NRA freedom fighters owe it to Ugandans  to hand over power peacefully – Mushega

Mushega: First of all, I want to thank you for your complements. But I feel you have exaggerated a few areas. I did not break ranks with my old friend. We disagreed on the way forward. There is a difference between breaking ranks as if you had agreed on a certain thing and also disagreeing on whether you should proceed using the Fort Portal road or Kabale road. 

Now, you talk of an election, let me put it this way. You cannot sell what you don’t have and it is difficult to sell what you don’t practice. 
On the other hand, power is a permanent thing in the washrooms, in office, wherever you know. That power, whether you like it or not, can shroud you into mystery and you become all powerful and there are certain things you don’t see. I have also been in power, but at a lower level. Wherever you go, you are treated like this and with time you don’t see the reality on earth, and you don’t want advisers. 

Kamara: I know you as somebody who belonged to that NRM where there was intellectual discourse and I can remember names of your colleagues like Augustine Ruzindana, Winnie Byanyima, the late [James] Wapakhabulo, the late Nobel Mayombo and you could sit and talk and discuss some kind of statesmanship. But it appears to me that the baton has been handed over to the likes of Full Figure, Balaam and Butcherman. Is that the natural progression that you expected? 

Mushega: Whether the current crop is better than the old one is not my business. What I know is that the level of debate on national issues, when you look at the MPs of the 60s, was superior than today. And these were people of Junior Two, Senior Four and very few PhDs. I only know Dr Luyimba Zake. 

If you looked at the general secretary of Acholi, Kigezi, the Katikkiro of Buganda, the Katikkiro of Bunyoro, these were men who took their jobs seriously. In a way we have lowered the bar of leadership and I have made it known to my colleagues in Parliament and outside. There is no doubt about it. The bar of leadership has been lowered and something must be done about it.

Kamara: So, there hasn’t been any kind of grooming for the leaders of today and the leaders that are going to take the country forward? 
Mushega: I don’t believe in grooming, personally. At least if people are taken through some kind of values, that’s the kind of grooming that I am talking about.

 Grooming means you encourage as many voices as possible to blossom. Now, tomorrow, out of the 10 people you choose, whoever the population chooses, will keep the baton going. 

In other words, there is always youth leagues, there is always younger generations. The baton may jump the queue and as my brother put it, it can move to 70 instead of 40. And secondly, there are institutions. You put institutions in place that contain leaders from going astray. 

Kamara: Why is it that in the NRM, for example, there are very few people who have shown the ambition to lead? In most cases if you go to the primaries, everybody is singing sole candidature. Is it because they are convinced they cannot lead, or probably the top executive is telling them “don’t dare”?

Mushega: I wish we could move away from personalities. I am not there. I happen not to have any idea. You know one of the worst things that you can do to people, even children, is to instil fear, fear of the unknown. So, it is that fear of the unknown.

As a senior citizen and a member who sacrificed his time to fight for Uganda, we see a lot of violence happening and I want to ask this; you remember when people walked to work, thy were stopped violently. When Kabaka wanted to go to Kayunga that ended in violence. Just a few days back, there was violence on the streets of Kampala.

Kamara: I know you captured power through violence. Is NRM, the one you once belonged to, inherently violent?

Mushega: What do you mean NRM that I once belonged? I don’t understand you. Let us put this matter to rest, what they call NRM today or NRM-O has nothing to do with NRM that came from the bush, except the name and the leadership. This is a party like ANT, DP, NUP and FDC. It is a party with a flag, membership and primaries. 

So, the original NRM, whatever its imperfections, was all encompassing and you are almost conscripted. We never had primaries, we never had membership and there was no threat that ‘if you don’t vote for me you will be in trouble’. Then we decided within the Constitution of Uganda. 

It states clearly that the two systems cannot work at the same time. Half way we said let the Movement system cease to exist and we go to parties and the party, President Museveni, chose to call it NRM. I am called Mushega, but Mushega is my father’s name. I am Amanya Mushega.

 He was Asanasio Mushega, I am not him. Don’t mistake me for him. We abandoned the original NRM and called something NRM. So, the other thing we are in, we chose to say let us take different paths by choice. These ones stayed and called their party NRM, then we called ours FDC, DP re-strengthened itself. UPC had already a few issues, but it is still there struggling. 

Kamara: There is an element of violence that seems to continue as a pattern, and I am wondering; how do we get off this element of violence?
Mushega: Violence is done by us Ugandans.  The people that are carrying out violence are not imported and what pains me most is that President Museveni, his brother Salim Saleh [Caleb Akandwanaho], myself Mushega, [prime minister Ruhakana] Rugunda my friend; all those people in leadership cannot arm their sons to go and beat people. 

They cannot! So, if we cannot send our sons to commit sin against their fellow citizens, why do we send somebody’s son to do that? Violence can be stopped by us. It is not easy, but it can be done. When you use violence, it begets violence. 

It is something that should be condemned. The other day I saw this chairman of the NRM electoral commission [Dr Tanga Odoi] with a stick as if he was grazing animals in Ntungamo and Sembabule. People who own animals don’t actually beat them. When you see somebody beating animals, you know they are not his. 

