FDC ,DP, UPC or any of the ‘Twalatugende’ parties!

Byebyo ebyange banange!

Cut Kagingo some slack, please!

Friends:

I’ve been one of the more vocal opponents of Ms. Sarah Kagingo and her likes in govt but it pains me when i see a hardworking person being destroyed by others in the name of politics or whatever. I’m not NRM, and I’ve gone through no “contortions” to change my opinion on her or some people in the govt. In fact, the contortions are coming from a certain brand of some radical NRM people in civil service who will do everything to make Ugandans so frustrated with the system, in the form of doing a lot of bad things that damage the name of the country(police officers are guilty of this as charged); repeated false claims that they cannot support and bizarre logic repeated even after it’s been revealed as absurd. Oh, and don’t forget all their vague, unsupported, useless statements, like the one we have been reading about in the Observer that the cost of a statehouse website is not at shs.650m. Why don’t they just tell us the actual cost of all statehouse expenses to promote transparency in Statehouse and other govt institutions, instead of just denying it?

Sarah Kagingo

Considering how unpopular our govt is, I can tell you right now that no govt website is gonna generate as much hits as Sarah’s Facebook accounts and pages followers. The future is Facebook and every serious politician in the world is taking this seriously.

Once in a while I have fun deflating the false claims of Kagingo’s more ardent display of president Museveni as an angel, and i think she hates me for it. But we should be fair and acknowledge people who put in more shift than others in their jobs.For instance, when Kagingo opened his Facebook ‘worms’, Oh God, he put a lot of people out of jobs or what to write against the govt online. She is probably the best opponent UAH and other similar sites have faced in many years.

As you know, most of the regular UAH contributors are in opposition but the Kagingo regular pictures just dis-empowered them so much. Most of the govt people on UAH, apart from probably Gen.Kayihura, Ahmed Katerega, RDC Aisha Kabanda, Asuman Kiyingi and a few others, are not good with ‘interacting’ with those that are opposing them.They usually find comfort in their own individual accounts on Facebook- where they could intimidate whoever they want.Many of them are members there(UAH) but they are as quiet as a Kazinda in Luzira prison.

Here’s a free clue about the Ms.Kagingo on Facebook: Despite her inflated opinion of herself, she is not one of those to shy away from a good debate; she defends president Museveni and others in govt with passion but she also recognizes that a govt without opposition input is not an effective govt, and this kind of liberalism shouldn’t be a requirement for disliking her by anybody.I’m defending sister Kagingo because I think her new role is a valuable contribution to public discourse. As far as I can tell, the people smearing her are doing so for political reasons that have little to do with an interest in truth.

I understand that some people in the Statehouse wants Ugandans to believe that Ms.Kagingo is the problem here but where have all these people been in regards to ‘regular updates’ before Kagingo came in? What I don’t get is why some of you are so willing to swallow everything that is being reported in the media about her? You’ve chosen to buy everything they say on ‘agataliko nfufu’ hook, line and sinker because of your political bias, but I don’t think this is morally right.The fact is, all the people against her have clear reasons to skew things their way, so the fact that they’re doing so is no surprise, and means nothing.

When a lot of people have an obvious common motive to discredit someone, naturally they’re going to sing the same tune. I mean, duhhhhhhhh. That’s why you have to look at specifics, if you really care about the truth. When you actually look at specifics, most of the complaints are laughable. Come on, why would Kagingo inhumanly mistreat her ‘maid’ as it was reported, yet she is also reportedly facing some injustice at work(according to the Red-pepper and Observer)? i think this is simply black propaganda. Black propaganda, usually called disinformation, is generally used to make one’s opponents look evil, essentially to “frame” them for something they didn’t do. A reasonably skeptical person has little reason to side with such people in such circumstances.

Sarah Kagingo joined statehouse on merit. Most people think it was Gen. Salim Saleh aka Akandwanaho Caleb, that influenced her appointment but this is not the case, as far as I know. Do you guys remember the famous photo of rebel MPs eating food at one of the Kyankwanzi gatherings, at the time they were kicking Museveni Yoweri’s back side? It was Sarah that took it before it went viral on social networks, and that’s how she came to win the heart of the president. That’s how statehouse/ Museveni came to be seriously introduced on Facebook. The Linda Nabusayis were still thinking in stone age methods of being mean with such info to the main stream media, and Sarah swept them off their feet. They didn’t know what had hit them as journalists were no longer running to them for updates. Every journalist in Uganda is rightly following her on Facebook, and that’s is the best PR Museveni has ever got online. The other NRM PR gurus, like Mwenda, Ofwono Opondo-Opondo P’odel and his lame Media Centre, couldn’t possibly know what had hit them. I really feel for Ms.Kagingo because she doesn’t deserve all the shit being thrown at her by the ‘untouchables’. But God is keenly watching, we hope!

Byebyo ebyange banange!

Abbey

Stealing from the poor is so immoral and disgusting!

A typical street in small town centres in Uganda

Friends,
Have you ever wondered why the politicians stealing money from the poor in Africa have less money in total in Swiss banks compared to those in developed nations? This is simply because what they’re doing is immoral and the attached value to the money in poor nations(shillings) is less compared to ,say, a dollar or pound. Suppose you’re president Museveni Yoweri and you want to get reelected in 2016,but you find out that most Ugandans are poor and you need their votes. There are three ways you can steal money from the poor to enrich yourself and also get their votes:

1- You pass a budget that spends almost every penny on the presidency.In this way, you spend some to buy votes through patronage and keep the rest in your pockets. What you keep isn’t much compared to a politician in India or Russia because you are stealing from a poor economy. If we go by 2006 Swiss bank records, the top five deposits were from nationals of the following countries: India( $1,456 BILLION);Russia($470 BILLION);UK($390 BILLION) Ukraine($100 BILLION) and China ($96 BILLION).

2- If the money allocated to you in the budget is still not enough for you to buy votes or meet your political targets, you order the Bank of Uganda to print up some new money out of thin air and then you use it to give to the poor. Now the poor has a couple of bucks to buy a bottle of Uganda waragi. This obviously contributes to the inflation in the country and directly affects the small middle class in the country.

3. Tax avoidance to a big company that is going to extract Uganda’s oil. You pocket some money but still the white man who owns the company will make more than you through tax havens.Tax avoidance by corporations costs poor countries an estimated $160 billion a year, almost double what they receive in international aid. That’s enough to save the lives of 350,000 children aged five or under every year.

It is believed that tax havens is a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich. What they make out of it is far bigger than the aid they give us.

Funny thing, though. Most voters don’t understand how this works. Most voters don’t understand that the above process is a bit unconstitutional. This is basically called ‘STEALING AND TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE POOR’. The current spending on the presidency as reported by Mark Kibalama, is ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘unpatriotic’, and if possible, it should be challenged by some ‘wise’ MPs and lawyers in courts of law: ‘We are to spend Uganda Shillings 2.8 Billions on each out of city travel of the visionary. We shall further spend Uganda Shillings 0.45 Billions on hosting district delegations which come to State House, to meet the visionary.”

Abbey

MONICA WYATT’S $1M ALLEGATIONS AGAINST GEN.TINYE MAY BE JUST ‘LUGAMBO’

Folks,
I’m in the middle of reading a book :”Bad science” by Ben Goldacre. In a chapter:” why clever people believe stupid things”, he gives lots of examples but I like the pa…rt where he talks about people being biased by their prior beliefs.

He gives an example of the death penalty where a large number of proponents and opponents of state executions were collected. They were all shown two pieces of evidence on deterrent effect of capital punishment: one supporting a deterrent effect, the other providing evidence against.

Asked about the evidence, the subjects confidently uncovered flaws in the methods of the research that went against their pre- existing view, but downplayed the flaws in the research that supported their view.

Put simply, the subjects’ faith in research data was not predicated on an objective appraisal of the research methodology, but on whether the results validated their pre existing views.

This phenomenon is not different from the way Monica Wyatt and several Ugandans (especially northerners) view Sejusa. I have been following her views on the likes of Muntu, Besigye, Sejusa and others who were with Museveni before they fell out with him, she hates them in the same breath as their former boss. So, her allegations that Museveni is sponsoring Sejusa against an already weak opposition should be treated with a pinch of salt. According to ProfEric Kashambuzi, Monique Wyatt disclosed on face book on March 17, 2014 that “In December 2013, Museveni deposited 1 million $ in a Swiss bank for Tinyefuza.

I know it’s politics but we should also try to be objective in our arguments rather than throwing everything that comes in our heads to our readers, brother.

I was once wrongly accused by radio Katwe site of working for Museveni. At this rate, we gonna end up even accusing Jesus of working for him.

Nze Bwendaba!

Abbey

JOKE- MUHWEZI VS ”WISDOM” MBABAZI

When Mbabazi was studying law at Makerere University in 1974, there was a professor, whose last name was Muhwezi, who felt animosity for Mbabazi for some reason, and because Mbabazi never lowered his head towards him, their “arguments” were very common.

One day, Mr. Muhwezi was having lunch at the dining room of the University and Mbabazi came along with his tray and sat next to the professor. The professor, in his arrogance, said, “Mr Mbabazi: you do not understand…… a pig and a bird do not sit together to eat “, to which Mbabazi replies, “You do not worry professor, I’ll fly away “, and he went and sat at another table.

Mr. Muhwezi, green of rage, decides to take revenge on the next test, but Mbabazi responds brilliantly to all questions. Then, Mr. Muhwezi asked him the following question, “Mr Mbabazi, if you are walking down the street and find a package, and within it there is a bag of wisdom and another bag with a lot of money; which one will you take?”

Without hesitating, Mbabazi responded, “the one with the money, of course”. Mr. Muhwezi, smiling, said, “I, in your place, would have taken the wisdom’’.

“Each one takes what one doesn’t have”, responded Mbabazi indifferently.

Mr. Muhwezi, already hysteric, writes on the exam sheet the word “idiot” and gives it to Mbabazi . Mbabazi takes the exam sheet and sits down. A few minutes later, Mbabazi goes to the professor and says, “Mr. Muhwezi, you signed the sheet, but you did not give me the grade, why?”

