Asianet Pakistan Private Limited

‘I hear political Opposition supporters saying they are going to have a change of government in the upcoming presidential elections. I want to tell you the bitter truth that I don’t expect any change in government,’ Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja told a meeting of medical staff and local leaders from Kayunga District last week on Thursday.

The proclamation by the country’s eighth most important citizen and Leader of Government business can easily be spurned. After all, the appointing authority said in his State of the Nation Address on June 10, 2021, that his current Cabinet is full of ‘fishermen.’ On the other hand, the PM’s assertion could be interpreted to mean that the January 2026 presidential election, in which President Museveni is up for his seventh elective term against seven contenders, is a foregone conclusion.

Upon shooting to power 39 years ago, President Museveni first ruled for 10 years without elections. He offered himself for the first polls under the new Constitution in 1996 and won with 72 percent of the valid votes cast. He went on to win elections in 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016, and 2021. The former coordinator of intelligence agencies, Gen David Sejusa, even dropped a bomb shell in December 2013 that he and other army officers engineered the 2006 presidential election results in favour of the incumbent against Dr Kizza Besigye, who is currently in jail on treason charges since last November.

All elections since 2001 have been marked by the omnipresent role of the country’s military apparatus. However, even as general crime, which warrants the iron-clad protection for VIPs in government, festers across the country, there is no corresponding response by security forces compared to the response during and after election campaigns.

There are about a dozen security agencies carved out of police and the army, the notable ones being the Defence Intelligence and Security, formerly Chieftancy of Military Intelligence (CMI), Joint Anti- Terrorism Taskforce (JATT), Internal Security Organisation (ISO), Special Forces Command (SFC), Directorate of Crime Intelligence, among others.

Amid the kidnapping and disappearance of Opposition supporters, police, who are charged with everyday law and order, often feign ignorance, while the command structure of the rogue security personnel remains opaque. Lawyer/activist Andrew Karamagi argued that the primary functions of the security agencies seem to be regime protection. ‘The ruling party is modelled along State security agencies. So there is no separation between national security and the longevity of the regime. Now, ideally, we should have an intelligence community that is even suspicious of the President.’

In this land

Promotion of democracy ranked number one on the NRM’s original 10-point programme, the rebel group’s policy blueprint, followed by promotion of security for all people and their property to eliminate state-instigated violence, and consolidation of national unity and elimination of all forms of sectarianism. As President Museveni campaigns for a seventh elective term under the theme

‘Consolidating the gains’, State-sanctioned violence against the population is commonplace. From the Kayunga riots, Walk-to-Work protests, to the November 2020 blood bath during which security personnel killed 54 people.

The right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, if for political reasons or to express discontentment with government, provided for in Chapter Four of the Constitution, is gagged by the Public Order Management Act, or selectively applied such as in the case of police escorting supporters of the loose Patriotic League of Uganda to protest outside the Germany embassy in July.

Barely after the NRA/M captured power, the country was sucked in by a welter of rebellions that sprouted in the north and north-eastern parts of the country.

Insurgencies commanded by military figures in the past governments broke out, from Peter Otai’s led-rebellion and other lesser rebel groups in Teso, Alice Lakwena’s Holy Spirit Movement and later Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army that roared until 2005, to the West Nile Bank Front. In the process of stopping the rebellions, egregious human rights violations were committed by NRA, including the Mukura massacre when hundreds of people were burnt alive in train wagons.

During the drafting of the 1995 Constitution between 1988 and1995, many Ugandans were concerned about their peace and the stability of the country.

Ugandans were still nursing wounds inflicted by the security agencies since 1899 when the first armed force, the Uganda Armed Constabulary, was established by the British colonial administration.

Constitutional Law lecturer Kabumba Busingye argues that the manner in which the British colonial government established authority over present-day Uganda explains a lot that has gone wrong since then, not just in Uganda but across many parts of Africa.

‘So you had very few citizens who were really British citizens, for lack of a better word, the European residents of Uganda, but by and large you had subjects. So you have our ancestors who were in Uganda but were for all intents and purposes and by documents called natives and that word was not something that had any dignity to it. That’s again as [Prof] Mamdani argued, defined the rulers and the ruled. So even the Kabaka and other traditional leaders were not called leaders; they were called native rulers. So in effect, we were diminished,’ Dr Kabumba averred.

Colonial house extension

He adds: ‘Museveni is interesting. I think his success, because he has been successful to the extent of, if you measure success by holding onto power, there’s an element of success there. Of course, if you measure it by other metrics, national building, it’s a little bit mixed. But as a political project, he has been successful. I think he has come closest of the leaders, post-independence leaders, in mirroring the nature of the colonial state. Because the colonial state was a violent machine that closed itself with legality.

‘If you just read the colonial documents, it would be difficult for you to know that you’re in a dictatorship. So you had governors, you had the paraphernalia of, you know, even the very colonial project was framed in Christianity, commerce, and civilisation, look at the dehumanising British colonial Africa.’

