OP-ED

Uganda’s political discourse under captivity

By Oweyegha-Afunaduula

Captive universities, captive minds, captive state, captive politics! Our political discourse remains under the captivity of the military and money. In the past, one did not need to be politically entrenched in the military or heavily monetarily endowed to be elected as a leader.

However, the long reign of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni has conditioned the captive minds of Ugandans to accept this as the reality of our politics. This reality has rendered meaningful and effective civic education a mere perturbation a factor to be resisted or distorted by those in power.

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Consequently, voters are at the mercy of military and monetary manipulation wielded by those in power and candidates with financial resources. Leadership skills no longer matter.

Today, this is the case: voters are merely used to legitimize militarily approved and monetarily empowered candidates who use the money to buy votes and the military to militarize the political discourse, including elections. Therefore, there is no genuine participation of Ugandans in the political process through elections.

The centrality of the military and money in choosing leaders cannot be overstated. Both continue to incrementally distort the political discourse in the country.

As a result, even if Ugandans organize themselves into political parties, these parties have been rendered both ineffective and irrelevant to the political discourse. The supremacy of the over-militarized and over-monetized National Resistance Movement (NRM) is upheld through military and financial power.

Meanwhile, nationally cast projects and programs are turned into NRM initiatives, particularly during election periods, even when public funds are used to finance them. Given the deeply entrenched political underdevelopment and widespread political illiteracy in the country, the people are made even more captive to the NRM. The party presents these projects and programs as its own innovations and achievements.

The captive universities do little to clarify or articulate what belongs to the nation and what belongs to the Movement. Having been stripped of intellectual dynamism, these institutions have been reduced to mere academic units.

The question remains: Who will liberate Uganda and Ugandans from the over-militarized, over-monetized National Resistance Movement to make electoral processes meaningful and effective in producing the leaders we desire?

For God and My Country.

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