‘’ You have too much appetite……………..we should kill that appetite’’

WAFULA MAY BE THE NEW ‘IAN DUNCAN SMITH’

Friends,
Wafula may be the new Ian Duncan Smith of Uganda. Ian was actually branded the ” quite” man in UK politics at the time Blair was the PM and he was leader of the opposition. He is now our pension secretary!

Honestly, how many policies has the opposition negotiated with NRM to get their way through parliament. The latest negotiations between the PM and the Nandalla team over the illegal impeachment of Lukwago ended without anything achieved.

Lets wait and see but the truth is that Wafula Oguttu is too nice to be the leader of opposition in Museveni’s Uganda. He’s gonna have to build some muscles to get anything done!

Here is a little story about a Wafdc gentleman and a Genie-M7. A Wafdc gentleman had spent many days crossing the desert without finding a source of water. It got so bad that even his camel died of thirst.

He crawled through the sands, certain that he was breathing his last breath, when suddenly; he saw a shiny object sticking out of the sand several yards ahead of him.

He crawled to the object, pulled it out of the sand, and discovered that he had a Manischewitz wine bottle.

It appeared that there may be a drop or two left in the bottle, so he unscrewed the top, and out popped a genie-M7.

BUT this was no ordinary Genie-M7. This genie-M7 appeared to be bold, wise, tactical,manipulative, complete with its own followers and fighters.
‘Well kid,’ said the genie-M7, ‘you know how it works. You got tree wishes.’

‘I’m not going to trust you,’ says the Wafdc. ‘I’m not going to trust a Rwakitura genie-M7!’

‘Vott you got to lose? Looks at me – you’re a goner anyway!’

The Wafdc thought about this for a minute, and decided that the genie-M7 was right. ‘Okay, I wish I were in a lush oasis, with plentiful food and drink.’

The Wafdc found himself in the most beautiful oasis he had ever seen and he was surrounded with jugs of wine and platters of delicacies.

‘Okee-dokee kiddo, vat’s your second vish?’

‘My second wish is that I were rich beyond my wildest dreams.’

The Wafdc found himself surrounded by treasure chests filled with rare old coins and precious gems.

‘Okay kid, you got just vone more vish. Best you should make it a good vone!’

After thinking for a few minutes, the Wafdc says, ‘I wish that you allow Luks to remain the mayor of Kampala and let Bisigiri enjoy his flat at Kasangati in peace!’

He was turned into a tampon.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY:

If you’re a Wafdc[FDC]doing business with a genie-M7[NRM], there’s going to be a strings attached. So, you go into negotiations while aware of the consequences.Byebyo ebyange.

IS IT REALLY THE ROLE OF THE GOVT TO CREATE JOBS?

Friends,
I would like to partly disagree that its the role of the government to create jobs and not the private sector.The experiment of governments creating jobs has failed miserably and now it is upon us to play our part.

The government mainly needs to create an environment that allows investment to take place. This environment may include things like: better infrastructure, functional institutions, better communication systems, political stability (as it is in some parts of central Uganda), e.t.c. Yes, they can create some public jobs but it is never enough for a population of 30 million plus. How do you expect the government to accommodate all those 20,000 plus graduates that come out of colleges like Makerere university, Kyambogo, Nakawa, Mbale university, every year?

Therefore,If you are abroad and you have got some money to help your graduate brother or sister to start up a small business in Uganda, just do so- because there are less jobs from the government.

In the United Kingdom where I live, Margret Thatcher’s years saw an increase in foreign investment, particularly following the pursuit of monetarist policies in the 1979-90 era. Since then, the United Kingdom has been a leader in the move away from government supported regional policies and toward inward investment and now attracts a larger proportion of global inward investment than any other national economy around Europe. The point is that the conditions for investment are there in the country and even without government input; the private sector is now employing a lot of people compared to the government.

This is what the Museveni govt needs to do urgently: creating better conditions for investment all over the country; stop teargassing people unnecessarily because it scares away investors that watch such stuff on TV; let Erias Lukwago enjoy his position as ceremonial mayor of the capital city; respect govt institutions; build markets for farm produce at local levels, e.t.c.

To be fair to president Museveni, his economic policies look good on paper but because of lack of independent institutions,there is a lot of ‘KAVUYO’ in our country. Museveni is trying to boost the private sector just like Thatcher did in the UK in the 70s but he is going about it in the wrong away. For example, his policy of just dishing out land to the so called ”investors” may come back to bite us in future since its done without following proper channels.

Under Thatcher, most of the coal mines in north east England were closed which saw a loss of two hundred thousand jobs (about two-thirds of total employment including the iron-and-steel, shipbuilding, and engineering industries), and the car industry in the West Midlands, which saw a 37 percent decline in employment between 1981 and 1992.However, she went around this employment gap by encouraging inward private investment and attracting foreign investment in big cities in England.

Similarly, for most economic experts in Kampala including the World Bank, the attraction of foreign investment is seen as “crucial to the future economic vitality of regions” in Uganda, and they believe that privatisation of industries must keep going for a very long time. If Museveni can allow institutions and ministries to function independently without his interference, probably all these fake investments like Shimon demonstration site; Mbabazi’s company fraudulently winning tenders to construct roads, ………, would not be happening. The president should let those institutions responsible to assess companies that qualify for “corporate welfare,”( which ensures that corporations receive tax breaks and public money that would once have been invested in regional development or individual welfare payments) to so independently.

The Labour government here in the UK improved on Thatcher’s policies, for example, when they introduced policies such as Gordon Brown’s ”New Deal” for the young unemployed but Brown or Blair never interfered with the institutions handling these things unless if it was very necessary. President Museveni should do the same. I dont follow so much of what the Conservatives are doing since we have been scratching our backs ever since they came to power. Probably, my friend, Richard Ssemitego, could throw some light for us.

Byebyo ebyange

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba.

UAH MODERATOR IN THE UK

Has Sudhir got anything to learn from Mahatma Gandhi?

Mahatma Gandhi

A lot has been written about the richest man in Uganda, Sudhir. From being honored for confiscating people´s property; shrewd business man; being above every law in the land; his big tummy; starting a flower business in the middle of Lutembe conserved wetlands to anything illegal in Uganda. However, this gentleman is an Indian Ugandan who I’m sure, like all Indians, has read about their hero, Mahatma Gandhi. May be someone should send this note to Sudhir as a reminder!

Mahatma Gandhi never used the word environment protection however what he said and did makes him an environmentalist. Although during his time environmental problems were not recognized as such however with his amazing foresight and insight he predicted that things are moving in the wrong direction. As early as in 1909 in his book ‘Hind Swaraj’ he cautioned mankind against unrestricted industrialism and materialism.

1 He did not want India to follow the west in this regard and warned that if India, with its vast population, tried to imitate the west than the resources of the earth will not be enough.

2 He argued even in 1909 that industrialization and machines have an adverse effect on the health of people.

3 Although he was not opposed to machines as such; he definitely opposed the large scale use of machinery.

4 He criticized people for polluting the rivers and other water bodies.

5 He criticized mills and factories for polluting the air with smoke and noise.

6 What he advocated in place of industrialism and consumerism was a simple life based on physical labour. He implored people to live simply so that others may simply live.

7 For he believed that earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs but not every man’s greed.

8 So the rich must not only restrict their wants but must also treat their wealth as for poor and use it for the welfare of poor.

9 This can be done only if people can distinguish between their real needs and artificial wants and control the later.

10. To him the real need meant to posses only what is absolutely necessary for the moment.

11 To him this would not only help the unprivileged of today but would help protect the environment for the next generation as to him the earth, the air, the land and the water were not an inheritance from our forefathers but a loan from our children. So we have to handover to the next generation at least as it was handed over to us.

12. He also believed that one must be the change that one wants to see in the world and hence he practiced what he preached. His life was his message.

13. So he and his wife gave away all their property. They had nothing beyond the clothes that they wore and a change or two.

14 He used scrapes of papers to write brief notes and reversed envelopes for reuse to send letters. Even when he used to bathe with water of free flowing Sabarmati River he consciously used only the minimum water needed for taking bath.

15. However he did not equate simple living with abject poverty. In fact he believed that to deny a man the ordinary amenities of life is far worse than starving the body. It is starving the soul- the dweller in the body.

16 To him poverty was the most severe polluter.

17. Hence poverty must be eradicated and that can be done only when everybody is taking their own share and not grabbing others share by limiting their needs and sharing their resources. However his concerns were not limited to human beings alone as he had a very strong sense of the unity of all life. He believed that all creatures had the right to live as much as human beings and felt a living bond between humans and the rest of the animate world. He believed that humans should live in harmony with their surroundings.

18.The best part of Gandhi’s ideas was that they empower the individual. It’s up to each and every individual to simplify his or her life; to share his or her resources and to care for his and her surroundings.

Story:Bigirimana and Tumwine go for shopping in London!

Pius Bigirimana and Elly Tumwine were walking along a street in London. Bigirimana looked in one of the shop windows and saw a sign that caught his eye. The sign read, “Suits £5.00 each, Shirts £2.00 each, trousers £2.50 per pair”.

Bigirimana said to his pal, “Tumwine look at the prices! We could buy a whole lot of dose and when we get back to Uganda we could make a fortune. Now when we go in you… stay quiet, okay? Let me do all da talking because if they hear our accents, they might think we’re thicko’s from Uganda and try to screw us. I’ll put on my best English accent.’

‘Roight y’are Bigirimana, I’ll keep my mouth shut, so I will. You do all da business’ said Tumwine.

They go in and Bigirimana said in a posh voice, “Hello my good man. I’ll take 50 suits at £5.00 each, 100 shirts at £2.00 each, and 50 pairs of trousers at £2.50 each. I’ll back up my truck ready to load them on, OK?

The owner of the shop said quietly, “You’re from Uganda, aren’t you?”

“Well yes,” said a surprised Bigirimana. “What gave it away?”

The owner replied, “This is dry-cleaners. I also read about OPM funds in the newspapers”.

Elly was excited by this revelation and he went like: ‘did you? Do you read about galleries too?’.

‘I don’t ‘, the owner replied, ‘but I know a thief when I see one’.

