Museveni Must Go !!

Concerned about the future of his 25-year rule, Uganda’s once-popular President Yoweri Museveni is taking drastic measures to prevent an opposition uprising like that witnessed in the Arab World.

Kampala’s largest bookstore is impressive. President Yoweri Museveni
Museveni has started using violence against his people

Just next to the motivational publications that tell you how to think like a millionaire even if you are broke, there is a Ugandan section.

State of Blood is sadly not a novel, it is the inside story of Idi Amin.

The Dungeons of Nakasero is another tough read.

I was looking for a copy of the book, What Is Africa’s Problem?

In it, the author says, back in 1986: “The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power.”

And who wrote it? The current president, Yoweri Museveni, who has been in the job for 25 years.

I know what it is like to live under Idi Amin, to have roadblocks, to hear gunshots
Diana Nkesiga

The government will not admit it, but all is not well in Uganda right now.

Food and fuel prices have gone through the roof and seizing an opportunity to hurt the government, the opposition called walk-to-work protests, a cunning way of getting around the ban on demonstrations, as President Museveni has seen enough evidence of their impact in the Arab world.

But when politicians started strolling to work they were arrested.

Walking, it seemed, had become a crime.

Each time the main opposition politician Doctor Kizza Besigye resisted arrest, there were ever more violent clashes.

Ugandans watched the evening news and were horrified.

The sight of plainclothes policemen smashing the politician’s car windows and spraying him with chemicals before dumping him on the back of a truck was the tipping point.

Angered by what people condemned as police brutality, riots erupted.

Out came the army and the tear gas and the bullets.

Changed man

Whilst most Ugandans are disgusted by the way police have handled protests, the government has appeared out of touch, stubbornly defending the use of force.

President Museveni used to be seen as very much in touch with the people and almost everyone agrees he did a fantastic job for the country for part of his time in office.

But now with increased reliance on the military, the signs are not good.

In a Kampala restaurant I met George Kanyeihamba. He was a minister and attorney general when President Museveni came to power in 1986.

He retired from life as a Supreme Court judge last year and is extremely worried about where Uganda is headed.

He suggested the very issues of injustice that led to Yoweri Museveni taking up arms were coming back.

I asked him to compare the Museveni he knew then and the man now.

“They are two different people,” he said.

“Some Ugandans have said that if the Yoweri Museveni of 1986 were to meet the Museveni of today they would fight on sight – they would shoot each other.”

Reader Comments:

am a business man who loves his country so much…. but what so ever happens when Besigye demonstrates leaves us business people in Kampala in tears, loses and regrets. what am i trying to is say fellow Ugandans lets look in to the consequences of our actions before we take up such actions and its like the likes of my party president Besigye does not see what loses we make when he demonstrates and that is so bad to poor Ugandans like us. Besigye went to school not him alone and others who claim to be fighting for me and other fellow Ugandans rights but why don’t we use some organized ways of demonstration so that we the business people do not suffer loses in one way or another……………
- Posted By ian on 01/23/2012