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08 March 2025

COURT MARTIAL TRIAL OF CIVILIANS; NRM HAS ITS BACK AGAINST THE WALL

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling almost a month ago, rendering the UPDF General Court Martial (GCM) a mere disciplinary unit within the army, that has no jurisdiction to try criminal offences, including that committed by its own army personnel, the government has been sent panicking. As it stands, there is danger that mischievous personnel can now go on impunity errands, much the same way the crooks and corrupt in the civil service are playing endless games in the civilian courts to avoid being held to strict accountability, thereby defeating justice. The overall net result here with all of us, an inefficient, laid back, corrupt, unaccountable, civil service that cannot deliver the desired public goods in time. There had been running controversies of the court’s jurisdiction presiding over criminal cases involving civilians especially political activists linked to treachery, treason, mis-prison of treason, and gun-related offences among others, that were challenged in Constitutional Court, and ended up on appeal at the Supreme Court. In panic, and knee-jerk reaction, last week , the NRM parliamentary Caucus convened to try and hammer out consensus on legislation amendments to the UPDF Act 2005, to recalibrate the court’s jurisdiction, but from the grapevine, critics including legal professionals, opposition groups, and the so-called democracy activists, however dubious, are spoiling for a hard fight. Although with a dominant majority, NRM, with timid legs and stammering tongues, is destined to find hard times on parliament floor to persuasively sell the desired changes. By its own public conduct, that have become overboard, not well presented, carelessly spoken for, or sometimes rushed through, NRM has increasingly lent itself to accusations that it doesn’t act in good faith, but rather self-serving, leading to the gradual loss of trust in a number of its pursuits however genuine or noble. When NRM ushered in security, peace and stability, democracy, constitutionalism, rule of law, respect for human rights, regular elections, and broad freedoms including speech and vibrant debates, many of its cadres and government workers went asleep, and are now reaping the bitter fruits from its own badly nourished gardens. NRM and its myriad of policies are now constantly on the backfoot, reactionary and even overboard violence. NRM lost its way in the legal woods when it appointed liberals and reactionary legal professionals like Abu Mayanja, Mayanja Nkangi, George Kanyeihamba, Kiddu Makubuya, Freddie Ruhindi, and Byaruhanga, were no revolutionaries in any sense of the word, let alone even being progressive legal minds as Attorney Generals. With that assembly at the top, NRM should not have expected revolutionary legal reforms or reconstruction. At the head of the bench we have had Justices Allen, Wako Wambuzi of the 1970s, Benjamin Odoki, Bart Magunda Katurebe, and now Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo. Imagine in the Constituent Assembly you had George Kanyeihamba, Joseph Mulenga, John Kawanga, and Sam Kutesa from the old colonial order, as the lead legal minds in the committees to frame the legal issues, with James Wambogo Wapakhabulo at the steering wheel. The legal profession, in a neocolonial setting, from teaching, training, and practice, is a reactionary and counter-revolutionary institution, feeding off the ignorance of society, and no wonder it has an apparently popular dictum, “ignorance of the law is no defence”, well-knowing it hasn’t taught law to the citizens. It now has young lawyers led by Uganda Law Society (ULS) president, Issac Ssemakadde, and his team of ’bang the table’, out of disappointment and frustration, in a reactionary posture, to shake the legal profession and judiciary to act better. Unfortunately, a colonial wigged-bench, enjoying job tenure, is likely to just sneer at the demands to be progressive, let alone revolutionary. So, as we look towards the debate in parliament, NRM Caucus must put its best foot forward to salvage an already shaky legal and political ground.

By Ofwono Opondo
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01 March 2025