NICE WEEKEND, GUYS! DON’T FORGET TO WARM UP FOR IDIL-ADUHA ON TUE! MUKULIKEYO ERUKUNGIRI

Free ‘Tinyefunza- Advise’ To Museveni from a dreamer of $8 Million dollars

Friends,
If I was president Museveni I would completely ignore Gen.Tinyefunza(aka Sejusa) and leave him alone for now because I don’t think the president is gonna win the propaganda war against the former coordinator of Intelligence/ security agencies, who is now allegedly working with Besigye. He was ill advised to openly fight Gen.Tinye through the media. While Gen.Tinye continues to produce unprecedented atrocity propaganda aimed at Museveni throughout the whole world, he (Museveni) should do nothing for now because it looks like he’s completely defenceless against it.Basically, Tinyefunza’s latest letter is summarily telling us that greed and corruption is fine and dandy under Museveni, just like murdering a political opponent.

Political propaganda in principle is active and revolutionary. It is aimed at the broad masses. It speaks the language of the people because it wants to be understood by the people, even deep down in rural areas. Its task is the highest creative art of putting sometimes complicated events and facts in a way simple enough to be understood by the man on the streets of Kampala.

The truth is that the Daily Monitor Story involving the alleged transfer of $8m (about Shs20b) from Ugandan to London through a forex bureau in Bugolobi, is total bullshit. This is kind of humorous because nobody transfers that kind of money anywhere in the world without being noticed. We aren’t talking about the accumulation of Tesco card points here that Arsene Wenger uses to buy players for Arsenal, but $8m of cash………..Here in the UK, simply receiving £5000 on your account is questionable as the authorities need to establish where that money has come from. A politician can even be investigated just for donating large sums of money to his brother’s charity in these developed nations.

Incidentally, this letter also kind of reveals the social mobility (both up and down) within Uganda: It is a very small minority who are extremely rich and stay that way; Less people are born rich and stay that way; and finally the majority of the population are poor but nobody cares that much. The plight of poor Ugandans stopped being a factor of economics perhaps as much as 27 years ago. More to the point, I can only dream of the day I would have $8m on my account. Phewwwwwwwww, where is a personal donation when you need one with the recession in the UK, huh!

Anyway,the rich in Uganda cannot sustain their wealth for the grand kids to enjoy because most of them never sweated to get it. Well as they say, early access to the exam is called cheating, and is grounds for firing. You can’t become a good doctor after cheating in your medical exams. On the other hand, if the exam requires (say) knowledge of math, and I choose to help a friend of mine learn math, then that is not cheating but teaching.

I have also noticed that the Daily Monitor were very careful not to publish some ‘dangerous’ parts of the Gen.Sejusa’s letter to Mr Joseph Luzige. They cut out some of the original information especially the ‘6ft’ killer of Gen.Kazini and the part about the murder of Late Andrew Kayiira and Sam Magala. I don’t know whether to call this ‘clever’, poor journalism or the fear of being ‘Lydia-Draruled’ again out of business. Well, we wait and see how the govt will respond to this, but I suspect that a wise M7 will try to ignore it as he did with his media exchanges with Dr.Kiiza Besigye over the illegal recruitment of Muhoozi in the army. He should also thank his lucky stars that all this has come out when he is still president because he can still use his executive privileges to control the flow of such information in Uganda.

What I find hilarious in all this is that after years of screaming about how crazy and vile Tinyefunza is, some Ugandans are suddenly looking at him as some sort of a saviour. Tinye is not perfect and innocent of all these accusations he is leveling against the president by any measure. The issue here is veracity, trust and consistency, and I cannot find any of that in Gen.Tinyefunza. I’m still finding it difficult to trust him. There is an evasion of a proven claim of hypocrisy he is avoiding in his entire outburst and he has to deal with it for some of us to trust him again. He doesn’t have much to be proud of as far as fighting for human rights in Uganda (since 1997) are concerned. The way things are now, anybody could pass a drug test in Uganda if he knows the right people upstairs.

For those who haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on, I have attached the latest letter from Tinyefunza below:

Dear counsel Luzige, I have read the monitor story of today 25. 8. 2013.It’s nauseating to say the [least]. As you can see this is a government run amok, mis- information stunt.But it’s dangerous too as it shows a CRIMINAL INTENT. First of all, I don’t know of any close relative who runs a forex bureau. Who indeed would have access [US $8 million]? That type of money is of course peanuts to the Museveni family.

That’s why in their eyes, it’s a credible spin. But like all lies, this is not hard to expose.

In any case, this should not be difficult to establish, its source, transit route through bank of Uganda, etc. So go right ahead and publish the name of the forex and the owner and all those other factors about the alleged transaction.

Secondly, let’s know the name of other relative who left the country with that stash of money and back, that who could carry such huge amounts of money undetected. That US Dollars 8 million. How foolish must this spinner be! It is laughable.

To try and sound smart, the spinners mix in foreign intelligence. You don’t have to be bright to know the foreign power they mean. Remember they had alleged that before I got away, I met and plotted with the British High Commissioner about my escape.

This was leaked in the press by their local tabloid. This, as we all know was a total lie. So this is basically intended to serve three purposes:

1). To lay ground to harass, disorganize and harm my family and their livelihood. This will not be the first time as I will explain later. However, as the story develops the people of Uganda will get to know the game plan of Museveni and his gang. They will learn that this is a trick long played by Museveni to get to his political opponents, their families and businesses.

Actually Museveni did the same with Maj. Gen James Kazini when he accused him that he was sending money to elements in Southern Sudan (SPLA) and West Nile veterans to topple him. That’s when Museveni ordered his execution by procuring the services of a 6-foot 6-inches man to murder Gen Kazini. Forget that trash of [Lydia] Draru.

In case of Kazini, again some forex bureau, originally said to belong to Gen Kazini, but actually that belonged to a known relative of Museveni was later to be used to pass the money for the payment of the executioners of Kazini, to the accounts of the assassins.

The family of Gen Kazini knows this, and when his young brother SINGA [Muhwezi] tried to follow this, he too was killed. And the KENYAN team of private investigators which had been hired by the family was attacked and it left the country at night. And the family was threatened and their businesses targeted, etc.

Two very close senior relatives of Museveni supervised this. But I will not mention their names for now, though their names are known by those with this information. But for now lets keep it at that. Now it’s the same game being played by Museveni and those close to him, we are watching.

This time we shall not allow you to murder our people. It started in the Bush, remember our army commander Sam Magara and those boys you used to kill him in cold blood? We kept their photos. They will be released for your enjoyment.

This mischief must stop Mr. President.

You know we know you. You are dealing with a different cup of tea. Please go slow in trying to enjoy it. It will burn you. So go slow on your dirty tricks campaign.

For those not in the know again Andrew Kayiira was said to possess money before he was gunned down by Museveni goons.

The list of the killers is known because the case was investigated by the best police in the world.

So there is no debate about that. The reason given was money. Mr. Museveni knows the real motive and the real executioners. If Mr. Museveni does not go well and use this time to ask for amnesty from the people uganda, then your crimes will overwhelm you.

Let Scotland Yard release the Report of Kayiira’s murder and many many others. The world will be shocked about the murderers in our midst.

For now your game plan is clear. It’s stupid because its reckless. But watch out. I can assure you your every move is being watched. Those who died will live to haunt you. I don’t steal like you.

The British government knows my situation. Britain [is] not a corrupt Banana Republic like ours which you have destroyed through your corruption. They would not allow US 8 million to be smuggled at the airport. It’s a foolish lie.

2). The second reason for this story is to try and make me look as dirty as that Club of Looters. Unfortunately for you, it can’t hold now. It’s too late. I know you are trying to destroy the little I earned at home.

Just like you did in 1996, 1997 and 1999. If you do, God will reward me 10-fold or more. He always did and will!

But everything has its time. So you can go ahead and please yourself Mr. President.

3). Third reason is to threaten people from helping me, by trying to link them to a rebellion. This rebellion is music to my ears. It’s not bad at all as it sounds when it’s being alleged. Not bad story at all. We need to be told its extent, organization, personnel, arms, support. Target, etc etc!

It’s gonna be interesting. So go right ahead and charge me, not for desertion, for that’s not the real reason you assaulted the Entebbe International Airport, but for that alleged treason, bring it in the open.

It’s high time. Just be informed [I am] not afraid.

Lastly a word of caution to those being used for this propaganda, you may be paid. But when the country sinks, you too will be chief guest at the sinking party.

So we need to be mindful of what all this portends to our country.

Gen. David Sejusa
Abbey

Why is the president using someone as tainted as Bigirimana to fight his General?

General Elly Tumwine

Friends,

We must accept that president Museveni is probably still the president of Uganda because he is wiser than everyone in NRM. I mean how many times can one be wrong and still get away with it?

Sincerely, who will believe Gen.Tumwine’s crusade on corruption again with all this stuff hanging over his head about his refusal to pay rent to the National Theatre for the last 20 years. In otherwords, he has indirectly been told to either shut up or pay up, and I certainly can’t see him taking the second option because we are talking about a lot of money here. Gen.Tumwine could be sent to the cleaners with this if he is made to pay all the rent he owes.

I can just see a flame war breaking out among the NRM generals and the rest of us getting caught out in it. The kerfuffle started when the rogue Gen.Sejusa wanted somebody to investigate the existence of the Muhozi project, and it looks like the flaming war is silently going on, at least psychologically for now, not to mention those Sejusa pictures that caused a stir at Nambole stadium during our football match against Tanzania.

However, what Gen.Tumwine did is not an investment strategy……..that was simply gambling because power got over his head, forgetting that political power is never a constant factor when it comes to investments. All the NRM folks getting overly excited now about the power they have got need to calm down a little bit.

It seems president Museveni has got a file on almost every one of his bush fellows apart from obviously Dr. Besigye whom they tried to bring down with tramped charges and it didn’t work. He was probably the only wiser man in the NRM than Museveni, and this may be the main reason why he is still alive today. He always has something up his sleeves. Anyway, like they say:’ It isn’t difficult being wiser than snoopy’.

What confuses me in all this is why the president has decided to use someone as tainted as Mr. Bigirimana to fight his General? Is it a game of a dog eating a dog or it’s something else?

You see, all vehicles have many similarities. But each is sufficiently different from the others that a ‘How-To-Operate-It’ book must, of necessity, be specific to the intended motor vehicle. The location of the gearshift lever, the number of gears to be shifted through; the type of petrol and oil to be used, the location of the bonnet release lever, etc. are specific to each particular vehicle. And it’s much the same with assemblers. So, one must define one’s intended use, and then choose an assembler based upon that. In Tuwmine’s case, I still doubt whether the assembler should be Bigirimana or someone like that.

