18/01/2014 Your excellency I have much pleasure and privilege for this rare chance of connecting to an African President. For a lowest of the low to have such opportunity and confidence that he will remain in one piece, without being harassed by security agents is one of the visible fundamental changes you ushered in. During the past regimes, whenever a man in army uniform moved to a certain location, residents of that village had to pack up and go as soon as possible but now this uniform is a symbol of security; in actual fact many would welcome soldiers as their neighbours to help combat robbers and murderers etc. To me this is a great fundamental change. We live with soldiers, we do business with them, we joke, they give us lifts without any suspicion. If someone disappears tomorrow, the media will write down the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and if they suspect your government to have a hand they will raise the issue freely and openly, this is a groovy fundamental change and many others, but your excellency I wish to draw your attention to the deteriorating human rights situation, the abuse of power, the overthrow/abrogation of a peoples constitution, corruption and lack of transparency among others. Democracy is both a process and a result. Having free and fair elections(by African standard)is a process, but if this process does not deliver expected results, these elections would have brought in a government that is not democratic, since democracy can only function with other building blocks such as respect to voices of dissent, free judiciary, tolerance,constitutional checks and balances. It takes a few days to print ballot papers but putting these building blocks in place needs patience, perseverance and respect to peoples civil liberties. People are worried about the brutal manner in which Gen Kayihuras militarised police is cracking down on peaceful assemblies of people, even students who are trying to convey a message to their President! When a Makerere university student called Sserwanga was murdered during Amins time(Swines regime), the government allowed students from institutions of higher learning to demonstrate, I remember seeing a few police cars accompanying them t ensure their safety. Your excellency, Mr Eriasi Lukwago, the Lord Mayor was elected by the people of Kampala, in as usual,a rigged elections in which your candidate was trounced.Democratic values and principles dictate that, the winner and the looser shake hands and embrace each other as a sign of honouring the outcome and declaring the cessation of hostilities by pacifying the battlefields. The position of Kampala Executive Director, is not in good faith and should be axed for the good of the country. The democracy you fathered twenty years ago, hasnt progressed as expected, it is still in its infant stages, it still needs your fatherly and genuine tenderness, guidance and truthfulness. The unlawful detentions and movement restrictions against people who are trying to express their democratic rights is a travesty of justice, a mockery, a contravention and wastage of lives lost in the five-year guerrilla war you waged against bad governance. Justice and independence of the judiciary can not be determined, only when they are in favour of the sitting President, they can rather be best judged when court rulings are issued against an African strongmans interests. The history of the world has shown us that almost all long-serving, aging leaders have been victims of mushroom treatment; whoever is looking forward for appetising mushrooms, he has to strive to put them in the dark and feed them with as much rubbish as he can. Gen Kayihura, Jennifer Musisi among others as keen contenders of your office are laying their foundations at your detriment, and those around you are self-seekers who read your mind before venturing any piece of advice. Southern Sudan This is either a miscalculation the way Idi Amin miscalculated his invasion of Tanzania or the work of an invisible hand holding a blind mans hand to a disaster spot. Since parliament is dominated by your own party members, it would have been in your best interest to consult it before embarking on such suicidal, death-dicing mission. I think you would have set a very good precedent of putting in place a professional, productive, pro-people army other than the present war/scare-mongering monsters whose sensibilities are deadened by the sounds of war drums. My worry is that one day, a wise mans fears might turn out to be a reality at a great cost to the nation which we cant contemplate, the fear is the force with which a worrier terrorises society/neighbours is the same force which threatens that worrier. Many people think that the deployment of our army in South Sudan war, with out the authorisation of Parliament, was not only a contempt of parliament but an abuse of power and abrogation of the constitution, if we were in a parliamentary democracy, you would have been subjected to a motion of impeachment. In western democracy, an elected leader is answerable to Parliament. In UK there is what is known as Prime Ministers question time, whereby the Prime minister gets roasted live on National television by MPs in the House of Commons, but in our situation,our massive House of Parliamentarians, robots,cartoons and goons has no chance to check your excessive powers. Corruption Everyone is speechless when it comes to this broad day robbery of state coffers, I will only raise two or three alarms: Most people do not regard this as only corruption, the public opinion is that this is tribalism since almost all those involved are from your home area, and what exacerbates the situation further is that the Banyankole who have accumulated ill-gotten wealth say that there is institutional nepotism with in the tribalism, whereby there are those known as the inner circle who are either directly or indirectly related to you in one way or another such as Foreign Minister Sam Kuteesa. Your excellency, this is a very dangerous precedent as I know many people from the west who are reaping from their hard-earned money but being targeted or watched as well by virtue of being westerners. Many people think that it is not fair, and beats common sense for you to move around the country with bags of money dishing it out to your supporters since the country belongs to everyone including opposition activists. Your excellency, we were all born the same very painful way by our mothers, but what irritates is to read in a daily newspaper, a story of twenty pregnant women who died because the only ambulance in the district was confiscated by the court bailiffs, this beggars a question, what are the governments priorities! If people had a right to express themselves, I vouch many would vote for the Bigirimanas shs 265 billion youth livelihood programme to be put on moving the capital to Karuma or Nakasongola since Kampala can no longer accommodate the exploding population. The move would ease traffic and congestion. Your excellency the existence of too many bodabodas is not a sign of development when other countries are busy planning for as many railway lines as they can. Every developed country has government owned bus services similar to the Uganda Transport Company which you killed and sold at shs 50/=,our buses were doing a great job, but now some roads are impassable or totally blocked by the tens of thousands of min buses(kamunye).People say that each of your close relatives may own up to fifty minibuses and up to fifty bodabodas! During rush hours it takes one two hours to get to the new Freedom city in Namasuba from the old tax park! I believe you had a chance to transform our country into a more developed country than it is, since International coffee prices have been rising up from time to time, oil was discovered during your time, we never received financial aid as we have been getting during your time so on and so forth. I m sure you can still be the father of the nation if at all you can stoop and listen as you used to do, I remember John Nagenda and Kintu Musoke tried to whinge loudly about this.Not every dissenting voice is of a saboteur or keen and ambitious for Binaisas Entebbe ewoma,some are genuine, principled Ugandans who are driven by patriotism and nationalistism. Adam Kifuddekwesiba Kabano London-UK
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 00:48:43 +0000
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