January 26th 2017 marks exactly 31 years and one day since the National Resistance Army (NRA), a ragtag rebel army built on the romanticised marxist philosophy, shot their way to power ousting the military junta of Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa.
Yoweri Museveni alongside his close proteges, many of whom were fresh University graduates had launched a rebellion riding on the groundswell of resentment amongst peasants in Luweero. Within five years, the NRA had captured power largely relying on a major rift within the UNLA forces that led to a coup against president Milton Obote in 1985.
Preaching the ethos of liberty, freedom, the rule of law and an end to arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial killings, the NRM’s credo was well-laid out in the ten-point programme that was the guiding ideological and policy document for the victorious rebels.
Once in power, Museveni was hailed by the West as being on of the new breed of leaders that would transform Africa, a basket-case run by rapacious dictators burdened with hunger, disease and death.
The regime supporters have often cited the early years of economic growth, security, a professional army with a pan-africanist outlook and freedom of speech amongst the key achievements of the NRM.
However, critics claim three decades under the NRM rule has been interspersed with excessive graft, human rights and rule of law abuses and poor service delivery. The 2016 corruption perception index report released by Transparency International reveals that Uganda is the 26th most corrupt country in the World.
General Elly Tumwine served as the first army commander of the NRA and is the founder of Voluntary Anti-corruption Campaign. This is why he believes its difficult to fight graft.
Others postulate that even 31 years, government remains fused with the army as the military occupies the super-structure of government. Critics say in the quasi-military establishment, as an institution the army pays its allegiance not to the state but to President Yoweri Museveni, the Commander-in-Chief.
This is Museveni’s last constitutionally mandated term to run for the Presidency as he clocks 75 in three years.Yet it appears that a pliant Parliament could lift the age limit just like it did in regard to the two-presidential term barrier in 2005.
With a stagnating economy, the Achilles Heel of graft and the ever-rising external debt, President Yoweri Museveni’s term of office till 2021 will pose monumental challenges.
However, there is hope that by then Uganda’s oil will reach a global market, energy and infrastructure projects will spur economic growth, which will lead to more prosperity for all Ugandans.