GAZA’S FORGOTTEN WAR AND GENOCIDE: A HUMILIATION TO ISRAEL DEFENCE FORCES

One month watching Hamas militants patrolling streets in the bombed-out narrow Gaza Strip, while handing over hostages, or dead bodies they have held for sixteen months under relentless, disproportionate and indiscriminate destruction, one cannot help imagine the humiliation of being powerful, yet helpless, that bullish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going through. Last week’s handover of three bodies, a woman and her two little children for 620 Palestinian detainees, among them also twenty-six children, smirked at the heartlessness of this conflict imposed by Israel and its western allies for eight decades now. For choosing the heavy military assault, in the heat of the moment, when calm reflection and measured steps could have been better, Israel is paying a good price. It has also been more like a game of cat and mouse, in a military and diplomatic brinkmanship, with Netanyahu’s bullish vows to finish off Hamas, regardless of the tight choke, still looking distant. The high handed Israel Defence Forces (IDF), and The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, otherwise known as Mossad, although praised as among the best in the world, and has been conducting this most brutal, one-sided war of terror, must be reeling in agony. Mossad, with known guts, capability, determination and political willingness to go to any length after enemies of Israel, has had this conflict shutter its own hitherto invincibility. The hostage swap with thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel jails, often without trial, resembles the hasty retreat in humiliation that US soldiers suffered in defeat at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2020, after two decades of a horrendous similar one-sided war when a coalition of US, Canadian, Australian and European armies wreaked havoc. And for the record, it was the US that created, trained, funded and armed the Mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union culminating in the defeat of 1979 and then, they mutated into Taliban. US and Israel have been complicit in the destruction of Gaza, the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing there to wipe out Palestinians off their land. Donald Trump’s proposal to buy out Gaza, bizarre as it is, to become US’s 51st state, is more like his meeting with Kim Jong Un, which ended nowhere. After sixteen months of indiscriminate bombing and destruction of Gaza, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have still failed to locate, let alone rescue a single Israel hostage. Too, the IDF has failed to wipe out the Hamas army which is their war public policy. The impotence of the IDF is exposed, now evidenced by the fact that Hamas militants still openly patrol the streets, and handing over hostages at their locations of their own choosing and timing within the narrow Gaza Strip. Hamas is reported to be still holding sixty-three hostages, with thirty six believed dead. This war has actually exposed the inability of the much-praised Israel intelligence organisations to locate where the hostages were being held. Even the huge amounts of diplomatic, military, logistical, economic and financial support that the US has given Jordan and Egypt over the years to play nice with Israel, betray and create an anti-Palestine leverage hasn’t delivered the desired victory. The brutal, and sustained efforts to expel Palestinians from their homeland and ongoing threats to forcibly deport them after the genocide and ethnic cleansing to other countries like Jordan and Egypt, to distant lands Trump may be so geographically, economically, topographically and demographically ignorant about, offend common sense and every international, and must be rejected. With Trump’s musings to take over Greenland, Mexico, Canada, Panama, and now the Gaza Strip by purchase or force, he is probably being as honest as a thug in a grocery shop, and a true face of ugly, greedy, and vicious American empire. The only country that may not denounce this idiocy will be Israel, while Europeans coil their tails.

By Ofwono Opondo
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22 February 2025

DONALD TRUMP'S DISORDER; LEAVES EUROPEAN LEADERS IN DISARRAY

Moves by President Donald Trump and his top officials in the last few days seeking a possible Russia and Ukraine peace deal, has exposed the leaders of little European governments, leaving them in disarray. According to American officials, the Europeans won’t be welcomed at the negotiation table as yet, because, as the old adage goes, ‘many cooks spoil the broth,’ and the descendants of slave trade and colonialism are now struggling for a role, however minor. Hardly a month into office, Trump’s contours of “America First”, is threatening to isolate Europe. Unlike his first term, when he surrounded himself with four-star military Generals, Mark Milley, Jim Mattis, John Kelly, and hawkish John Bolton, who fell-out fast, this time, Trump brought JD Vance (Vice President), Pete Hegseth (Defence Secretary), Mike Waltz (National Security Advisor), and Tulsi Gabbard (Director National Intelligence) all junior veterans with grievances from Afghan and Iraq, debacles of unwanted adventures. For now, at least, they are bidding Trump’s wishes, however wild, without asking unnecessary questions which could slow him down. His withdrawal from WHO, Paris Climate Accord, UN Human Rights Council, closure of USAID, snubbing LGBT, telephone call with Vladimir Putin, and the empty bravado to ‘buy’ Gaza, and cast three million Palestinians to the wildness have left European leaders scrambling for a meaningful response, and he is not done yet. The nosy brits, of the old collapsed empire, now in self-inflicted agony of Brexit, are pitifully out of place on the world stage. As perennial instigators, meddlers and beneficiaries in world colonialism, occupation, unending conflicts and exploitation, European leaders even from little countries, driven by superficial understanding of trends, seem unable to realise their diminishing roles in the world. Pete Hegseth, and Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellog, both admonished European leaders at NATO and Munich security meetings last week rubbing sour tastes in their mouth over Ukraine’s unlikely NATO membership, recovery of pre-2014 border, and non-deployment of US troops in Ukraine. That stance prompted France’s Emmanuel Macron to convene an ‘‘informal” meeting of scared European leaders. And imagine, a very desperate and weather-beaten Ukrainian president, Vlodomyr Zelensky, reminding Europeans that they must learn to stand by themselves, and not always look to Uncle Sam, their benefactor-world policeman, for their security. JD Vance threw a spanner in the works with a reprimand that the threat to Europe’s security was “from within,” and not “China or Russia,” and highlighted the deficiencies in Europe’s internal democracy. Trump’s policy of turning the Cuban territory, Guantanamo Bay, into an open-air prison for illegal migrants awaiting deportation back to their miserable countries of origin is a good one because they should no longer lecture anyone on human rights issues without being told to clean up their own dirty backside. Some Uganda elites think that Uganda cannot do without US funding, important as it may be, yet Uganda is already doing so. The only caveat is that we must be serious with setting our priorities and implementing frugality, after all, Kale Kayihura, and Anita Among, both sanctioned, seem better off and even unbothered. Otherwise, many people should be enjoying Trump’s cowboy, Rambo and 007 James Bond style as he runs Great America to a laughing stock, and probably self-destruction before our own eyes that many never expected, although necessary. On our side of the planet, the false giant, called the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) under President Felix Tshekedi seems to be in a free fall right now. The light weight of M23 rebels is seizing territory after territory before a hapless EAC, SADC, African Union, and MUNSCO, possibly waiting for rescue from an impotent UN Security Council, bidding US interests. Meanwhile, the overdrive propaganda of blackmail on government, to ‘unconditionally free’ Kizza Besigye, who was nabbed plotting to assassinate President Yoweri Museveni and smash military facilities, isn’t bearing much fruit.