Actually, Museveni’s ‘assemblers’ in his wars against the Generals have been surprising so far apart from that time when he used Jenifer Musisi to take that KCC house off Gen.Tinyefunza aka Sejusa. But as of recent, Ofwono Opondo has been surpringly at our service in responding to a Gen.Sejusa in the UK, and that does not cut it for me. But hey, the wisest man in NRM knows better!

Read more in the Daily Monitor on the link below:

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Bigirimana-hits-back-at-Gen-Tumwine-over-rent/-/688334/1929662/-/view/printVersion/-/pacdllz/-/index.html

Abbey

To disagree with the NRM & Museveni is “political terrorism”

Yeah, we get money stolen from us via taxation to be spent by pointy headed, unelected bureaucrats whose one purpose in life is to protect their jobs, not provide efficient results. But I still think that Captain Mukula is ‘innocent’ and he only naively returned the money because he thought it would be a quick way of clearing his name or detaching himself from the whole thing. Basically, he either panicked and as a gentleman, he reacted with ‘normality’ and he thought he was doing the right thing, or somebody set this trap for him.

There are billions missing from the office of the PM and we have got no hope of recovering that money or punishing the ‘big fish’ responsible for all this. The accountants have started dying one by one as you have been reading the reports. If only those ‘big fish’ in the OPM do what Mukula did, our programs to improve life in the northern Uganda would still go ahead. The act of returning the money should be encouraged by the government and i think sending Mukula to prison over this is such a missed opportunity to recover the stolen funds from the corrupt.

The Swiss stance on neutrality in World War 2[ WW2 ]required them to basically ignore Hitler’s atrocities. There was a lot of money piling up in Nazi accounts in Swiss banks that consisted of money stolen from the Jews before they were gassed. Some of those accounts were only revealed long after WW2 ended, and the money finally returned to the surviving relatives of those murdered Jews. This act alone is not really so different from the situation Mukula has found himself in. People should be encouraged to return the money which belongs to someone else. That is what defines ‘normal’ human beings from ‘idiots’.

Captain Mukula’s main crime was to offend the powers that be, especially when he mouthed against them at the USA embassy. That was a risky adventure but it showed how ambitious he is, and that cannot be tolerated in Museveni’s Uganda. To disagree with the NRA & Museveni is “political terrorism”. He crossed the line and i dont think he will ever be forgiven unless he kneels down before the man in the hat and ask for forgiveness. I really hope that he forgives him because prison is not really ideal for the few good men we have got in the country. Dr.Sula Kiggundu was never the same after that 6 months prison sentence; Muwanga was never the same after the prison life, and so were others!

Abbey

All the ‘Desh Kananura’ police officers at Kiira police station should be suspended (if possible expelled from the force)

The Desh Kananura story in the Mwenda’s ‘Independent’ is embarrassing to the police, and I’m wondering what the IGG is thinking about it. It is unfortunate that the IGG is being mentioned in this report that he is a good friend of Desh and may be this is the reason why he is quiet about this murder case.

All the police officers at Kiira police station should be suspended (if possible expelled from the force). That is not a police station anymore going by what I have listened to on capital fm. That is why we want independent review boards of police activities so that they cannot work for the will of only a single individual or work with impunity. Impunity policy for torture should be stopped. Perpetrators of torture should not be protected as has been reportedly the case at this so called bar.

The biggest problem is getting the IGG and police to admit there is a problem. Once that is breached, we can work together, citizens and police, to clean up the system and get the punks out of the force so that we can go back to loving and respecting our “peace officers”, as we were raised to do.

Here is my theory on Desh’s fate after the murder of Abdu Katerega: if he knows so much about the security dealings of the government (as it has been reported in this story in the Independent- that he used to kill Ugandans on behalf of the govt), then this constant media exposition of this murder is not good for him. Normally, governments find ways of silently ‘eliminating’ people like Desh in order to save face for everyone connected to him, especially if the story has refused to go away.

But if Desh appears in court soon, it will mean a few things:

1. Someone has given him assurances that everything will be OK and they will find ways of ‘killing’ the case’;

2. Someone has given him assurances that everything will be OK because they want to blow his cover, get him out of hiding, and then find an alternative safer way of eliminating him while in prison. Remember the case of that Austrian doctor, Dr. Kiyingi, who was accused of killing his wife a few years ago, where the main witness who would have put this doctor away in prison, was allegedly ‘eliminated’ while in Luzira prison. So, the doctor won the case.

3. Someone has assured him that all the witnesses in this case will be ‘compensated’ fully to buy their silence. Yes, it happens all over the world. So, don’t be surprised if all the people that have helped Andrew Mwenda and his Independent team to come out with such a good story lose their lips if taken to court to give their testimonies against Desh. It is also very obvious that Mwenda also run this story because he has some beef to settle with Desh, but this may turn out to help others too inishallah. Mwenda should have left this out in his reporting but he didn’t, which makes the story look a bit personal but who cares, as long as justice is done! I’m really happy that Andrew Mwenda exposed Desh to the public. I hope the Daily Monitor and Observer also do the same.

For now, Desh is out of the public eye as he is reportedly hiding in the UK, and it is so likely that he is being protected by someone with real power. Remember that Arinaitwe guy who spread tear gas in Besigye’s eyes during the ‘walk to work’. He was kept out of the public because tempers were still high, such that up to now, I don’t think people know where he is. Yes, a government is capable of protecting someone this way especially until the public loses interest in the whole thing.

Some people misuse the power they have got and the Kananura brothers seem to have done that according to the ‘Independent’. Mr.Andrew Mwenda is reportedly the most powerful and well connected journalist in Uganda and I think this time he is using the power he has got in a positive way. I have been listening to the audio clips on his ‘Independent’ website; it looks like he has taken a personal interest in this case. Most of the former employees of the bar were interviewed on radio though such evidence is not submersible in courts of law. But he has reportedly managed to persuade the IGG to put a lot of energy in this case, and this can only be a good thing for the family of the victim who are so poor.

I’m really hoping that Mr. Mwenda and IGG do the same in case one of us finds oneself on the other side of the fence.

By the way, why is this Panarema bar in a residential area? Naguru, where the bar is located, is a residential area with a commercial overlay but KCC’s Jeniffer Musisi also apparently ignored complaints from residents about this problem, yet we have been told several times that she doesn’t do impunity. Well, she does now?

I don’t know about you but I feel like I could easily die like a cockroach while in my country and nobody gives a damn about it. It looks like murder is something that is normal in Uganda and this is sad. Very sad! How can somebody be killed at a bar because of a mere shs.30,000, and the police come just to collect the body without interviewing the owner( who was present at the time) or stopping him from making any travel arrangements? It is so ridiculous. It looks like a movie somewhere in Sub Sahara Republic!

The good news is that it looks like Desh stepped on a lot of powerful toes, and I believe the past is catching up with him. By the way, according to Mwenda, Colonel Muhoozi is denying any links to Desh. He also denies giving any gun to Desh, and I guess we need to start believing him. May be, he is also tired of impunity and people fast tracking their success using dodgy means!

Abbey.K.S

ANDREW MWENDA IS DOING A BETTER PR FOR M7 THAN MEDIA CENTRE

Whew! The heat has gone up in the kitchen, as President is acting funny these days but won’t say it. President Museveni has suffered a well-deserved media thrashing this week after he unnecessarily tried to help Alintuma Nsambu to win in Bukoto South byelections but his PR people have been a disaster so far apart from obviously Andrew Mwenda.

Mwenda’s so called ‘reconciliatory’ articles in his Independent magazine should have been better authored by someone like Pamela Anakunda or Tamare Mirundi or any of those guys at the media center. What he’s basically doing is some form of PR for president Museveni, and he is making a lot of money out of it through sales. For instance, his introduction in the article entitled: ‘Meeting Mama Miria ‘ gives it all away particularly where he says:’’ What has not been said is how and why, over the last two years, President Museveni has been on a quiet journey to reconcile with former friends turned foes.’’. Mr. Mwenda is doing damage control because a lot of scandals have ruptured the Museveni administration and running such series is supposed to give a different side to the Museveni people have come to know. A visionary!

Andrew Mwenda is trying to justify and rationalize his hero’s sorry record by not smearing any of Musevenis’ arch-rivals in the process, apart from obviously Dr.Besigye whom he keeps portraying more as a mob leader. Anyway, he can stick that mirror someplace where his gerbils can see themselves but some of us are not buying into all this. He is trying to justify and rationalize Museveni’s sorry record of having the most corrupt administration since independence, something we’ll be consumed by it for a lot longer than expected.

You see PR is a very important thing for any administration anywhere in the world, and I think Andrew is tactically doing it very well. For instance, George Bush Junior spent at least $88 million in fiscal 2004 on contracts with major public relations firms. The Clinton administration spent $37 million in 2001.Here in Britain, Tony Blair used to have a lot of PR people and they went into gear when he the British masses were protesting against the bombing of a madman in Iraq.

However, Mwenda’s articles raise a lot of the issues that Ugandans are talking about, that president Museveni knows when to use, surprise, torture, and reconcile with anyone when they least expect it. His article about how Museveni came to reconcile with UPC’s notorious Rwakasisi Chris speaks volumes of how influential Andrew Mwenda is in Museveni’s administration. I think the main issue these articles raise is just how gullible Mwenda and Museveni obviously think Ugandans are to be fooled by this naked propaganda produced, directed and marketed by a loyal journalist who is capable of influencing the president in any direction he wants. It also raises more questions about the ‘old Mwenda’ who used to write stuff that antagonized the government but he is now a bedfellow of president Museveni. The question is: how many people are going through the same cycle as Andrew Mwenda went through- pretending to oppose the government when in actual sense they are working for president Museveni?

Of course some UPC guys love Andrew Mwenda’s ‘re-conciliatory’ articles as much as anyone else in the NRM. It makes them feel like there were/ are the real opposition against president Museveni but the fact is UPC is so weak at the moment. All Museveni needs right now to finish them off is to turn the north into NRM’s favorite spot, something he is probably working on. It won’t matter who will be the leader at Uganda House as long as a wedge is created between them and their main base(the north).

