Opposition Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) leader Jimmy Akena recently blamed President Museveni and his government of ‘systematic failure’ during the official launch of the party’s manifesto in Lira City. ‘For nearly 40 years, we have seen promises recycled, the same speeches repeated, and the same excuses made. Our people are tired. They deserve better,’ he was quoted by Nilepost as having said. ‘The dream of our forefathers was a country that belongs to all of us, not a few. We are here to finish what they started-a Uganda where justice, equality, and dignity are not privileges but rights,’ he added.
The son of former prime minister and president Milton Obote left nothing in the proverbial chamber as he attacked the ruling group in scorching terms. Considering this, Mr Akena has come full circle. In the 1990s, he would often appear in pictures alongside his father whenever the latter sought to remind Mr Museveni how ‘gormless’ he was. Hard-bitten, Obote became something of a Boswell by chronicling Mr Museveni’s every move. He was a man possessed with the messianic need to dispossess the president of his power.
To him, Mr Museveni was a usurper. To make his case, Obote would use all the parts of speech (verb, noun, adjective and adverb) to take Mr Museveni’s regime apart rhetorically, tearing it limb from limb. His criticism of the ruling regime was always unsparing and often prescient. ‘It is most inconceivable that those who claim or propagate that Museveni’s Uganda is peaceful or that there are no gross violations of human rights have not heard of Museveni’s wars in the north and east and now in the west in Kasese District. What of the arrests of hundreds of Ugandans now in jails accused of treason?
Some 150 people from Buganda alone and some desperate groups are presently in jails awaiting trial on that charge,’ Obote wrote in his 1990 pamphlet, ‘Notes on the Concealment of Genocide in Uganda.’ His ringing words reflect our times so closely that one would assume that he was time-warped to 2025 in 1990.
Mr Akena seemed to always be by his side whenever Obote required someone to hold his cup of tea before another dustup with Mr Museveni.
As you might imagine, then, it was surprising to many of us who knew him and his father to be conjoined twins, politically speaking, to hear him temporise where his father demanded immediate action. In 2016, Mr Akena publicly stated he would not “abuse” President Museveni and expressed a willingness to work with him for a “smooth transition of power” to avoid ‘national problems’. This stance has been interpreted by some within his own party as evidence of a pact or alignment with the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) and Mr Museveni.
Indeed, you are most likely to hear the noun ‘transition’ when listening to NRM persons. True opponents of the ruling NRM prefer the verb ‘change’. Mr Akena’s father did. Today, Akena does too. However, like his father, he grossly underestimated President Museveni. They thought they could make short work of Mr Museveni’s glaring shortcomings, forgetting that he is strongest where he appears weakest. Now, Mr Akena must reap the whirlwind.