By Ofwono Opondo
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15 February 2025

NRM REVOLUTION; A 360-DEGREE TURN DOWN MEMORY LANE

Towards the end of January 1986, depending on your location at the time, the NRA/M armed rebels, but in former president Milton Obote’s words, “bandits and gangsters,” stormed state power structure taking over government in Kampala, climaxed by the swearing-in of Yoweri Kaguta Museveni as president of Uganda. Location mattered because the people of the immediate Luwero Triangle, NRA/M, were already part of their lives by mid-1983. For Toro, Kasese, Ankole, Kigezi and Masaka it was after the 27, August 1985 military coup of an illiterate junta led by Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa military, when NRA/M declared self-governance in the areas it occupied and took control, even collecting taxes. When, as young university students, we were taken to the makeshift, grass-thatched, school of political education first in Wakiso, then transferred to present-day Kyankwanzi in 1987, to be detoxified from reactionary, and in Lt. Col. Kizza Besigye’s terminology “obscurantist,” ideas. Yet in old DP and UPC classification, it was to be “brain-washed” into regressive communist ideology”. Maj. Nuwe Amanya Mushega (Deputy Minister of Defence), Col. Kahinda, Otafiire (Internal Affairs), Besigye (NPC), and NRA political commissars Capt. Kale Kayihura, Lt. Col. Serwanga Lwanga, Maj. Ondoga ori Amaza, Maj. Kakooza Mutale, and Lt. Noble Mayombo led the assault on ideology which left an everlasting mark on many of us to-date. Apart from political mobilisation, our major task was to distribute scarce and rationed ‘essential commodities’ of sugar, salt, soap, soda and beers to Makerere university community. We were taught that the love for soft life, amassing property, wealth, and engaging in trade and businesses were reactionary, and therefore counter-revolution. Now, distinguish ‘amassing’, from creating wealth. But in the few urban areas especially Kampala and Jinja, our new comrades were taking over, sometimes forcefully, residential buildings formerly occupied by state officials of the recently-gone by governments of Idi Amin, UPC and Lutwa’s military junta which had so swiftly and violently changed hands. To rationalize, soon (1991-93), government pool houses except for army, police and prisons, then so dilapidated, saddled with huge and unsustainable utility bills were offered to government employees who were the sitting tenants, but most without the money to buy them. Top civil servants like permanent secretaries, directors, commissioners and ranks below them took over multiple estates for a song at prices of their choosing, determination, mode and duration of payment because they were the ones who knew the location and physical state. The new revolutionary soldier-officers in town mostly took up upper-scale leafy Kololo, Nakasero, Luzira and Bugolobi areas. A junior officer, but with a senior officer relative or from their village, took up property in Kololo, the much-coveted place. Those properties have since changed hands on a commercial basis because the new owner-village boys couldn’t measure up to high urban life. So, don’t be surprised if you see some of them or their families still living in these places, and not in Nalya, Najjera, Bulindo or Namugongo which were still then forest thickets. While change of ownerships, and new acquisitions were underway, many of us, especially serving in the army, intelligence and political ideological schools were told it was reactionary to acquire property and wealth. But in any case, we would not even know what was available for the taking since they were not put up on public advert. Kampala only covered Kololo, Nakasero, Makerere, Mengo, Namirembe, Lubaga, Mulago, and Kibuli hills. With hindsight, if they had put to the public offer, the NRM revolution wouldn’t have traveled this far. They were clever but selfish. At work, apart from knowing each other’s name and area of study, we did not ask for origin, tribe, or religion because they were neither needed nor relevant for the tasks at hand. Today, we are here asking everyone to engage in production and productivity with calculation for profitability.

By Ofwono Opondo
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08 February 2025

