The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | After reading excerpts of an article by Salim Saleh’s daughter in which she attempted to shield the first family from recurring accusations of family rule, this question besieged my thoughts.
What is the purpose of privilege? Esteri Mugurwa Akandwanaho, a niece of President Yoweri Museveni and chairman of the ruling party National Resistance Movement (NRM), is part of the inner circle of the First Family.
Her father, Museveni’s brother, is bush war royalty, a presidential advisor and head of Operation Wealth Creation, General Salim Saleh. In the 30 August New Vision article, ‘Myth of Uganda’s family affair: what critics won’t say about power’, Mugurwa counters that accusing the First Family of family rule is to lose sight of the debate about constitutional safeguards.
She writes that, “Political families exist everywhere…Uganda is far from unique in this regard. The real question is not how many relatives enter politics, but whether institutions are strong enough to check their power.”
Mugurwa asserts that Uganda’s governance challenges are less about kinship ties and more about the failure of oversight bodies, such as the judiciary and legislature, among others.
She continues, “Criticism of family appointments should be directed not at kinship itself, but at the institutions tasked with vetting and monitoring appointees…The measure of leadership must be competence and accountability,” she wrote, “not merely one’s surname.”
She makes a few valid points – it is not her fault that she is a blood relative of the President. In Ugandan speak, she is ‘a born of’ the Museveni family. It is also factual that political families are normal.
However, her noble attempt is largely disingenuous and deftly sidesteps the broader reality of Uganda’s political landscape. Hence, the question: what is the purpose of privilege?
As a nation, we are at a precipice, tottering towards a political transition that is yet to look peaceful. The First Son, chief of the defence forces (CDF), Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has been unashamed in his partisan foray into politics, spectacularly disregarding the supreme law of the land – the Constitution of Uganda.
He has not spluttered in his rage-baiting tweets about his disregard for constitutionalism, his penchant for militant force, his racial superiority and closeness to Jesus Christ, his visceral abhorrence of the opposition, and his rabid political outfit masquerading as a pressure group, the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU).
PLU is flagrantly shaping itself as the successor of the National Resistance Party (NRM), the incumbent ruling party since 1986. The freedom, peace, and seemingly abundant resources with which PLU mobilises and organizes birthday parties, marathons, and marches in support of their supreme leader, Muhoozi, is a thing of beauty.
While the opposition attracts the premium violence of state security forces, PLU goes about frolicking like a vain and entitled beautiful girl in a heavily fortified field of yellow flowers, as the army and police ooh and ahh over her state-sponsored beauty.
A field that is only open to her because her father runs the state that manages the field, hence the heavy fortifications that keep ‘the other’ out of the field. ‘The other’ who seek use of that field are abducted, arrested, tortured, and/or unalived.
Again, what is the purpose of this frolicking privilege? The dictionary defines privilege as a “special benefit, right or advantage granted to a person or group because of their position or wealth.”
Mugurwa’s argument underscores that her familial privilege is not her doing and so should not be her undoing. Just like a child desires to be a doctor following in the footsteps of his/her doctor parents.
If that child had been born into a poor and illiterate family beset with teenage pregnancy and disease, him/her would have to fight ferociously to blast their way out of that hellish cycle of poverty and ignorance.
A Psychology Today November 2016 article, ‘You are not a bad person: Facing privilege can be liberating’, states, “privilege is structural and not individual, it has nothing to do with goodness or badness. It’s plainly a factual reality about life.”
The internet adage ‘Check your privilege’ cautions us to take a step back and assess the systems and perceptions that make our lives more favourable in comparison with the lives of those far less privileged.
While Mugurwa faults the oversight bodies for not doing their job, we would be intentionally obtuse to downplay the glaring fusion of the presidency and the state. As I have reiterated in previous columns, the parliament speaker Anita Annet Among is a fine example of this fusion.
She has publicly declared on several occasions that, as the head of Uganda’s legislative body, her main objective is to ensure ‘her parliament’ does not disturb President Museveni’s sleep. Why does the speaker say that?
She has understood that the heart of power is not the Constitution or that power belongs to people/Ugandans – but the beating heart of President Museveni. Whereas Mugurwa is disturbed by recurring wagging tongues about the extent of Museveni’s family rule, speaker Anita Annet Among acknowledges it unapologetically.
In August 2023, during her ‘homecoming’ rallies in her stronghold, Bukedea, she addressed Muhoozi thus, “For us in Bukedea district, we believe in the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit. Over 300 MPs are here just to show you that the 11th parliament loves you…”
In March 2024, she lauded President Museveni for promoting his son, “I want to thank President Museveni so much for promoting our young brother, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba to become CDF. For us, we believe in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are still here with you, the father. When you tell us to move, we shall move to the son [Muhoozi] and be guided by the Holy Spirit…”
In case, you are wondering who the ‘holy spirit’ is, it is you, dear voter. Among, a dedicated Catholic and frequent flyer to the Vatican, at an NRM rally in June to mobilise support for the party in Buganda, was quite explicit, “We believe in the Trinity. We believe God the Father; God the Father is President Museveni. God the Son is MK, and now you are the Holy Spirit. Therefore, vote for them…”
Among’s extravagant fawning reminds us that privilege is about power and access. While Mugurwa rightly calls upon Ugandans to discard their silent apathy and hold their leaders accountable, that’s just a thin slice of the story.
In the words of celebrated Ugandan author, Jennifer Makumbi, ‘Let’s tell this story properly.’ For Mugurwa, this is the story of her familial privilege and why this matters because privilege is also about responsibility; as the saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility”.
When Mugurwa asserts that the measure of leadership must be competence and accountability, not merely one’s surname, she deliberately closes her eyes to the reality around her and the responsibility embedded within her privilege.
On May 2, Muhoozi, in an utmost show of his fine privilege, tweeted most egregiously about an opposition member, Eddie Mutwe, who had gone missing. Muhoozi defiantly jested that he had Mutwe in his custody, that he had captured Mutwe “like a grasshopper” and was “using him as a punching bag” and thus the now dishonourable statements about teaching him Runyankore in his basement (insinuating torture).
Muhoozi further taunted the opposition, “If they keep on provoking us, we shall discipline them even more.” So privileged is MK that when an oversight body like the Uganda Human Rights Commission ordered him to release Mutwe, MK thumbed his powerful nose at them.
To date, Mutwe, who, when he finally made it out of the basement to his first court appearance, was visibly battered and broken, is still in jail. In January, Muhoozi demanded the Supreme court (another oversight institution) apologise for its landmark ruling, which underlined the supremacy of the Constitution of Uganda (the ‘mostest’ oversight of all) over military courts.
Muguruwa’s privilege is not her fault: that is her privilege. However, she must come to terms with her understanding of her privilege and therafa, the purpose of her privilege.
Whether she will wield it with responsibility or impunity. Facing one’s privilege is not a call to guilt or defensiveness but to step into the shoes of ‘the other.’
As acclaimed lawyer, David FK Mpanga put it, “We shall never see the Uganda we want until we develop a central nervous system that enables us to feel each other›s pain.” Now that is proper privilege!
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Olivia Nalubwama is a “tayaad Muzukulu, tired of mediocrity and impunity” smugmountain@gmail.com
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE OBSERVER
