Thirty one years ago, Darlington Sakwa, a supporter of the Opposition Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) party, who was also the Constituent Assembly Delegate (CAD) for Bungokho South constituency, penned a letter in which he bashed Milton Obote, saying the former president’s attempt to cling to the presidency of the party was unconstitutional.
At the time, Obote, who had been ousted on July 27, 1985, following a coup by his army commander, Gen Tito Okello Lutwa, and Gen Bazilio Olara Okello, was living in exile in Zambia.
Mr Sakwa’s three-page missive dated August 8, 1995, was precipitated by a letter that Obote had earlier written to UPC’s Presidential Policy Commission (PPC), which Cecilia Ogwal headed, directing party members not to participate in elections organised under the Movement system of government, a view that Ogwal did not agree with.
Ogwal was supportive of party members participating in the elections in order to keep the torch of the party burning and went ahead to participate in subsequent elections.
In the same letter, Obote accused Ogwal and another member of the UPC Secretariat, Kagenda Atwoki, of insubordination.
She was subsequently relieved of her duties as secretary general of the party. She was also kicked out of the chairmanship of the PPC and replaced by Dr James Rwanyarare.
Initial reports indicated that it was on Obote’s orders that she was kicked out of the PPC, but Obote later denied this following a reconciliation meeting held in Lusaka, Zambia, in September 2004.
“It is not true that the events of 1996 which saw Maama Cecilia Atim Ogwal resign or be dismissed from being chairperson of the Presidential Policy Commission (PPC) originated from an order by me,’ Obote wrote in a September 23, 2004, statement that he sent to Sunday Monitor.
Following the 1996 disagreement, Ogwal quit UPC in 1997, but returned to the fold after the 2004 reconciliation talks. She, however, subsequently quit to join the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Ogwal was, by the time of her death on January 18, 2024, the District Woman Representative for Dokolo.
Sakwa stings
In his stinging criticism of Obote, Sakwa said he and other like-minded members of the party would not accept Obote’s “monarchical” hold on the UPC presidency.
He vowed that Obote would, at the next opportunity or delegates’ conference, be voted out of the party’s leadership in favour of a more dynamic leadership that could face the new political forces. It should, however, be remembered that it would not have been possible for such a delegates’ conference to take place
Early in 1986, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) issued Legal Notice Number 1 of 1986, which suspended ‘all forms of political activities and any other form of political activities’.
During debate on the Constituent Assembly (CA) Statute of 1993, the National Resistance Council (NRC) slapped a ban on recruitment of members by political parties; barred them from opening branches and holding delegates’ conferences and forbade campaigning under the banner of any political party. Those who desired to participate in CA elections of March 28, 1994, were to do so on ‘individual merit’.
Then on June 20, 1995, at least 99 delegates voted in favour of continuation of ‘no party rule’. That culminated in the writing of Article 269 of the 1995 Constitution barring political parties from engaging in ‘any activities that may interfere with the Movement political system’.
The Article barred political parties from operating branches, holding public rallies and sponsoring candidates for political office for as long as the Movement System was in force.
Sakwa said Obote’s decision to stubbornly cling to the party’s leadership was one of the biggest scarecrows to would-be UPC supporters.
“Your tenure of office ended in 1987, whether or not there is a delegates’ conference. There is no provision in the UPC constitution that says in the absence of a delegates’ conference, the person elected party president becomes president for life. It is in this regard that I want to disagree with your lamentation [in the PPC letter] and your attempt to imply that because you were elected party president in 1980, you will continue to hold that office and direct UPC even if you never set foot on Uganda soil,” he wrote.
He argued that Obote’s behaviour gave the impression that the former president was more interested in personal power than in the party regaining State power, adding that the signal that the two-time president was sending out was that the party was his slave and that he had no wish to respect members of the party who were struggling to keep it going unless they were constantly consulting with him.
He also claimed that Obote’s behaviour showed that the party would never have a change of leadership until ‘you agree to let this happen”.
Lack of information
Obote’s letter had taken issue with officials at the UPC Secretariat for keeping him in the dark about developments in Kampala.
However, Sakwa hit back at Obote, saying he should have been grateful for the little information that he was receiving.
“The party members can only inform you of events as a matter of courtesy [not as a matter of right],” he said and blamed him for not having provided a succession mechanism for the party.
He also told Obote to stop ridiculing “UPC members who are struggling to survive under difficult conditions while you keep a safe distance”.
He said Obote’s continued reference to himself as the “supervisor” at a time when he could not influence political events in Uganda was a liability to UPC, adding that the exiled former president was partly to blame for what was prevailing in the country at the time.
“Indeed, you have led two UPC governments in this country and you should [bear] part of the responsibility for militarism in the country which led to the belief of many Ugandans that one can only rule if one has the backing of the armed forces of the country,” Mr Sakwa wrote.
Whereas he concurred with Obote, who had always been of the view that the National Resistance Army (NRA), the armed wing of the NRM was a gang of gunmen who waged a vicious war against an elected government, Sakwa pointed out that it was the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), which he said was ‘led by some of the most primitive commanders Uganda has ever witnessed” which overthrew the UPC government.
Sakwa was, however, optimistic that Uganda would ‘overthrow’ the NRM without resorting to the gun. Ugandans, he said, were ‘wiser politically’.
“The best we can do is to stop lamenting and present intelligent and well-intentioned candidates at every opportunity for an election. This is the only way we can maintain UPC as a dynamic party always fighting on the side of the people,” he wrote.
Alliance
One of the other issues that Obote had raised was the support that the UPC Secretariat was giving Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere, the Democratic Party (DP) president general.
It should be remembered that proponents of multiparty democracy had started working together during the writing of the 1995 Constitution. They had come together under what was known as the National Caucus for Democracy. Prof Dani Nabudere was the secretary general.
By the time Obote wrote his letter, Ssemogerere, who had served as minister of Internal Affairs, minister of Foreign Affairs and later Deputy Prime Minister and minister of Public Service in the NRM government, had resigned on June 13, 1995, citing ‘ideological grounds’ and also announced that he would be contesting for president in the next general election.
Obote seemed uncomfortable that UPC honchos were warming up to the idea of Ssemogerere coming up as the Opposition’s single candidate, something which Mr Sakwa also addressed.
“We should be seen to support a pluralist presidential candidate who has the credentials to win a national constituency no matter where he belongs,” he argued.