UPDF, KIZZA BESIGYE AND THE KILLING OF THE GENERAL COURT MARTIAL; THE UNSAID

Few, within NRM and government, will say or admit publicly even when they know, because, increasingly, they must look over their shoulders. But, the bad joke, delivered through dark humour, a few weeks ago, to ‘hang’ Kizza Besigye, at a tree in Gulu on Heroes Day, later brought forward to May, when he is still facing a controversial and disputed trial in the Military Court Martial, possibly created a sharp chill, that no one of sound mind, let alone Supreme Court Justices, to ‘kill’ the military court based at Makindye. Threatening to behead, Kabobi, by an emerging military bully, could have been the icing on the cake, that intimidated the quorum of seven colonial wigged Justices, earlier on written off as ‘cadre judges’ to write the spicy indictment. Many people, especially critics of President Yoweri Museveni, and NRM are enjoying a giggly feeling, after a rather unexplained long silence, belatedly delivered last Friday under political pressure, handed them some cooling effect for the weekend. President Museveni’s public displeasure to the Supreme Court ruling, to which he is entitled, came fast and sharp, although no one should make mountains of it, because, knowing him, he will abide by the decision. In any case this is not the first time he has diced court rulings, because sometimes their reactionary nature doesn't speak to his revolutionary ideals. To be fair, the same courts have in the past delivered heavy penalties in high profile robbery, murder and terrorism cases, or as in the ongoing trial of Jamil Mukulu, a terrorism suspect hasn’t granted him bail, hence there is no valid justification to sidestep its jurisdiction. Looking back to the many previous botched up trials at the court martial, accompanied by extremely bad publicity they generated for the UPDF, government and Uganda, many had thought we had learnt lessons, but alas. The embarrassments aside, in the long course of building a revolution, democracy and a new society, elements within NRM and Uganda have proved in pushbacks that they can stand up for what is right, common sense and just. From now on, the political charade, often instigated, generated and sustained by internal incompetence, driven by a sense of self-entitlement needs to be checked, otherwise the good deeds of NRM could end in smoke because no human being has the capacity to determine or control the entire journey to eternal destiny. Of course, there were valid legal, constitutional, political and democracy arguments to halt the Court Martial’s evidently emboldened excesses, exhibited with sprawling incompetencies on multiple fronts that have played out in the public gallery particularly over the last three months in the Besigye and Obed Lutale Kamulegeya drama. That comedy of extreme absurdities left many in NRM, government and UPDF embarrassed although they will not step forward. And truly, it has been very hard and agonizing distinguishing a learned lawyer from the UPDF prosecution side and lay people on the court’s bench. And maybe, going forward, the UPDF needs to improve by having written regulations on basic skills in etiquette and public speaking, otherwise its team will continue to get cooked on the public rostrum. . The poetic flourish by Chief Justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo, and advice for all to go read “A Man For All Seasons”, and Catherine Bamugemereire’s step into military histories of fallen empires, were good anecdotes to be ignored. In this media sphere, the written and spoken words are, our sword, bayonet, and gun, similar to weapons active duty UPDF soldiers use in the wars to defend the just causes of Uganda, and we should not be held at fault. Patriots and men of good conscience should stand up to expand the frontiers of democracy that the NRM brought back thirty-nines years ago.

By Ofwono Opondo
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01 February 2025

MINISTER AMOS LUGOLOOBI; PLEASE MAN UP, CARRY YOUR OWN CROSS

Various media outlets this week carried State Minister for Finance in charge of Planning, Amos Lugoloobi’s foul cry that his colleagues, Matia Kasaija, and Henry Musasizi at the finance ministry, and others who reportedly also irregularly benefitted from the Karamoja iron-sheets bonanza in 2022 are not being prosecuted in the courts of law. While Lugoloobi’s frustration, even bitterness is understandable, many think that he has been treated fairly, after all, he is still on the ministerial bench and payroll on a public purse that enables him to pay some of his legal costs. Ugandans are now used to accused persons, their relatives and friends crying foul that they are being targeted in witch-hunt every time, would be accomplices go scot-free, as was the case in Global Fund and Gavi under the health ministry a decade ago, Chandi Jamwa in the NSSF scam, and Gilbert Bukenya, the former Vice President, now senior presidential advisor on Environment. Mary Goretti Kitutu and Agnes Nandutu, formerly of the Karamoja docket, may actually be envious or silently smattering in suppressed anger, that while they were shown the cabinet exit door and perks removed, you, Lugoloobi, has been to-date been retained on the frontbench. And imagine what the civil servants serving under you are thinking because when they err, get caught, and charged in a court of law, interdiction is automatic and prompt. Well, two different laws, for elected MPs, and another for the civil servants, for the same offence, and which ought to be changed. So, Amos Lugoloobi, don’t cry loudly because there is always a black sheep in the flock, and as the old adage goes, “every dog has its own day”. See, in parliament, recently, only the fivesome of Michael Maranga Mawanda, Cissy Namujju, Yusuf Mutembuli, Paul Akamba, and Ignatius Mudimi were caught in a web of alleged corruption in war compensation for the defunct Co-operative Unions. Others were in dubious dealings, and attempts to extort from the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission (UHRC) Marriam Wangadya, yet many MPs are rumoured to be in the habit of accosting government Accounting Officers for money. And likewise, only Geoffrey Kazinda, Christopher Obey, Oloka Apila, Stephen Mukasa Nkusa, and then Permanent Secretary Jimmy Lwamafa were got in the 2010 in the Office of the Prime Minister, and Pension scams in the Public Service Ministry respectively. 88.2bn Nkusa, Obey, and Apila have been called by God while their colleagues are still enjoying things of the earthly world, and we have no means of knowing if the dead are unhappy that only they were treated unfairly. Obey died as Inmate NO.MBP 3705/18 on 2 July 2021 at Mulago hospital where Luzira prison authorities where he was serving a 24-year sentence had taken him. Nkusa, Obey, and Apila have since been called by God while their colleagues are still enjoying things of the earthly world, and there is no means of knowing if the dead are unhappy that only they could have been treated unfairly. Recently too, only Mathias Mpuuga, the MP for Nyendo-Mukungwe and former Leader of Opposition Parliament (LoP) is paying the political price for the 500m service award by parliament, although all the five commissioners received the backhand payment. His party, the National Unity Platform has ejected him from its ranks and now in the wilderness, although he does not, as yet, see it that way. Most current, Geraldine Ssali, the now disgraced former Permanent Secretary at the ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives was arrested, and is being prosecuted for the scam involving the some of the foursome MPs above. The former PS ministry of Agriculture, although caught, his case was handled quietly, got dismissed, and is now, through the Inspectorate of Government, been compelled to back the money he had stolen.