Anyway, as they say: ‘when you have lemons, you make lemonade’. May be with the gullible in the Uganda media center, it’s time for president Museveni to make ‘gulliblenade’ out of them. Ms.Lydia Nabusayi is a member of the Ugandans At Heart(UAH) forum but it is only Pamera Atukunda and Ms.Phionah Kesasi that grease the engine when its needs greasing. Shame!!!!!!!!!!

Byebyo ebyange

Abbey

Impeaching President Museveni is good for the future Democracy of Uganda

Folks,
Impeachment is not political suicide as some people make it sound. It actually helps the people involved to get some political capital out of it. We know that impeachment in a third world is wastage of time but it elevates the status of whoever is involved nationally and internationally. Already, some international media houses are reporting the attempts by some MPs to impeach president Museveni, and any form of publicity for a politician is better than nothing.

President Museveni, on the other hand, has been made to look like a ‘pharaoh’ in his own state as MPs start an impeachment process on him as president. He knows that he has got the numbers in parliament and he will wither the storm built around it, but he is surely uncomfortable with the whole thing.

If Uganda was a proper democracy, Museveni would have been impeached ages ago, but it is not. We are just learning our ropes, but I welcome the whole exercise and it should be encouraged. It is better than those who pick up arms to fight the president.

Apart from when in April 2009, Ken Lukyamuzi and CP suggested that the president get impeached following the re-appointment of Justice Faith Mwondha as the Inspector General of Government without the approval of Parliament, we have never seen parliament attempting to threaten president Museveni yet he has several times used his office wrongly. His removal through impeachment, even if it will not be successful, should be encouraged.

Seeking to impeach a politician is perfectly legal. It is a statement that the President has done wrong. That is why Impeachment is written into the Constitution .Impeachment itself is not a criminal procedure as in most cases the president is acquitted but being found not guilty doesn’t mean that you are innocent. He is just considered innocent in the eyes of the law and NRMs. Not that this doctrine has any bearing on impeachment which is a political process.

We agree that under clause 4 of article 98 of our constitution that the President cannot be prosecuted for a criminal offence or sued in a civil action in any court. The sole exception being only the case of the Presidential Election Petition but an aggrieved party in any other civil or criminal matter will have to wait until the end of his term of office. The same constitution says the president, vice-president and all civil officers are subject to impeachment, and we shopuld encourage this one. It will keep them on their toes. Museveni will surely survive but what about others?

Bribery and treason are among the least ambiguous reasons meriting impeachment, but the ocean of wrongdoing encompassed by the Constitution’s stipulation of “high crimes and misdemeanours” is vast. President Museveni has turned state house into ‘National Theatre and he surely deserves to go one way or the other.

At the end of this process, Ugandans at least will know that they can remove a president from office by using their parliament instead of thinking of fighting wars in bushes.

Impeachment is about removing from office an Executive who has abused his executive power, who has used his place, position and authority to subvert the functioning, practice and excise of constitutionally guaranteed rights. For instance, the constitution does not give the president the right to give a directive that the police should investigate a certain politician as we witnessed with Besigye in 2010 over some comments he made against the president. This is the work of the IGG not the president. As an advocate for future democracy in Uganda, i wholeheartdely support the impeachment, and i think you should too.

Like I said, impeachment is a political process and it somehow hurts any leader in power one way or the other both in the short and long term. It is a sign that a certain section of people are dissatisfied with what you are doing and want you out.

Trust me, president Museveni would not like a vote on him to take place in that parliament and his people are secretly working around the clock to make sure that this impeachment only stops with words from vocal MPs. His PR people are also working around the clock to make sure that the media houses in Uganda don’t make a meal out of it. It is not an issue they want to be given too much publicity. So, you won’t see a lot of articles about this published in the main newspapers in Uganda.

In USA, the first official impeached was Senator William Blount of Tennessee for a plot to help the British seize Louisiana and Florida from Spain in 1797. Judge John Pickering of New Hampshire was the first impeached official actually convicted. He was found guilty of drunkenness and unlawful rulings, on March 12, 1804, and was believed to have been insane. Three presidents were seriously threatened with impeachment. The first, Andrew Johnson, escaped conviction in the Senate, and hence removal from office, by a single vote. The second, Richard Nixon, aborted the process by resigning. Nevertheless, that resignation was forced by the looming spectre of impeachment. The third one was William J. Clinton, the forty Second who was impeached but also survived the senate vote.

NRM MPs don’t need to save the president in parliament if they feel that he has done wrong. For instance, Clinton was impeached on two counts, grand jury perjury and obstruction of justice, with the votes split along party lines. The perjury charge failed by a vote of 55–45, with 10 Republicans voting against impeachment along with all 45 Democrats. The obstruction of justice vote was 50–50, with 5 Republicans breaking ranks to vote against impeachment.

Similarly, I pray that some NRM MPs just do the right thing here even if president Museveni is the party chairman. I really hope they do. For once, I want to see the parliament shake the executive but I guess I’m just day dreaming. This is Uganda where parliament is actually owned by the executive. They control it by ‘remote control’, but impeachment is a good thing for future democracy.

Abbey Semuwemba

Male Organ Size: Homosexuality, Economy and Uganda’s Domestic Relations Bill

Friends,

The demand by Uganda women to have a clause in the Domestic Relations Bill that allows them to divorce men with bigger organs is something interesting because it confuses one on what exactly women want. This bill has got a lot of controversial stuff in it but let me concentrate on this issue for now to see if it makes sense to people out there.

I’m afraid I look at this issue in different ways but either way, I think when people decide to get married, these are some of the things they should be ready to put up with. It will be a travesty to marriage if people start divorcing each other because either of their sexual organs has ballooned for some reason. It can only make sense if the divorce is asked when the relationship is at its early stages because there it can be argued that the person did not know exactly what they were getting themselves into, but not when the relationship has been there for a long time. People should learn to appreciate certain things about each other outside the bedroom, and I believe it is what has kept our grandfathers in marriage for ages.

Penis size and economy

Some research shows how strongly the average sizes of male organ were associated with GDPs of various countries between 1960 and 1985 according to a paper presented by Tatu Westling of the University of Helsinki in 2011. It was argued here that the average size [the erect length, to be precise] of male organ in population has a strong predictive power of economic development during the period. The exact causality can only be speculated at this point but the correlations are robust. The `male organ hypothesis’ put forward here suggests that penises carry economic significance.

Male organ was found to experience an inverted U-shaped relationship with GDP in 1985. The GDP-maximizing length was identified at around 13.5 centimeters. One striking result is the collapse in GDP after male organ exceeds the length of 16 centimeters. At that time, it was noted that countries where men have penises below 12 centimeter were less developed and these were mainly the Asian countries. Let’s leave Africa out of this argument for reasons I will explain below.

The average growth rates from 1960 to 1985 were found to be negatively correlated with the sizes of male organs: unit centimeter increase in its physical dimension was found to reduce GDP growth by 5 to 7% between 1960 and 1985. Furthermore, quite remarkable was the finding that male organ alone could explain 20% of the between-country variation in GDP growth rates between 1960 and 1985.

The physical dimension of male organ varies considerably across countries, the average being 14.5 centimeters. For example, South Korea and Zaire [now Dem. Rep. of the Congo] have average sizes of 9.66 and 17.93 centimeters, respectively according to everyoneweb.com on the link http://www.everyoneweb.com/worldpenissize/. France’s average size is 16.1 centimeters while that of UK is 13.9 centimeters. To be honest, I don’t know how these guys got all these results but the figures here are interesting.

Now Africa is still poor compared to other continents yet it is well known that men of all long and big sizes come from there. The researchers put this down to other factors other than the size of the penis, i.e. poor political governance, diseases, malnutrition and regular conflicts on the continent. But then again, may be our current leaders have got smaller penises and that is why we are in this mess. I wish there is a way we can find out about this to test this theory. May be if we all chip in and bribe the first ladies on the continent, it will make this research a bit easier. But if this argument is true, then it looks like the Americans may get out of recession soon if they stick with Barack Obama in the White House for a second term running.

Bill Frist

May be this argument may have helped Obama become a president in the first place following a report compiled in 2006 by some newspaper about the penis sizes of Republicans. A reporter was allegedly able to obtain medical records of over 100 leading politicians and Cabinet members in Washington. Condoleezza Rice was asked what a good penis size was and how it might affect the female vote in the elections. Ms Rice stretched her fingers to indicate a good size and it was apparent that most of the men among the Republicans did not measure up. She thought as far as the female vote was concerned, it would hurt them. Bill Friest, Republican United States Senator representing Tennessee, spoke up and said “His wife said that size did not matter and he thought most women felt this way”. Ms Rice responded “What women say and what women want are two different things”. Friest apparently looked puzzled by her response. The rest is history because Republicans indeed lost the elections to democrats.

However, it has been found that there is no coleration between a man’s height and the length of his penis. Why many women still think “height” is more important than other physical features of males, I guess we will never know. Put height together with penis size, for example, and explain the aesthetics and beauty that some women use in mate selection. For instance, average heights did increase between 1750 and 1875 among European populations because of improvements in diets and increases in intakes of calories but this did not necessarily reflect an increase in their penis heights. Indeed the evidence that dimensions of body parts and penile lengths are correlated is mixed. Also there is no evidence to suggest that a man’s shoe size and penile length are related.

Homosexuality

A columnist in USA wrote in 2006 on website World Net Daily that use of soy products leads to reduced penis size and higher rates of male homosexuality. I guess scientists are still trying to find out why some people claim to be gay since their childhood after findings revealed in 1980s that higher testosterone levels among gay men are as often as among heterosexuals. In 1984 Heino Meyer-Bahlburg, a neurobiologist at Columbia University, analyzed the results of twenty-seven studies undertaken to test the hormone theory which used to be claimed by some people as explanation for being gay. He found that there is no difference between the testosterone or estrogen levels of homosexual and heterosexual men.

This columnist wrote that when you feed your baby soy formula, you’re giving him or her equivalent of five birth control pills a day. A baby’s endocrine system just can’t cope with that kind of massive assault, so some damage is inevitable. At the extreme, the damage can be fatal.

He also revealed that Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products.