After promulgation of the Constitution on October 8, 1995, Ugandans saw it as a golden opportunity to put safeguards to control the security agencies from ever turning against the citizenry.

Public views about security agencies to the Uganda Constitutional Commission were so harsh that the team led by Justice Benjamin Odoki recommended some of their demands be dropped or toned down. Constituent Assembly delegates agreed with the Uganda Constitutional Commission recommendations that shaped Chapter XII on defence and national security. In the chapter, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, Uganda Police Force, Uganda Prisons Service, Intelligence Services and the National Security Council were established. The Constitution put key requirements for all those security agencies that they should be under civilian authority, nationalistic, patriotic and disciplined.

Members of each security agency were to be recruited from each district of Uganda. ‘It shall be the duty of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces and any other armed force established in Uganda, the Uganda Police Force and any other police Force, the Uganda Prisons Service, all intelligence services and the National Security Council to observe and respect human rights and freedoms in the performance of their functions,’ Article 221 in Chapter XII of the Constitution reads.

Thirty years later, Chapter XII has remained intact on paper, but a lot has changed in practice.

Mixed bag of fortunes

Former Makindye East MP Mike Mabike argues that one of the unresolved questions in the post-independence era was the role of the army and security agencies, and the 1995 Constitution intended to solve it.

‘In 1966, when the military came out of the barracks and got involved in what was ordinarily a civilian quarrel between President [Edward] Mutesa and [Prime Minister] Milton Obote, they never left. The framers of the Constitution put the army and security agencies under civilian control. But that hasn’t been enforced because the leader of the National Resistance Army, now UPDF, is now the President, and he has personal interests,’ Mabikke says.

While peace and security is the NRM’s unique selling point, the army and intelligence outfits are commanded at the whims of the Commander-in- Chief, (CDF) which has also led critics to believe that even in the likely event of the incumbent losing elections, peaceful change of power is impossible. Twenty seven years ago, the UPDF was sent to the DR Congo to treat a festering wound in the heart of Africa, a year after the kleptocratic regime of Mobutu Sese Seko had been ousted. The decision to deploy Ugandan troops was taken by the Army High Command, which was chaired by the CDF on September 11.

The President argued that the deployment would secure Uganda’s security interests by denying the Sudanese government an opportunity to destabilise Uganda through eastern Congo; deny habitation to Uganda’s dissidents such as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in the Congo and protect Uganda’s territorial integrity from invasion by Kabila forces. Eight years later, the UPDF deployed to Somalia without approval of Parliament, which pattern was repeated during deployment to South Sudan, where the Executive defended that they hurried to ‘stop a genocide’, and later in 2017 in Equatorial Guinea.

Today, the Kampala regime is a key ally of Washington and its European allies in the restive Great Lakes region, and is involved in mercenary peace missions in South Sudan and Somalia, and continues to play its diplomatic cards favourably to remain in the good books. Mr Mabikke says when it came to establishing law acts to regulate the military as the Constitution had directed, interested parties used the UPDF Act to entrench the personalisation of the military.

‘For a military officer to work well, he or she must be in the good books of the CDF. Therefore, you can’t have professionalism in the forces.’

Mr Mabikke says the impunity of security agencies has taken root as it was before the adoption of the 1995 Constitution. Mr Robert Kirenga, the executive director of the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders Uganda, says the country is experiencing a contradiction of security agencies that the framers of the Constitution had envisaged.

‘Do we have what you would call a national army? Do we have an army that is non-partisan? Are law enforcement agencies, including the army, doing the things as provided in the Constitution? That is something you have to pose to the citizens and they tell you.’

The battle for Kawempe North MP seat is two-fold: there is a battle going on at the Court of Appeal between National Unity Platform (NUP) Elias Luyimbazi Nalukoola and National Resistance Movement (NRM) party’s Faridah Nambi, just a few months to the next election. Nalukoola defeated Nambi earlier this year in a by-election that was organised after the death of NUP’s Muhammad Sseggirinya, who had been elected in 2021.

Nalukoola’s victory, which came after security personnel battered voters both before and on the election day, was challenged in the court. The High Court cancelled Nalukoola’s victory because ‘illegal campaigns had been conducted on polling day, and more than 16,000 registered voters were disenfranchised when ballots at 14 polling stations were not tallied.’

The polling stations whose votes were never tallied, Nalukoola insisted, had been ransacked by NRM goons, but still the High Court’s Justice Bernard Namanya nullified the election, saying Nalukoola was the beneficiary. Instead of going back for another by-election, Nalukoola played hardball when he appealed, a process that’s still ongoing, with the Court of Appeal asking him to file necessary documents so that the case is heard by a panel of three justices.

‘The ruling undermined basic tenets of electoral justice. The judge chose to ignore established legal precedents and instead built the case on assumptions,’ Nalukoola said.