By Ofwono Opondo
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25 January 2025

39 YEARS IN POWER; NRM MUST BANISH INDISCIPLINE TO REMAIN CREDIBLE

Today the National Resistance Movement (NRM) under Yoweri Museveni is marking thirty-nine years in government, and forty-four since its founding from a loose-rug-tag political outfit mostly of young men, to today’s worldwide formidable organisation. This year’s commemoration is being held in Mubende district under the theme “39 years of NRM/A; Salutations for those who re-sanctified our homeland.” Those bones lying in unmarked and unnamed graves yearn for remembrance. The trigger to the NRM revolution, prosecuted through the five-year protracted people's war, between 1981 and 1985, was maladministration and particularly a heavily rigged general elections of 10 December 1980 in favour of UPC under Milton Obote seeking to return to the presidency he lost in the military coup of 25 January 1971. Uganda since Independence from the British in 1962 had been under Obote and UPC, who run down the country through reckless political maneuvering, violently toppling cultural institutions, abrogating the 1962 Constitution, imposing a One-party State, and jailing political opponents without trial until the coup. The cascading events provided Idi Amin Dada, later self-proclaimed Conqueror of the British Empire, and Life President of Uganda, with the excuse to topple and launching one of the bloodiest reigns of terror on the African continent for the next eight decades until he too was militarily forced out of power. The advent of the NRA/M, greeted with excitement, has provided countrywide support and every benefit of the doubt for the last thirty-nine years because it promised to bring “A fundamental Change” of transformative revolution and socio-economic transformation for shared happiness in prosperity. Much has been achieved and all cannot be exhausted here. Among them have been sustained security, peace and stability which provided a strong foundation for reconstruction, and development of the politics, state, government, economy and massive infrastructural projects that have expanded goods, services and opportunities. However, the celebrations, and NRM’s long tenure, are being overshadowed by multiple aspects of growing political indiscipline including widespread lethargy, corruption in high places, political and election violence, social intolerance, and rising sectarianism, all threats to NRM/A revolution, national stability, progress and prosperity. Our politicians, as conscious beings, should not follow the rule of the old wild jungle in which the fittest and most cunning usually survive. As Uganda enters into the runup to the next election circle, NRM must as a first step, formulate a rigorous regulation for its internal processes to deal with the political indiscipline particularly by aspiring candidates that have caused so much disrepute to the party. The failure by NRM to fulfill some of its key promises, is helping to pave way for populist opponents to rise and fill the void as an alternative offer by enticing the unsuspecting losers especially the young generation feeling the frustration. The anger of those disappointed by NRM is now being hijacked and misdirected by populist political anarchists, who often blend so well with those of criminal intent. These bad actors have pounced on new digital information and communication tools, and platforms to spread misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and hate politics that are driving intolerance as acceptable political modus operandi. It is becoming increasingly visible at public gatherings even during solemn occasions like funerals for negative politics to reign, often uncontrollably, a scenario some opposition elements seem to want to use at the forth-coming general elections. And the media ecosystem that has young journalists, no better than the average peasants in world outlook, but enjoying uncontrolled access to the population are becoming even more harmful than the active but discredited, shallow and opportunistic political opposition. Travelling around Uganda, the bell seems to be tolling louder, and louder for NRM, and hopefully, there are open ears actively listening, otherwise, the thirty nine years have been a roller-coaster.

By Ofwono Opondo
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18 January 2025

