Let me start with a most mundane fact. Our president is our ruler-for-life. He is also known as the Ssabalwanyi (chief fighter), the chief General, Leader of the ‘people’s revolution’, and Chairman of the resistance movement that liberated us.
Mr President is a lifetime freedom fighter who has committed all his adult time, since he was a high school graduate, to the singular struggle for the liberation of the African people. He is a life-time military commander.
He fought the diabolic regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote in the 1970s and 80s, then in 1990s and 2000s turned to fighting and decisively defeating the bandits of the Allied Democratic Front and Lord’s Resistance Army, a rather pretentious name that devalues a noble people’s struggle like that of the National Resistance Army.
What is more, even at his advanced age, despite a wobbly stroll that easily betrays the inevitability of the physical toll on the human body, on any day he will grab and sling a Kalashnikov across his chest ready for battle.
If I had the chance, this would be the primarily bio to introduce Mr Museveni as he delivers a powerful lecture at a prestigious army war college. But there is more to his inimitable credentials – his incredible strategic foresight. It is not just his long-held monopoly over a first-rate vision for Uganda, it is also his grasp of the broader African problem, which is impeccable and incomparable.
He has a firm handle on the Ugandan situation, the crux of how to transform the country from poverty to prosperity, but more importantly, he fully understands the contours of regional and continental Africa.
These credentials of the Ssabalwanyi have been on full display on the current campaign trail, in ways that shouldn’t surprise anyone who remotely pays attention to the man’s rhetorical plays and pronouncements.
I will illustrate, starting with the domestic scene and later the regional landscape. True to his unwavering focus on wealth creation and economic productivity as the basis for national transformation, our ruler-for-life has recently put it to young Ugandans in no uncertain terms, to be sure, to refrain from wasting time in cheap politicking and watching European football! Spot-on. But this is where rhetoric diverges from practice.
Mr Museveni is the chief practitioner of unprincipled political manoeuvring. From the last election to the next, he is campaigning in the name of promoting wealth creation when in fact he is playing politics, staying ahead of his competitors by courting voters and having unfettered access to the public while his opponents are blocked by security forces.
Constantly on the political campaign trail, he is compelled to grant all manner of concessions that are neither rationalised nor properly processed into an overarching national strategy. These range from acceding to demands for creation of a new district in Namayingo to offering half a billion shillings to a Sacco in Sebei.
It is the same cheap political manoeuvring that leads to more than 200 unjustifiable and redundant presidential advisors and a bloated Parliament of close to 600 MPs. As to young people wasting away on European football, including unproductive sports-betting, it is hard to look beyond Mr Museveni’s own laissez faire policies and failure to build an inclusive economy that keeps pace with the country’s demographic realities.
Still on the campaign trail, Mr Museveni spoke pointedly about maritime resources, particularly access to the sea. He made a controversial but valid observation – no one nation owns the sea to the exclusion of others for commercial and national defence interests.
Uganda is landlocked – no direct access to the sea. Our way out is through Kenya or Tanzania. Now, would Mr Museveni make the same argument had he been president of Kenya or Tanzania? If we take him at his quite consistent regional integration rhetoric and pan-African claims, probably yes.
He has been adamant in denouncing colonial artificial borders and pushing for greater cross-border free flow of commerce and people. He takes the plaudits for that. Yet again, rhetoric is one thing, action is another. The best way for Uganda to go around its land-locked problem is building efficient rail and road networks.
Kenya that gives Uganda the best way to the sea has done impressively in both rail and road infrastructure. By contrast, Uganda led by a sophisticated and strategic leader for 40 long years maintains an appalling record.
The Kampala-Jinja-Malaba road is so lousy and scarcely worth calling a highway while the century-old colonially constructed rail line fell apart, not to say anything about a planned standard gauge project. All on the watch of Mr Museveni, a leader of remarkable strategic foresight.
Accessing the sea lamentations aside, if the visionary Mr Museveni had turned around Uganda into a true regional power, both Kenya and Tanzania would have every reason to play ball. The East African federation would flourish.
At a minimum, one of the two would highly value Uganda as a trading partner and regional ally. No one takes you seriously unless you are serious!