By Ofwono Opondo

DONALD TRUMP'S DISORDER; LEAVES EUROPEAN LEADERS IN DISARRAY

By Ofwono Opondo

NRM REVOLUTION; A 360-DEGREE TURN DOWN MEMORY LANE

By Ofwono Opondo

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

By Ofwono Opondo

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

By Ofwono Opondo

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

By Ofwono Opondo

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

By Ofwono Opondo

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

By Ofwono Opondo

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

By Ofwono Opondo

ESTRANGED MATHIAS NSAMBA MPUUGA FLEES NUP IN A LEAKING VESSEL

By Ofwono Opondo

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

PDM, EMYOOGA, NAADS, OWC ENTANDIKWA: WARNING SHOTS TO NRM LEADERSHIP

President Yoweri Museveni’s ongoing countrywide political assessment and mobilisation for the Parish Development Model (PDM) as NRM’s 2021-26 flagship program is good as it kicks energy, and unearthing pitfalls of policy in wealth creation and rural economic transformation agenda of the last thirty-eight years. Entandikwa, Naads, OWC, Emyooga and now PDM, while correct, genuine, necessary programs that have scored successes, have faced the same problems starting with poor, and often compromised selection of the beneficiaries. These flagship programs have over the years been riddled by the noncompliance with regulations, set guidelines and standards. The responsible officials often supply substandard inputs and late delivery to farmers when the planting season is running out. There has also been inadequate or irregular funding, and lack of diligent supervision along the value-chain characterised by endemic corruption, yet we haven’t learnt much to correct the malaise. With all the boastfulness that NRM is an enlightened vanguard mass-party, one would expect its popularly elected leaders at the most critical levels at the village, parish, sub-county, parliamentary constituency and district to put good efforts, but alas. The leaders are often absent to guide the population, except when they too are directly benefiting. Many of them, including ministers, MPs, and other leaders will troupe down to President Museveni’s functions to show cosmetic appearances, cris-crossing the event venue, and elbowing each other for photo opportunities with the president. This is how petty some of them have become, completely devoid of any embarrassments. With a huge, but unserious and unfocused political bureaucracy, the NRM is still struggling to fine-tune its own policy formulation, implementation, funding, monitoring and supervision to deliver the desired economic outcomes. By the latest official statistics, and our own public admissions, many Ugandans are still trapped in undeniable and evident poverty of want for the common essentials of life. Although the numbers have gone up, universal education school enrollment and completion rates don’t match up well, literacy and numeracy are disappointing, and critical skills attainment is wanting. Twenty-seven years of implementation of the Universal Primary Education (UPE), no district, most of them led by NRM has bothered to enact a bye-law on education, and as a result, have left laxity and negligence to impede its success. It is coming to forty good solid years of NRM’s relatively unchallenged hold, and overwhelming dominance in political and public policy space, yet the results of its foremost agenda of socio-economic transformation is mostly mixed, if not evidently disappointing although many NRM leaders will be shy to admit publicly. It is time that NRM leaders conduct a thorough and sustained self-introspection on many fronts, if we don’t want to end up in the history dung-heap like the Uganda Peoples’s Congress (UPC), KANU (Kenya).and UNIP (Zambia), or where the African National Congress (ANC) (South Africa) seem destined for. For some time now, I have received quiet blowbacks from sections of NRM and government leaders with timid minds, and infertile ideological outlook, afraid that open and frank criticism, although a correct foundations of NRM, is now unhealthy because it exposes the lackluster methods of work. NRM’s agenda has always been correct, noble, and genuine, but conception, planning, funding, execution, implementation, supervision and monitoring have been half-hazard, inadequate, and sometimes deliberately distorted through abuse and corruption. This abuse has consequently led to mixed results, often much to embarrassments, considering the thirty-eight years of NRM leadership most of which in an unchallenged dominance in policy making and setting its own priorities. The nascent, but rising chaotic noise of a perennially unserious and ever tiny opposition, both in and outside parliament has in the recent past been able to drown, disorient, derail, and sometimes even defeat NRM’s noble agenda. It is truly hard to comprehend, that which, is left of the NRM, but possibly mainly careerism and selfishness.

By Ofwono Opondo