THE RETURN OF DONALD TRUMP; A NEW WORLD ORDER OR DISORDER

Ugandans seem so submerged in their own local issues of daily bread, businesses and their future that the impending return of Donald J. Trump as president of the US this Monday 20 January 2025 does not seem that much of a consideration. Many didn’t even notice the inauguration of Daniel Chapo, 48, the new Mozambican president who now stretches Frelimo’s five decades hold on to power since forcing the Portuguese out of the country through an armed struggle led by Samora Machel. Seen by many as disgraced at home, with a felony conviction on his head for paying hush money to a porn star woman, Trump, returns to the White House on Monday wearing both 45 and G47 after defying events and making history returning on a nonconsecutive term as president since Grover Cleveland in 1892. Cleveland, was the first Democrat elected in 1885 after the civil war but lost in 1889. And Trump’s comeback also includes his winning the electoral college 312 votes against 226, the popular vote, and the Republican party reclaiming control of both the Senate and House of Representatives, otherwise called Congress. His political adversaries Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their sidekick Kamala Harris, the figurehead Democrat presidential candidate who campaigned so aggressively to stop Trump’s comeback, must now eat humble pies. And in the US, like everywhere else, it is now proven that all politics is local, otherwise how did it end this way, when most of America’s high-profile celebrities endorsed Kamala! Compare that to the rise and fall, of recent British prime ministers, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, now forgotten, or Kemi Badenoch, the tory new leader, barely mentioned. On his side Trump has enlisted Elon Musk, the tech investor, world’s current wealthiest man, world, owner of social media platform X, formerly called Twitter, and an equally abrasive fellow like Trump. Reading his braggadocious on X, one cannot fail to notice that perhaps, Musk thinks that they co-share the presidential powers with Trump, but we leave that to the shadows of time. The world, including our ‘shithole’ corners appear ready to welcome back a more transactional Trump. After all, he will most likely leave every goat at its own teether. At least for now, there is no more expected escalation of conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and hopefully in Ukraine, and the Middle East too where a new deal has just been inked between Israel and Hamas ceasefire and hostage swapping. Africa is unlikely to be on Trump’s first radar readings, and we can mind our own business, an opportunity to have quiet reflections, but also formulate what can lift us up. The European NATO warmongers may now need to find a new place where to pee. Trump has his own load of immediate personal grievances to settle, the multiple legal battles in the courts, domestic politics, America’s rea; problems, and to break the neck of his ‘enemies’ who brought him all the humiliations before he can set eyes on targets in distant lands in the world’s periphery. With his mulling to own Canada, Greenland, and to rename the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America, Russia’s hold on Crimea and Ukraine look pale.

By Ofwono Opondo
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11 January 2025

LAWYERS, BANGING THE TABLE IS NOT NEW IN UGANDA UNDER NRM

The supposed new catch-phrase “bang the table” from the Uganda Law Society leadership seems to be fizzling out so fast, that even a snail’s slimmer lasts longer. Lawyer Eron Kiiza, picked it up literally, and took the joke into the General Court Martial for which he is now serving a nine month’s Luzira sentence. Once, very long ago, used to be one lawyer, Remmy Kasule, who became president of ULS at the advent of the NRM government in 1986, and apparently, then of Old Democratic Party (DP) membership. He tried to give NRM a run and a bad name, here and abroad, until he gave up. On his backside, came Madam Solome Balungi Bbosa, who tried like Remmy Kasule did, but with a tinge from UPC where her husband Joseph Bbosa was a sympathizer, and later an open member as Dr Olara Otuunu’s vice president. She too surrendered together and with Kasule were later appointed judges up to the Supreme Court by ‘dictator’ Museveni to eat their humble pies into retirement. Alongside them were lawyers Henry Kayondo, Obol Ochola, Francis Bwengye, and journalists James Namakajjo, Henry Mirima, Amos Kajoba, James Okanya among others staging rearguard actions to drive the propaganda, until, one by one, the gods took them to their respective resting places, leaving NRM, NRA and President Yoweri Museveni firmly in charge of Uganda to-date. In their political shadow-boxing, all had forgotten that Museveni and NRM had actually not just banged the table, but destroyed the table to reconstruct a better one afresh. Kasule, Kayondo, Namakajjo and Kajjoba were truly politically colourful that I doubt, the new breed can match toe to toe. On the political side was Cecilia Atim Ogwal, nicknamed ‘Iron lady’, followed by Aggrey Siryoyi Awori with greater hyperbole. During the treason trial of Brig. Smith Opon Acak, former UNLA Chief of Staff, captured in Mbale having infiltrated from Kenya to wage war on Uganda, his defence lawyer, now a big man in the judiciary, was so hostile. But through the wheel of History, he was in the Constituent Assembly, 6th parliament, and cabinet from where he got total transformation. Good, old lawyers, liked to say the wheel of justice moves slowly. So, young good lawyers should appreciate this adage because the judiciary and its officers are supposed to be ‘independent’ and not subject to ‘direction or control’ by exogenous factors. Threatening or blackmailing them must be rejected. We, in politics often do rabble-rousing, but fully understand that it is of no useful purpose issuing threats you cannot implement otherwise, you may turn out to like the other man who said he had come into government to cause transition, but is discovering that is not how things are done. You don’t run rough shoulders with NRM, but don’t sneer at him. UPC, FDC, and recently NUP direct political adversaries have come banging the table with hammers made of clay, until each discovered that NRM is more sophisticated than appears from the outside. Next time you want to confront NRM or the malaise under its administration, don’t come swinging a hammer, the falling debris could instead hit you hard. The NRM, under Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa, Nyarwinyo Ruhemba Gwenjura, previously also known as Hajji Kassim, is a very patient, but very decisive revolutionary organization. You underestimate it at your own cost. As someone who started as a political officer at the old NRM Secretariat, under Lt. Col. Kizza Besigye, then a firebrand top cadre, and National Political Commissar, I can attest that living long under one system and leader, has been truly enriching. I still keep the briefcase that Besigye gave us for keeping important documents. With the passage of time, very hostile armed rebel commanders have mellowed into the most passionate NRM leaders.