To carry that theory a little further, maybe penis size is the reason for gay men not having normal relationships with women; they are embarrassed by the size of their members. Therefore, those who systematically engage in anal sex have smaller than normal penises, affording their partners less damage. It is a fact that many men obsess over penis size, weaker minded males often engage in transference.

So guys, it looks like penis size does not really matter in anything depending where you are standing. I guess my Chinese friends would say: ‘Dude, the only one who has an issue about your penis size is you and the brainless ladies in Uganda. I have enough on my mind with trying to figure out how to become a superpower, calculating different responses I get from Americans by supporting dictators in Africa, and trying to fit in enough time for sleep and work, which I wish I had the luxury of time to think about what size penis you have. I really don’t have that time, so it looks like I’m out of luck.’’

Anyway, the bottom line is that this issue should be carefully looked at when writing the final piece of the Domestic Relations Bill. Think about it: a chap in Australia killed his wife after she teased him about his penis size and this is something that may cause problems for us in future if we put such issues on a paper. This is a genuine Australian case, but even as a hypothetical one, it’s interesting.

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
United Kingdom

Besigye-M7 Pending talks is a ”Bone-head” idea but a bit exciting

The Observer front page headline on 02/01/2012

Friends,

The story in the Observer about Besigye and Museveni planned talks is more like a replay of what happened between Zanu-PF and the MDC in Zimbabwe a few years ago. You remember those talks that were mediated by then South African president,Thabo Mbeki. The difference here is that Mwenda and Conrad Nkutu seem to be the big players in this whole thing which is a bit strange. I know Andrew Mwenda is a bit influential in the Museveni government but he is also someone who is not in good books with Besigye at the moment. So, anything where he is involved may raise suspicions.

It is also obvious that the story was intentionally leaked to the press to see the reaction from both camps: Besigye and Museveni’s, and the elites who read such stories published in English. So far, both sides have remained silent about it which confirms that something is in the pipeline. Even the big ‘mouthed’ Tamare Mirundi has not come out yet with his ‘bullets’ to shoot those ‘Nagendaising’ the situation, which shows that this is a big thing in the corridors of power in Uganda. The story has appeared both in the Newvision and Observer newspapers.

However, the whole exercise of these talks is a misdirected effort because the majority of Ugandans would be happy if president Museveni offers a quick time frame to step down from the presidency, but this is not something we expect from these talks. Museveni is not ready to give up power to anybody soon despite the recent Daily Monitor headline of ‘I will not stay in power forever’. The man has no intention at all to give up an inch of power, and I’m sure Besigye is aware of it, and we assume he (Besigye) is bothered by it .So what will be the basis of these talks, I wonder.

On the other hand, senior FDC officials are increasingly aware that there is a need to start planning for a political future after Dr.Besiggye, but do not quite know how to achieve that end. Besigye has already announced his intention to stand down from the FDC presidency despite his undoubted popularity among Ugandans. So, why involve himself in political deals he may not be there to supervise and see to it that they are fully implemented? Let’s say, for instance, Museveni agrees to a power sharing interim government, what will be Besigye’s and the new FDC president positions in the new government? Who will be the superior decision maker in the new government? This whole thing may ultimately weaken FDC if not handled properly.

Seriously, I don’t have a problem with the idea of talks between the opposition and Museveni government, and it is indeed encouraging to see that some people want it to happen, but there is a lot of water under the bridge at the moment- which makes it a bonehead idea at the moment.

A lot of people are in prison or exile because of the fights that have been going between these two guys, and I’m wondering if they have got any stake in these talks. Will there be an unconditional amnesty granted to all those perceived to be enemies of the state? Will all political prisoners be pardoned and let back on the street to do whatever they want before or after these talks? What about other stakeholders, such as the Mengo administration and Ssubi, which formed an alliance with Besigye in 2011 elections to see that Buganda achieves its demands from the central government? Will the Kabaka be involved in these talks? What about the religious leaders who are tired of corruption in government offices and would like the government to also get tough on homosexuality? What about those who just want to see the back of president Museveni for good as soon as possible and Besigye was seen as a representation of such feelings?

That’s why I think that the idea of talks between ‘Ajja Genda’ and ‘Mpekoni’ or ‘do u want another rap’ guy makes very little sense. Yes, looking for the “good”, or looking for the “truth” both proceed by talking and also by investigation and neither, in and of themselves, result in the creation of a sustainable political climate. However, looking for good as opposed to truth is precisely what has led Sub-Saharan Africa to its present downward spiral. Instead of recognizing truths which require little study and even less talk, western governments, media and academe have consistently tried to see good at the expense of recognizing such clear and obvious truths. The damage that this has done is just as evident and all in the service of a corrupt concept of natural equality.

If, therefore, we are to have meaningful talks between the government and opposition, president Museveni must publicly state that he is going to resign from the presidency at a specific date. Short of that, we may as well say that Besigye has betrayed the people who put too much trust in him. All the truth about everything evil this government has done must be put on the table as enough reason for the president to hang his boots as soon as possible. Truth is truth and looking the other way helps no one.

Byebyo ebyange

Abbey Semuwemba

Jeniffer Musisi’s salary of $178,509 (shs.432m) annually is very disturbing

Kampala Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi

Folks,
I have been saddened by the salary that has been accorded the executive Director of Kampala City, Jeniffer Musisi. Apparently, she is to earn shs.432 million (US. $178509.08) annually as a salary excluding other financial privileges. I find this kind of extravagancy so hurting and unbearable especially for one person to earn that much in country where the biggest part of 33 million people are barely having any food.

How does someone doing cleaning or teaching as a job in Uganda feel about this. I don’t know how much exactly people make in these jobs but I equate them to someone flying burgers in Europe or USA. Let’s take a look at a McDonald’s burger flipper. Here they make between £6.50 to £7.50 an hour. That may be what a burger flipper makes next year and the year after, as well. That does not matter if the cost of living does not rise either. In fact, it is to be expected in a non-inflationary economy. The value of any given labor is going to remain the same relative to the overall economy, unless for some reason that particular labor becomes more important.

But why would Jeniifer Musisi get that kind of salary in a country that is clearly facing a financial crisis? Is this selfishness of the highest order or our leaders are just heartless? The simple fact is that the NRM party does not care about poor Ugandans and low-level working people in general. They either seem to be stronger believers of the theory of trickledown economics, by which if we let rich people make more money, jobs would be created, and it would then trickle down to the rest of the society, or they are purposely making people poor to keep them at the bottom of Maslow’s theory of needs. They want them to keep thinking about basic needs instead of changing governments.

Under Gordon Brown leadership here in the UK, when we were in recession, the government was borrowing money and increasing spending where it is necessary.

‘Where is necessary’ here involved pumping more money into the banking system or nationalising some banks but not buying expensive jets for the executives or presidents or increasing the salaries/bonuses of company executives ( as is the case with Jeniffer Musisi’s shs.36m per months[US.$ 14875.76]or other public workers. This is where Uganda has got it wrong. They should not allocate biger salaries to public officials in such a poor country. Even bigger salaries are questionable in developed nations.

All countries or local governments around the world are reducing on their budgets because of global recession. In USA, according to the centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, 44 states have reduced their budgets by more than $350 billion dollars since 2009.

In the UK, bodies such as the Association of British Insurers, the Investment Management Association and Pirc, a consultancy advising shareholders, believe the bonus culture should be reformed during this recession period. Both in Nigeria and Tanzania, there are finding ways of reducing on public spending.

It is also true that different countries deal with recession using different theories of economics which I prefer not to go through today. However, the theory people are familiar with is the Keynesian theory which was welcomed by former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, with open hands, before David Cameron switched to cutting down on public spending. This is where governments advocate for deficit spending.

With Keynesian theory, when you are heavily in debt, the only way to keep spending is to keep borrowing. I supported Gordon Brown but his Keynesian theory was more of a political survival decision rather than anything else. The whole thing was a gamble from the start. Yes, consumer spending is the main driver of the UK’s economic growth but an increase in people saving to pay off their debts normally results in companies’ profits falling. Companies in turn tend to lay off staff, leading to a vicious cycle of people losing their jobs and being unable to pay their debts and mortgages.

The only reason why Gordon Brown could not easily reduce on public spending was basically because he had been on TV telling people that reduucing public spending means worse public services, so he couldn’t turn around and start slashing it. So the only real option for the UK government then was to spend some of the money that was saved during the good times combined with less borrowing to beat the recession. After all, the UK economy had been booming for years. UK had not had a recession since 1992.

But the reality is that any government under financial crisis should be trying to cut debt by trimming public spending. But that is suicide to some political leaders especially if all they care about is keeping themselves in power.

The main downside to Keynesian style of economics is that government borrowing is exactly the same as consumer borrowing. At some point, you have to pay it back. And the way government pays off borrowing is through higher taxes.

One Ugandan wrote on the Ugandans At Heart(UAH) forum in 2009 when recession had hit big nations such as UK: ‘To say that Uganda has recession is like talking of a chicken with a toothache’. Basically, the statement would have been:’ to say that Uganda has got no recession, it is like a man sleeping with a woman with HIV for a long time without a condom, and then turn around and say that he has got no HIV before he even goes for a check up’.

Uganda has been sleeping with the donor countries who have got HIV (recession) for a long time. Uganda is basically married to the donors ( USA , UK , Canada , France, Japan , Dubai ,…) and there have got a lot of children (Ugandans abroad) together. Donors support over 30% of our budget at the moment.

Ugandans abroad gave Uganda about $1.4 billion in 07/08 alone and there are the major source of foreign exchange in the country. Each of these guys looks after a lot of families in the 75% non-monetary sector. So because the ‘’Nkuba Kyeyo’’(unpaid Ugandan ambassadors abroad) or donors are affected financially, less money is being sent back home at the moment, and as a result the following services have been affected one way or the other: Construction boom in Uganda has declined; Quality of life of families is affected especially those depending on Ugandans abroad; Businesses in Uganda cities like the hospitality industry are feeling it because of reduced spending; Uganda’s general export industry has been affected because of less spending in USA or UK . We don’t have enough market within Uganda to consume the goods we produce. Let’s hope that the donor countries don’t shut down their markets from us as was the case in 1930s.