Kamara: What do you make of the words of the former commander of NRA, Gen Elly Tumwine? We have heard soldiers saying “we shall shoot you, we shall kill you, and we can never hand over power even if it is constitutionally or democratically elected.” These are the people that you served with and as a senior citizen we would want to know what you make of such stuff
Mushega: Never use the word “never!” I see people say, “This will never happen to Uganda.” You can say “we shall try our best to see that this thing does not happen to Uganda.” I don’t blame those who say those things because some of them are saying things that are not supposed to be seen and discussed. I have seen many people say it. Sometimes the truth is bitter, I wouldn’t say them (words) myself but as they say them, they should tell what is in somebody’s thinking. I have seen Gen Tumwine’s caption and I saw the one of Brig Sande. Counterforce doesn’t solve problems. It is a national crisis and I have seen people in NRM primaries beating each other up. 

Kamara: Do you believe elections can help in change of guard and bring in a breed of leaders perhaps who will lead the country to a certain course that can take us to calm waters than where we are now?
Mushega: As long as President Museveni is a candidate in Uganda, it is not impossible, but it is very difficult to organise a free and fair election. It is very difficult! Change of the freedom fighters opens a gap to new opportunities and my colleagues owe that to Uganda. We have the responsibility to hand over power peacefully to others and we can give advice.

Kamara: There seems to be a dichotomy of young people versus the old. For heaven’s sake, if you look back, President Museveni ran against Dr Milton Obote in the 80s. He ran against Dr Kawanga Ssemogerere and has run against Dr Kizza Besigye. Doesn’t it look a bit strange that a person has been running for presidency since 1980 and is now running against somebody that he found in diapers in 1987, a musician of a different generation?
Mushega: First of all, when you try to militarise everything, you have to be militant in order to achieve your results. I think we have also militarised prayers. I have seen people say they are prayer warriors. There has been an element that emerges that you have to be vigilant, you don’t have to be calm. But what I did as a young boy at university we can’t do it now. There is a limit which your body can allow you to push. So, it enhances the young to say “it is our time to challenge” because they see no future. 

The only people to say ‘it is our time’ are the young because they have nothing to lose and the future is at stake. So, it is important for those who are older to do things in an orderly way. We must create room where there is orderly growth.

 You cannot be in Senior One forever. And I have said many times that the problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not just bad laws. It is that we don’t implement bad laws that we ourselves have made. You make a law and when it is inconvenient to you, you abuse it before amending it.

Our country seems to be very polarised. There seems to be a generation that is fighting against the old and I am sure young people have always been told that they are the leaders of tomorrow, but they see octogenarians in leadership and they are not leaving. So they want to sit on the table.

Kamara: How do we get out of this? Hasn’t the bus of smooth transition left us? 

Mushega: It is not too late. You know Uganda has never had a leader who hands over to another peacefully. 

And when you see these young people, they call this young man ‘a ghetto boy’. Let me tell you two things: these are our products. If you deny normal processes to take place, the body has its own ways of sorting itself out. It suffocates you. 

For example, this young man, if you see him, he is a boy from the ghetto. You know if you grew up in the ghetto, you come out, you study. You go to Makerere [University]. I saw somebody saying he has a degree in MDD [Music, Dance and Drama]. That one should have been careful not to talk about degrees. That was his choice. He graduates. He attracts the public. You play his music. He stands and wins and he is able to draw attention.

A person who doesn’t deny their background is a credible person. I am not saying he should be president or shouldn’t be. Are some of us not from village ghettos?

 Don’t we have children who have grown up in Bugolobi and Kololo and all over the place who have failed to make it in life? Why don’t you give credit where it is due that somebody has come up and is able to put up a formidable team and ask yourself how all this came to happen. It is nice to pass on the knowledge to the younger generation because cemeteries are not known to advise people.

Kamara: The East African Community (EAC) that you served as secretary general was a good thing. But as we stand now, Uganda is not exporting to Rwanda, Rwanda is not talking to Burundi, our goods in Kenya are getting a lot of non-tariff barriers and exporters are crying that they have lost money. South Sudan is in a never ending conflict.It looks like this East African Community project is failing
Mushega: No, it will not fail like the old one. It will limp. It will not fail because nobody in their senses will say “we don’t need the EAC.” Actually, we are meaningless states. Originally the Maasai would move in Kenya and Tanzania the way they wished. Actually we are back to scrabble: we worry about others than ourselves. 

We worry about other people’s styles and values, names, foods and whatever than ourselves. We shall sink together or be swallowed individually and our survival is in creating big units that make economic sense; that can have a political clout. All leaders see this and I don’t believe leaders alone can put together the integration process.

We tested the old community, we tested the new one, the young generation don’t even know Uganda, and they don’t know Tooro. We have cut them into small villages. We have lost our dignity. When we were growing up you had to value your mother’s cooking 10 times better than smelling millet in the neighbourhood.
When Africans are killed, we don’t value ourselves, so we don’t value our people and we don’t value our survivors and everybody looks at Africa as one. But they eat us portion by portion. This community, to me, will not collapse. It will limp on, in the long run it will pick up. Otherwise, we are doomed. 

Kamara: When was the last time you spoke to President Museveni? Have you challenged him on the need for transition?
Mushega: What do you mean by the last time? I talk to Museveni. Wouldn’t that make you feel better? I said in 2004 and 2005 we met him many times, persuading him not to change the Constitution. He went ahead and changed it. 
Personally, I don’t believe that if I disagree with you, Kamara, that should be the end between me and you. Kwisha! There will be disagreements in society and people must look for a way around. I talk to Museveni, yes. If he invites me, I meet him and if I need to meet him, I say “can I meet you?” Once in a while we can meet. So, don’t say the last time.