By Ofwono Opondo
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21 December 2024

BROKE UGANDANS: ENJOY TOO MUCH FOREIGN FOOTBALL, RELIGION AND WASTEFUL CHRISTMAS

You are broke and your bank account is empty yet. You don’t have to watch too much television because you are wasting your life. It’s December, that festive season when, especially in Uganda the most broke people spend the highest percentage of their year’s earnings in gluttonous consumption to impress family, peers, neighbours and whoever else may cross their paths. This weekend, most village savings groups will open their boxes to share ‘dividends’ that will wholly be spent on the short-term luxuries. As for the government officials, expensive cards and office parties are flying around to congratulate and wishing each other Merry Christmas, and a Happy New year in keeping with an archaic tradition even where they know that they hold grudges against one another. Most of the broke people are going to obey some of the unreasonable demands from their church leaders to donate beyond their means after which they go begging menacingly from relatives and politicians, or return home with false hopes that God will give them blessings just because priests or pastors said so. In January and February, they will be crying loud in desperation that life is so hard they are unable to send back children for beginning of the school academic year. In these circumstances, it would be prudent to pay tuition and purchase critical scholastic items before the lavish festive spending, but unfortunately common sense it not that common. If you are broke therefore, you don’t have to waste time watching television, subscribing every month paying DSTV, StarTimes and GoTv, to watch and discuss Arsenal, ManU, Liverpool, Man City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, their respective players and how expensive they are, after which you return to your empty homes yawning. Some of you broke people are even members of those fan clubs and you know in detail how much they earn, their net worth, the luxury cars they own, drive and houses they live in, while you carry poverty in your stomachs and heads. You have so much time to argue about these footballers who are pound sterling millionaires although you will never even come close to them. Often, you even stake financial baits as to who of them plays better football, a hero, legend, even engage in bust-ups and fistfights at pubs. You cry that you are financially very broke but have too much time to watch Telemundo, Bollywood and Telenovela. You keep this junk information in your head and in doing so you live a junk life without knowing. So if you want to change your life for the better in 2025 you need to reduce or stop altogether watching these foreign football matches, discussing their games and players like crazy. Don’t do things that will most likely not add value to your life. Instead, discuss, learn and acquire a new profitable skill that will help change your life for the better. It should be a skill you can exchange for money because everything you achieve has to do with the content in your mind and body, and it is what will determine the size of your pocket or bank account. If your mind is always empty, your pocket or bank account to will always be empty. You have to learn how to make money every day, week, and month because you spend money in each of those days. Don’t do things to impress those around you because after all people don’t think much about you anyway as you may think. Learn to say no, to friends, family members and to yourself so that you don’t upend your financial ability for that one-day 25 December. Let’s make 2025 and beyond more productive and shared prosperity for Ugandans.

By Ofwono Opondo
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14 December 2024

ESTRANGED MATHIAS NSAMBA MPUUGA FLEES NUP IN A LEAKING VESSEL

In the end there was no fight as had been anticipated, at least going by the public rhetoric's, living up to the old adage, “When you can’t stand the heat, leave the kitchen”. Like the sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad, the former president of Syria for thirty-four years, who fled without the tough fight many expected particularly for the capital Damascus, Mathias Nsamba Mpuuga last week fled from the National Unity Platform (NUP) party and announced intentions to found his own political ensemble, Democratic Alliance (DA). Mpuuga, recently estranged from the NUP, an opposition political party he says he helped form in 2020, and has been its vice president for Buganda, launched DA, a new party many see as tribal and a stillbirth, with a journey to nowhere. But hard as it might be, we can still give Mpuuga and his new crew of Lubega Mukaaku, Michael Mabbikke and Dr Abed Bwanika, all checkered political journeymen, a slight benefit of the doubt although for now they are crowded out by the noises from the ongoing melodrama over Kizza Besigye’s trial at the Military Court Martial. With a dejected demeanor, Mpuuga rumbled on while castigating the Robert Kyagulanyi NUP leadership for exhibiting dictatorial and undemocratic tendencies of not permitting the freedom of independent thought and initiatives, where only the boss’s views, perhaps more like a drug lord, takes the day without debate. He also accused Kyagulanyi and his close crew of being mere opportunists and economic fortune hunters not interested in broader democratic rights. The choice of venue, a little-known Malibu Gardens in Bakuli, Lubaga Division, for the launch of the so-called Democratic Alliance, an imitation of what failed John Patrick Amama Mbabazi’s presidential bid in 2016 didn’t help lift its profile in the media. Mpuuga’s fallout with NUP stems from the controversial 500 million he received as then Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LoP) hardly a year into office which his colleagues saw as irregular, if fact called it a bribe, and demanded he returns but he clung to it forcing them to evict him as LoP and also got suspended as vice president for Buganda region. Since then Mpuuga has faced a barrage of bad publicity getting rolled in political mud and his attempts to win favour with his so-called Electoral Reform Bill fell on scotched ground and its life in parliament is uncertain after NUP publicly distanced itself from seeing it as a fishing expedition in a leaking vessel. Already, NUP, PPF a runaway outfit from FDC led by Erias Lukwago and a host of other minor parties have taken a Buganda tribal slant, and it is hard to see how DA with Mpuuga, Mukaaku, Mabbikke and Bwanika by their own political and ideological outlooks as we know them, will cobble a working formula beyond the Buganda enclave. While it is still early, it remains unlikely that Mpuuga and TDA can inflict much damage on NUP even within its current wave-like hold in Buganda or indeed cause any significant political realignment in Uganda as we head to the 2026 general elections. And rather than join the other existing opposition parties of DP, UPC, FDC, ANT, that all claim to seek the removal of NRM and President Yoweri Museveni, Mpuuga has instead chosen to give them a vote of no confidence. How much cream, and dregs, DA will gather along its path is hard to tell for now. He, together with Mabbikke, Medard Segona, Lulume Bayiga and Lukwago were among the former ‘Young Democrats’ and later Suubi, a Ganda ethnocentric outfit linked to Mengo that tried in futility to wrestle DP from Norbert Mao but fled into different political camps towards the 2021 elections.