NGOs are already reducing their activities in Kampala because donors have squeezed funds. Tourism industry is already in decline in Uganda and this is directly affecting the so called CHOGM hotels and travel agencies. Foreign investment is in a decline as few foreign investors wish to bring money into the country. Food prices have become high in Uganda such that I was told a sack of charcoal costs over shs.90,000 and I kg of sugar is at shs.4000.

This country needs to make some changes. It has to start with Campaign Finance Reforms, corruption and the excesses there. To get that passed, we need a new Executive leadership, and it certainly can’t be NRM to get this done.

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

Would Mwenda would have published the information about the oil documents if Karuhanga had not presented them in parliament?

Walter Duranty

I guess the real question here is that: would Andrew Mwenda would have published the information about the alleged ‘forged’ oil documents if honourable Karuhanga had not presented them in parliament? Did Andrew really think that not publishing his findings earlier on would have eventually led to the end of the documents in the public spectrum? He should have broken the story to Ugandans as, at least, ‘forged documents’ in the oil scandal rather than sitting on them (with the help of president Museveni and Uganda police).

With due respect, Andrew prides himself for digging up news not published anywhere else: shocking security secrets, but I suspect that what he digs up is the sort of humdrum stuff a journalist with ‘’influential’’ friends in the state should have, and this does not make this information more important to Ugandans than what they read in the Daily Monitor or Observer. I don’t know whether it’s me but I never read any of these ‘secret intelligence’ files published in the Independent magazine. May be, it’s just me but I never waste my time with them.

Anyone with connections to the people in power (in which case Andrew looks every bit of it now) can assemble stuff like that and make anyone look foolish, but is it something worth anybody’s time. For instance, if you juxtapose Martin Luther king’s public image with his personal shenanigans, you can make him look very foolish. Also true for John Kennedy with his womanizing. So what’s the point: that king and Kennedy were attracted to power to gain access to high class women?

As a long time admirer of Andrew Mwenda, I feel so disappointed in what he has become today. What has really happened to him? I had him down as one of the Uganda journalists that he will one day win the Annual Bastiat Prize for Journalism. The prize was established and run by the International Policy Network (IPN – a UK based NGO) to “encourage and reward writers whose published works promote the institutions of a free society” according to how its patron saint, 19th century French-born Frederic Bastiat, saw things. He had a deep distrust of government in any form and thought regulation and control were inefficient, economically destructive and morally wrong, or as IPN puts it: It supports “limited government, rule of law brokered by an independent judiciary, protection of private property, free markets, free speech, and sound science.”

Like I said, Andrew is right that good journalism is about news based on real sources and objective data but his reaction on Capital fm on ‘’Alan Kasujja’’ show as soon as Honourable Karuhanga published the documents, points to the fact that he is no longer doing journalism but spin. There was no need to publicly defend the ministers implicated in the said documents as there are people, like Tamare Mirundi(President’s office) and Pamela Anakunda(Media centre), already employed to do that kind of work.

At the moment, I guess most elites in Kampala are now looking at him in the same way Americans looked at Walter Duranty who worked for New York Times in 1930s. Walter visited Russia when Stalin was the leader and reported that nothing was happening there, yet people in Ukraine were dying of famine for up to 10 years. But because of his connections with influential people in both the Russian and USA government, he ended up with a Pulitzer Prize which still stands up to now. Surprisingly, Walter was British and born in Liverpool. I had never put down ‘Liverpoolians’ as dodgy till that moment.No wonder, Liverpool F.C have broken my heart in the Champions League more than any other team, especially that ghost goal from Luis Javier García some years ago. Chelsea’s Gallas cleared the line but the linesman saw it differently. I will never forget that painful moment.

Abbey

It seems Andrew Mwenda Isn’t ready to become Uganda’s ‘Veronica Guerin’

Andrew Mwenda

Dear folks,

What a week! What a month! What a year! Four powerful dictators in Africa have lost their power this year, the ‘Mahogany’(former Vice president) of Uganda selectively tested jail this month, and three powerful cabinet ministers have temporarily resigned their offices to allow the investigation of their hands in National tills over CHOGM and oil scandals. The surprise in all this has been journalist Andrew Mwenda’s public defense of the cabinet ministers involved in the oil corruption scams as he insists that the documents presented in parliament by Gerald Karuhanga, the Youth MP for Western Uganda, were forged. Mwenda and president Museveni hold the same view and have confessed that they have been investigating the matter for a while before the MP broke the camel’s bark.

Given how famous Andrew Mwenda is these days – or infamous, perhaps –it always amazes me how he leaves himself so open to revealing the kind of people he regularly conducts his investigative journalism with. In most of his radio talk shows, the statements such as ‘ when i met Museveni’ or ‘when i met Kagame’…. have become like a paracetamol on a headache. Mwenda expects Ugandans to just believe his words that the documents were forged just because he involved president Museveni and Uganda police in the investigation process. Phew! The documents were revealing information implicating Museveni’s ministers in oil corruption scandals, and the first place Mwenda went to for investigation was Museveni himself. In other words, Mwenda was kind enough to give Museveni a chance to investigate himself before he reports anything to Ugandans. Oh, what a kind man!

It is the job of any good journalist to challenge, question, investigate, and report their findings, but Menda had not reported his findings to us before Honorable Karuhanga blew his whistle in parliament, but he is on record attacking the later for presenting forged documents. Oh, I almost forgot that Mwenda did not want us to know about the ‘forged’ documents.

In this case, the leak has so far caused no harm to the legal or judicial system of Uganda, but imprisonment of any of the three cabinet ministers (Nassasira, Kuteesa, and Mbabazi) could have a chilling effect on journalism’s ability to expose corruption in the country. Honestly, how much information are journalists hiding from us in the name of ‘forgery’ or because they want to protect someone.

The trouble with journalism in Uganda is that it’s too damn polite. It looks like Journalists there fear deadly retributions if they ever dare to report the truth. In all honesty, why would Mwenda sit on such information as a journalist for a long time when he got it, and even dare present it to the head of the ‘executive’ organ of the state that is supposed to be investigated? The whole events symptomise a visualization of the greed and corruption that have taken old of both the executive branch of the government and journalism itself. How we get out of this situation now, i really dont know.

Up to now, we don’t have any journalist in Uganda that has dedicated his life to at least exposing crime and corruption in the country. In Ireland, for instance, they had a lady called Veronica Guerin who was a crime reporter and ended up being murdered by drug lords in 1996. The film ‘Veronica Guerin’ told the story of her brave soul. It broke my heart when I watched it especially in the end when the two bikers working for the ‘mafias’ put 6 bullets in her body when she stopped at a red traffic light. It’s always hurting when you watch a kind and beautiful person die because of what they believe in.

Veronica Guerin, who was shot dead shot dead by the pillion passenger on a motorbike as she stopped at traffic lights in Naas, just outside Dublin, in June 1996 -

In Mexico, they also had columnist Francisco Arratia Saldierna, a prominent and well-known journalist who wrote a column called Portavoz (or “Spokesman”). The column featured topics such as corruption, organized crime, and drug trafficking. Arratia’s murder was also as brutal as Veronica’s but both murders resulted into change in policy in those areas.

I’m also tempted to mention two lady giants in journalism that were impressive winners of the Courage in Journalism Awards in 2005: there are Shahla Sherkat, who runs a women’s magazine in Iran and Sumi Khan, a Bangladesh journalist who covers crime. When Mwenda started up the ”Independent”, I really thought that his magazine was going to be like Shahla’s. She has been fined for articles she has published, and has been threatened with imprisonment in Iran’s harsh jails, but she never runs to state to investigate itself before she publishes anything as Mwenda has admittedly done.

Sumi is another crime and corruption reporter based in Bangladesh (Chittagong city). In 2004, she was attacked by three men — beaten and stabbed. It was three months before she returned to work, but she never gave in to the system.

To be fair, Mwenda went into that kind of episode initially and he became a hero to many Ugandans, but it now looks like he gave up on people long time ago and decided to do his own ‘’refined’’ investigative form of journalism. He was among the guys that inspired me to start blogging because of the way he analyzed issues yet I don’t have any qualification in journalism. Up to now, i don’t miss any of his radio talk-shows but he has really disappointed me on this one.

Mwenda should never have defended the ministers publicly whatever reservations he had with the documents because the way Ugandans feel about corruption in Museveni’s government is like in the same way Americans felt during Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. After Vietnam and Watergate, almost every student in USA went to Journalism School convinced that the U.S. Government was corrupt and that s/he would earn a Pulitzer Prize by exposing it. That cynicism about America has never really ended.

Yes, Mwenda is partly right that eagerly publishing forged documents is not “investigative journalism” if the memos content is not verified by second and third sources. But I also believe that verification of the documents becomes difficult if you allow the people being investigated to investigate themselves. Mwenda’s methods are like that of Stalin and Mao who believed that “CRIMES MUST BE HIDDEN,” or else labeled as “heroic deeds.”

Let’s also not forget that “journalism’’ itself is opinion. Most of what Mwenda says or writes in his column is mere speculation clothed in the majesty of journalism, but rife with his personal opinions. Yes, Mbabazi and Kutesa may be innocent but how do we explain the fact that nearly every time a case comes to light involving large-scale fraud or vice or corruption, the duo are playing the lead roles. They seem to be attracted irresistibly to our vices so that they can exploit them and at the same time exacerbate them. They are not worth defending publicly by anybody worth his name.

Because mwenda came out to say that he was the first to land on these documents, some people are unfairly dragging Paul Kagame into this. In any case, Mwenda only revealed the location where he got the documents but he never revealed his source. The location was Nairobi not Kigali. The Oil corruption scandal has put the Museveni government in the spot light. Oil companies are capable of bringing down any government in Africa. Therefore, the government should handle this issue very carefully. It looks like both the cabinet ministers and the oil companies are now blackmailing each other with endless revealations, but oil companies will always be the winners in the end if this situation continues.

Byebyo ebyange banange

—
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

Bukenya was an Iceberg waiting for Titanic but he doesn’t deserve Jail

Dear Ugandans,

I don’t think Mr. Gilbert Bukenya had prepared himself psychologically for prison life or loss of his parliamentary seat. He looked an emotional guy the day he was taken to prison, and that is good for women in his life but bad for his image as an African politician. A politician in Africa is supposed to appear tough (made of steel of some sort) in public as we have been seeing with Dr. Kiza Besigye despite losing his brother in the most hurtful way possible. But crying in public was also not as bad for Bukenya as it gave out the human side of him. It can sometimes help if it is played out in a normal way. For instance, Kabaka Ronald Mutebi shed tears in public over the burning of the Kasubi tombs and it is not something anybody in our generation can easily forget.

