IMPEACHMENT OF LORD MAYOR; A LESSON FOR OUR GENERATION I had resisted from commenting on the impeachment of the Kampala City Lord Mayor Mr. Erias Lukwago. However, because of the pressure from my self conscience that keeps triggering me to express my opinion who normally seek my opinion , I have decided to write down something in that regard. We may need to recall the genesis of the title of Lord Mayor into the politics of Kampala and Uganda in general. Formerly, there was Kampala City Council (KCC), an elected body that was in-charge of running the Kampala City Affairs. KCC was largely a failed body characterized by massive corruption which led to the collapse of the road system, garbage system among others. During the reign of KCC, attaining the basic services in Kampala was a night mare. As a matter of fact, the former mayors of Kampala and their stooges (read employees) are the filthy rich men around owning land and houses everywhere. In on 24th June, 2009, under the wisdom of His Excellency The President of the Republic of Uganda, Government tabled a bill in Parliament. The Bill sought to establish Kampala City as the capital city of Uganda and to provide for its administration and development by the Central Government. The Bill proposed to establish a Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA); to create the position of a Lord Mayor and a Deputy Lord Mayor; to create the offices of Executive Director and Resident City Commissioner appointed by the President; to create a Metropolitan Planning Authority and Police Force and to create new boundaries of “a metropolitan area” that included Kampala City and the Districts of Mpigi, Wakiso and Mukono. Eventually the bill was passed by Parliament in 2010 and subsequently assented onto by the President becoming a law referred to as “KCCA Act”. In March 2011, the people of Kampala went to the polls to elect their first ever Lord Mayor. If you remember the race was majorly between the former Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and former Chairman of Rubaga Divison, Mr. Peter Sematimba. On the eve of voting, Lukwago and his DP comrades (whom he had snatched from DP into a Buganda Pressure Group called Subi) participated jeopardizing the process of fairly and freely voting for the Lord Mayor of Kampala. They had hips of ballot papers which were stuffed into the ballot boxes in the wee hours of the voting day. Whoever has dealt with DP fellows best knows how these guys are good at rigging elections. Lukwago and his people in turn blamed the government for trying to rig elections in favour of Sematimba. That was a blatant lie and it will always be. The election was postponed and Erias Lukwago eventually emerged a winner. However, Lukwago’s short tenure as the Lord Mayor has been marred by drama and comedy. If we may recall, after his victory he told his supporters that he hadn’t won Sematimba but he had won President Museveni. He will live to regret this statement throughout his life. No person has ever made such a statement and he completes his term of office. The last victim was Winnie Besigye Byanyima. She abandoned her seat as MP for Mbarara Municipality for a United Nations job. May be Erias Lukwago could also join UN very soon. We must remember that as soon as Erias Lukwago became the Lord Mayor, he could not understand his mandate. But nobody could help Lukwago to establish his mandate because he himself had participated in the passing of the KCCA bill in the Eighth Parliament as MP for Kampala Central. Lukwago instead sought a principal advisor in Col. (Rtd) Dr.Kizza Besigye. They embarked on causing drama and chaos in Kampala, disrupting business etc. In the meantime, KCCA had embarked on several developmental projects in the city. What KCCA has done in two years is much greater than what KCC did in ten years. Talking about Lukwago could take ages. However, I wanted to derive a few lessons for our generation. Our cause and hope can never be in living in denial. We must develop strategies of tactfully taking over from the old guard. The old guard will not easily pave way for anybody. The regime is very strong and unshakable. We will not take over through drama like Erias Lukwago. This has never happened anywhere in the world. Though there were similar circumstances in Madagascar where the mayor of Antananarivo overthrew the President in funny circumstances through it was short lived. We will not take over through violence or civil disobedience like what Dr. Kizza Besigye is advancing. This leaves very lethal effects. Look at Egypt, Libya, and Syria among others. These were middle class states which are now crumbling for the title of failed states. We will not take over through civil wars like the renegade General David Sejjusa is proposing. This is extremely dangerous. The world order has changed. This was the system of capturing state power in the 20th Century. We are now in the 21st Century. More so, this is very dangerous. It usually leads to loss of millions of lives. Therefore, our path should be the path of knowledge. We shall need to read. We shall need to tactfully fill up critical positions in the civil service. We shall have to tactfully send some of our comrades into the security forces. We shall also send some of our comrades into parliament. Eventually, we shall be there. Am an ardent fanatic of the embattled lord mayor but as i write down this i am self assured on the presumption that Erias Lukwago is no longer the Lord Mayor of Kampala. He can’t win this battle. This battle is too big for him. I rest my case in all clarity that i am not a politician so i dont expect anyone to hunt me down because he/she may start a war i wont lose... praying for the omulodi
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:47:55 +0000
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