By Ofwono Opondo
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30 November 2024

KIZZA BESIGYE KIFEFE AGAIN ON A FOOLISH TRAITORS ERRANDS

A week is a long time. Many political pundits, and probably even Kizza Besigye, despite his public rattling had written himself off as no longer of any serious significance in Uganda’s future political equation. Then, he ‘disappears’ from a Nairobi hotel in Nairobi, only a few days later to be arraigned before Uganda’s military Court Martial in Makindye on charges of possessing two pistols. From the grapevines, he was also an errand contriving a plot to buy arms including war-grade drones from underworld dealers, so he could bring down the presidential plane and military helicopters. His main objective is to change the government of Uganda by force of arms, accusations he faced before in the courts of law, but was acquitted for lack of credible evidence. But even if the courts acquit him again, Besigye must face the harshest public rebuke if these accusations bear any merit. His people, led by wife, the high-flying Winnie Karangwa Byanyima, in a dejected, but calculated low tone, breaks the news, designedly calling it a kidnap to invoke public sympathy. His surrogates fall in line to drum up the narrative dousing flame in an increasing media crescendo which will be short-lived. Yet by own public confession, Byanyima says Besigye was lured into a hotel away from the official engagements at Martha Karua’s book launch, akin to dodging a high-level conference only to get mugged in a brothel! Byanyima, falsely praised as a rule of law, and Human Rights advocate, rather than let the rules play out in the courts, has instead, launched political appeals to President Yoweri Museveni to save Besigye. It would be very foolish of Besigye 68, tried and defeated many times on multiple fronts to engage in armed rebellion. With his politics and popularity in the twilight, many doubt he can succeed, let alone find a foothold on Ugandan soil. But as a known commercial political entrepreneur, who has solicited, and heavily relied on foreign money, he could be hoodwinking gullible audiences to continue dolling to his lost causes. Fighting for political space, Besigye has publicly questioned Robert Kyagulanyi’s authenticity as an opposition leader in a futile effort to win back the anti-Museveni coalition. Both are a feather of greedy political entrepreneurs who thrive in misleading Ugandans into criminal schemes, for selfish benefits, the reason Besigye cannot give up even after many defeats. It’s isn’t Besigye’s first in subversion. There was a trail of him, after he lost the 2001 presidential election, when he formed the PRA, which domiciled in DRC’s restive Ituri region, but was promptly smashed in Pandora by the UPDF under Gen. Kale Kayihura’s command. Many got killed or captured injured but alive, returned to Uganda, prosecuted, pleaded guilty, but later pardoned under a general amnesty. Among these were my three friends Dennis Mulindwa (RIP), and lawyers Sam Okiring (RIP), and Lt. Col. Vincent Tumwesigye Bakarweha still in the UPDF. A medical doctor who survived, later fled to Sweden where he lives to-date, but occasionally returns to Uganda still carrying shrapnel in his body. The link of UPDF renegades Lt. Col. Anthony Kyakabale, Col. Samson Mande, and Col. Edison Muzoora is well documented. Besigye fled to exile in South Africa but returned in December 2005, and has refused to rule out armed rebellion to change government. In 2001, he sent his political aide James Opoka to join Joseph Kony’s LRA where he died in a power struggle. But Besigye and Byanyima denied that Opoka had joined rebellion, and on one public radio talk-show insisted they knew his whereabouts but to-date haven’t disclosed. And Ugandans don’t even have to stretch their minds over the so-called walk-to-work violent protests that rocked Kampala between 2011-2015 as Besigye and FDC received funding from foreign countries including Omar Bashir’s Sudan to topple President Museveni.

By Ofwono Opondo
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