Nevertheless, both the ‘Gilbert Bukenya’ and ‘late Sulaiman Kiggundu’ experiments are very good for all of us. There is a great deal of lessons to learn from them for those who want to learn. They both provide a gradual learning experience to Ugandans who are a threat to people in power. Bukenya has never stolen tax payers’ money to do anything private, at least as far as I know. He became a rich man by selling mostly his rice nationally and internationally, I believe, but CHOGM has been used to bring him down. Nobody can pinpoint fingers at him that he stole a specific amount of money to do this and that. At least, his hands are officially clean as far as tax payers’ money is concerned.

Similarly, Dr. Kiggundu was first made Governor Bank of Uganda by president Museveni before he was sacked. He then started up his Greenland Bank which became so successful in such a short period that some people in power approached him to buy shares in it. The bank later collapsed, Kiggundu ended up in prison, and the rest as they say ‘is history now’.

The Bukenya case before courts of law is a bit complicated but I think president Museveni should have intervened at the earliest to save the former VP’s face from all this( if he wished to do so). The scripts of this case were posted on the Ugandans At heart(UAH) forum as shown on the link below:

https://semuwemba.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/indictment-of-gilbert-bukenya-1.pdf

Bukenya’s major blunder was trying to appease his former boss by celebrating the closure of CBSfm and thus under minding his Kabaka in the process. It is the sole reason why some Baganda are still bitter with him. He should have kept quiet over it. I was also understandably so pissed off with him then but he still does not deserve what he is going through. Nonetheless, I’m no longer upset with him because I now understand why he did or said what he did then.

But he also made a mistake of opening up his mouth on certain controversial issues as some people have pointed out. He should have done a ‘’Ssebagala’’,i.e. to keep quiet after being dumped from the cabinet. He should never have declared his intentions to stand for presidency in 2016. Actually, he should have avoided the media as soon as he was unfairly defeated in the NRM primaries for the post of Secretary General. It was a miscalculation on his part to start a media campaign for himself then. But hey, now that he is in prison, this is not time to keep quite anymore. Let the ‘war of the words’ begin such that we let public opinion decide his fate.

But let’s see how things pan out for him in the near future but he should never have been sent to Luzira over this case. I don’t think it was fair compared to the corrupt cases that have been paraded in courts of law before. I really feel for him. For all his weaknesses, Bukenya does not deserve to be sent to be prison. More so, I don’t think he made any penny out of CHOGM deals compared to some people that have been reported by the media over the same issue.

What is so special about Mbabazi?

There is a myth that the main person fighting Bukenya is the current prime minister, Mbabazi, and most elites believe that he is the man behind Bukenya’s imprisonment. Nonetheless, I have stopped making predictions about Mr. Amama Mbabazi because I still don’t know why Museveni has allowed him to retain the post of NRM secretary General up to now. There are only two explanations I can think of: either this post is irrelevant to the determination of the successor to president Museveni or keeping Mbabazi as NRM Secretary General is meant to help his eventual downfall.

May be, Museveni has realized that Mbabazi seriously harbors ambitions to become the president of Uganda, so he has kept him as NRM secretary General to make sure that he is hated more by party members. Because in all honesty, why would the president keep such a very unpopular man as the party’s secretary General and discard a popular man in Gilbert Bukenya? Bukenya calls himself a ‘community man’ in his interview with Andrew Mwenda’s the Independent , and I think I know where he picked this from: he is a student and teacher of Public Health, and the terms ‘community’ and ’empowerment’ are so much used in a lot of case studies.

Another possible explanation may be found in the myth that Mbabazi is blackmailing the president. A spider on the wall reliably told me that Mbabazi’s office has always been busier than any of the other cabinet ministers. This spider told me it was surprised to find the so called ‘big people’ in government all lining up to find an appointment with Mr. Mbabazi when he was just security minister. Actually, his office arguably runs a lot of activities more than any other person in government, and he is a very organized, ambitious and serious man. He is one of the few guys in government who can allegedly ‘shout’ at president Museveni when he is not happy with something. I think he might have picked this kind of independence from UAH forums because we have got many like him.

You will never find a ‘Tamare Mirundi’ attacking Mbabazi in public because they know will be shown the exit door the next day the moment they do so.  Tamare cannot attack Mbabazi in the same way he has been belittling Bukenya, Nagenda, Kabaka and others in the press. The day you see the ‘Tamares’ start doing this, then you will know that things are not fine between the ”man with the hat” and Mbabazi. Mr.Tamare Mirundi never opens up his mouth unless if he has been told to do so, I believe. That’s how it works. He works under instructions from his bosses.

To be honest, I don’t know what is so special about Mbabazi up to now and why president Museveni continues to hold him in high regard than anybody else. I find him so arrogant in his public utterances. I don’t think he is an easy person to be liked by anybody. He could make a good unelected public official but then again, he was surprisingly elected as MP for Kanungu. So how do we explain that fact if we put vote rigging and intimidation of voters aside? There is something about Mbabazi I cannot put my fingers on. May be, he will be the last man left standing after the fall of Museveni and NRM.

Ebya Mbabazi bizibu nyo!

Abbey

Why I think African Union Has Become Useless

Friends,

Whatever happens in Libya and Egypt after several years of dictatorship, Gaddafi and Mubaraka aren’t coming back to power. That is out! Some of the problems these two countries are experiencing now were expected.

NATO is not the best of friends to be trusted because western powers always look at wars as ‘investments’ and always demand a return on their investments starting with awarding themselves contracts for reconstructing what has been destroyed. So anybody can understand why some revolutionaries are trying to distance themselves from them now that the war is almost over.However, If NATO, with the help of Isreal, disorganizes Libya after Gaddafi by sponsoring some rebellions, it will be their loss.

As for Egypt and Mubaraka’s trial, this is a real kindergarten circus. Mubaraka was removed but the system he built is still there. He is somehow still controlling events in Egypt. The judge has been postponing his trial without giving good reasons. It is a real circus but Mubaraka is not coming back to power. The sooner the Egyptians hold elections, the better. Libyans are still a long way to holding elections but they will be fine in the long run. We should not sympathize with African dictators.

An African Union delegation met Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli to negotiate a truce between the Libyan leader and rebel forces

Hell or no hell, the African leaders created this situation in the first place. Why would anybody think that being a life time president is their natural right? If it is going to take hell for Africa to sort itself out, then it will naturally happen despite the fact that I hate the thought of violence on the continent itself. I just don’t feel anything for any leader that kills, tortures and imprisons his own people just to prolong his stay in power. It is so wrong at so many levels.

Some people are already openly and privately telling me not to step any foot in Kampala in future because they think I may become a ‘target’ of some sort, because of some of the stuff I write on UAH and other forums. But I will go to Kampala as I have been doing because I hate the thought of anybody denying me freedom to do anything I want to do. I don’t have a private army of any sort. All I do is writing when I’m not happy with the government. So why should anybody harm me? I’m not hurting anyone apart from pouring out what I exactly think of the events unfolding in Uganda. In any case, i heard Andrew Mwenda saying that president Museveni of 2011 nolonger imprisons, kills or tortures those opposing him as was the case in 1980s.

Anyway, I just don’t hold too much respect for African dictators anymore. Brother Gaddafi and others claim that NATO is here to steal African resources which is true, but they are also thieves – stealing from their own people. They steal with the help of foreigners, fellow dictators or through their local business agents. They are all the same. Oil, for instance, in Africa is owned by foreigners. In Angola, for example, USA owns most of their oil there with the blessing of the government there. US companies, especially Chevron, dominate the market in Angola. Beligium’s Petrofina, France’s Elf, Italy’s AGIP, Sweden’s Svenska pertoleeum, Brazil’s Petrobars, Japan’s Mitsubish and Britain’s BP – are the other owners. It is the same story in Nigeria, Uganda, Chad, Cameron, Congo, Egypy and Libya and Algeria.

In Uganda, politicians are proposing giving away large pieces of land in Buganda, North Uganda, and Bunyoro to Asians to grow sugarcane, as if the environmental problems are a smaller problem than sugar. These very African leaders pretend to care about the environment through their meetings at the African Union but they make different decisions in their own countries.

AU was partly formed in 2001 to help at managing conflicts involving natural resources but have they even issued a statement against Museveni’s threat to give away part of mabira forest to Asians? No. AU met in Feb 2004 in Sirte and came up with Sirte Declaration on the challenge of implementing sustainable development and Agriculture and water in Africa, but what have they practically done so far? Nothing, if you ask me.

AU met before that in 2000 and drafted a protocol against the illegal exploitation of natural resources. They also adopted a common Defense and Security Council to promote peace and security in Africa, but how much have they done to help Africans feel that they are any different from the old OAU. If you ask me again, I will say they are a bunch of people wasting our time.

They created NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) which was a good step but little progress has been made. NEPAD started up the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), set up by heads of states and government of NEPAD for those countries willing to be evaluated on what they are doing on good governance. I think Uganda is part of NEPAD but even this project is just on paper but nothing really has been achieved.

So, you can really understand why most Africans don’t look at AU or our leaders as serious people anymore. They need to change if they want to be taken seriously. Their long stay in power is responsible for what is happening in Egypt and Libya or elsewhere. It will be the same story in Uganda in the post Museveni era, if you ask me. But Museveni has got the power to change this right now by going back to the Museveni of 1980s who gave everyone a breather instead of being obsessed with keeping power.

Black people will get better if they get Africa better. A more stable and resourceful Africa will make any black man all over the world to feel proud. At the moment, our leaders are doing everything possible to destroy Africa, a reason  why most of the middle class that was created after independence are out of the continent. This is very visible, in for instance, Zimbabwe where there is almost no middle class in the country, and Robert Mugabe has taken advantage of this. Most of the Middle class in Zimbabwe migrated to other countries. But Mugabe is one of the icons of the African Union, an organisation that is supposed to make Africa better. Phew!!!!!!!!!!

Abbey Semuwemba