While they are locked in a court battle, both Nalukoola and Nambi have started campaigning ahead of the 2026 poll. Unlike other NUP members who have been waiting for the parties’ Election Management Committee (EMC) to give them a green light as NUP’s official candidates for different constituencies, Nalukoola has been under no sure pressure since no person bothered to contest against him within NUP. Umar Magala, who had put up a serious contest in the first primaries, had focused on being the Kawempe Division mayor before he eventually settled for being a councillor at City Hall. Besides the court battle, during the short period he has been in Parliament, Nalukoola has been battling with the legacy of Sseggirinya, who had a god-like status in Kawempe North.

As soon as he was voted into the House, Sseggirinya set up a medical facility that he claimed was free of charge for all constituents. It’s not clear if at all the medical facility indeed provided the health services that Sseggirinya had claimed, but it folded as soon as he was incarcerated. To make sure his constituents don’t see him as a mismatch to Ssegirinya’s legacy, Nalukoola, on setting foot in Parliament, opened up a health facility of his own called ESKEL Medical Services (EMS).

‘The High Court ruling didn’t scare me. The people legitimately elected me. Even if the fresh elections are ordered, we will return with a knockout,’ Nalukoola said, adding that delivering on the promise of the health centre was the clearest indication that NUP would deliver on its promises once it’s entrusted with power.

Another challenge that Nalukoola has to face is that as a former Democratic Party (DP) member, he was always seen with suspicion due to his loyalty to NUP or its principal, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, being questioned. To end any doubts, when Nalukoola was launching his medical centre, he ensured that Kyagulanyi was the chief guest.

‘This is what servant leadership looks like. Healthcare shouldn’t be a campaign promise but a public right. This centre shows what we can do if we are entrusted with national resources,’ Kyagulanyi said.

NRM on the back foot?

For Nambi, who is the daughter of NRM’s eternal vice chairperson Moses Kigongo, there was the usual drama in the NRM primaries. Nambi defeated her perennial arch-rival, Hanifah Karadi, but even before the votes were counted, Karadi was already complaining. She claimed that the process was tilted in favour of Nambi.

‘We need a levelled ground where everyone votes. We need to look for votes and then people decide such that if you lose, you know it’s as a result of a fair process,’ Karadi said before petitioning, in vain, the NRM’s legal committee that handled election grievances.

Despite Karadi’s grievances in which she claimed that, among others, declaration forms were fabricated, Nambi has moved on with her campaign. She, however, faces a history of NRM losing in Kawempe North since 2001 when Latif Ssengondo Ssebaggala toppled Jamad Luzinda, the father of socialite Desiree Luzinda. Ssebaggala would represent Kawempe North from 2001 to 2021 before being ousted by Sseggirinya.

In 2021, Sseggirinya won the constituency by a landslide when he garnered 41,197 votes. His closest rival, Suleiman Kidandala, who defied NUP and stood as an Independent, polled 7,512 votes. Sseggirinya’s victory soon turned into a nightmare after he spent most of the term either in prison or in hospital. Arriving in Parliament in 2021 was a dream come true for Ssegirinya, who had started his political career back in 2006, when he started making the phone calls discussing the political events of the day.

Still a student at Pimba Secondary in Kyebando, Kawempe North constituency, Sseggirinya often shredded the ruling NRM party. At first, whenever he would make a phone call, Sseggirinya would introduce himself as the ‘eddoboozi ly’e Kyebando’, loosely translated as ‘voice of Kyebando.’ Later, when his ambition grew, he started signing in and off the radio calls by describing himself as the ‘MP to be for Kawempe North.’

Sseggirinya legacy

Sseggirinya would go on to beat the odds by making it to the House before being arrested alongside fellow lawmaker Allan Ssewanyana (Makindye West) in connection with the machete killings in the Greater Masaka districts. The two were granted bail on September 21, 2021, but were immediately re-arrested from the outskirts of Kigo prisons on fresh murder charges preferred against them stemming from the Lwengo District machete killings, where more than 20 people were killed. For the one-and-a-half years Sseggirinya and Ssewanyana spent on remand, rumours circulated that their imprisonment had nothing to do with the crimes they had allegedly committed but rather with their dealings with powerful people within the NRM party. Even after their release, rumours persisted that the shackles were broken after they reportedly struck a deal with President Museveni.

Then Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP) Mathias Mpuuga, who was at the forefront of having the MPs released, denied participating in any such deal. But by the time the two MPs were released, sources say they had been ostracised by the Kamwokya/Kavule leadership.

In fact, anybody from NUP who associated with them was seen as a pariah. The situation was made worse when both Sseggirinya and Ssewanyana were unusually mute after their release. When Sseggirinya died this year, NUP apportioned blame to the NRM regime, saying it quickened his demise through incarceration.

In the Kawempe North elections, Nambi, as the NRM candidate, will have to carry the cross of Sseggirinya’s death.