IN KAMPALA: WHAT DOES TINYEFUZA'S BBC INTERVIEW MEAN TO UGANDA?

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BBC’s Charles Hillary (L) interviews Gen David Sejusa in London on Tuesday. Gen Sejusa accused Museveni of seeking a life presidency. COURTESY PHOTO  

By Timothy Kalyegira

Before the spy master’s letter leaked to the media, he flew to London. But what does that mean? Does he have the backing of a foreign power or foreign powers? If so, which are those?

Before I get into the BBC World Service and BBC World TV interview of Gen David Tinyefuza a.k.a. Sejusa that everyone is talking about, I’ll start with a related matter.

Last week, I was back to my painful relationship with Umeme. They cut off my electricity. I paid up and as usual, they failed to reconnect me for six days, even after repeated calls to their customer care and getting phone calls from Umeme officials.

The level of disorganisation and incompetence at Umeme, apart from being annoying, is alarming. It is a reflection of a wider problem of the near complete collapse of the collective whole in Uganda, the breakdown of the public spirit and the decay of institutions.

And this State collapse is now headed in the direction of a national security threat. Although it is a publicly listed company on the Uganda Securities Exchange, Umeme acts like a parastatal company on the verge of collapse, if the incompetence of its top, middle and junior managers, is anything to go by.

For the last 20 years, President Museveni has created or allowed to emerge a system of personalised rule, weakening institutions and centering power in his hands.

Ministers have little real power, presidential advisors speak of going for five years without meeting him, ambassadors are appointed without any embassy in mind and an army Captain can have more powers than a Major-General.

It has led to an erosion of morale, made Ugandans cynical about public service, now seeking to work only where they can plunder their offices. The rot has now spread into the private sector, best seen in companies like Umeme.

Umeme’s top management does not seem to know what middle management is doing and middle management in turn does not seem to be able to supervise junior staff. If this is the way Umeme operates in Kampala, one wonders what takes place in remote towns, where, I’m sure, its company cars are used to ferry firewood or smuggle goods across the borders.

Ugandan passports are regularly bought by Nigerian drug and human smugglers. Billions of shillings are looted without fear.
The way company and government cars, passports and funds are abused, is the same way the State could soon be infiltrated by a guerrilla group subverting the government from within.

Tinyefuza interview
Which leads me to the BBC interview with Gen Tinyefuza, aired on Tuesday June 18 on the “Focus on Africa” radio and TV programmes and re-run the next day in the main world news radio programme “News Day”.
Speaking in his soft baritone voice, the cantankerous General, it was clear from the interview, has now mutinied. He has declared war on Museveni. He is now a renegade. He is not coming back, at least not in the ordinary sense of the meaning by flying in via Entebbe International Airport on a commercial flight.

Government spokesman Ofwono Opondo and army spokesman Paddy Ankunda responded to the BBC interview by quoting Ugandan law, court rulings and UPDF acts, not realising that events have fast overtaken the government.

That is the problem with basing one’s whole concept of power on the use of force and intrigue. When one cannot use force, one looks quite weak and pitiable.

Museveni is at his most relevant and powerful only in Uganda. The geographical and political territory called Uganda is the only space on earth where he can do as he likes, order whom he pleases and dictate what he wants into law.

However, once a situation comes up in which he is challenged by a person or entity outside Uganda’s political, geographical and legal boundaries, he is totally powerless.