Category: Politics

{What do you make of this cat and mouse games between you and the State? }

I fully understand it from its depth because the NRM regime is really now in a siege mentality. It is and may be rightly so, feeling it is surrounded by enemies because the citizens have turned against it and the only way to maintain power is to project force to cause fear for everyone to submit by feeling if you don’t do so there will be trouble for you.

In the campaign we ended, we made it clear ours was going to be a defiance campaign which had two main objectives.

The first was to empower our citizens with information that raises their confidence as citizens and makes them aware that unless they regain their power in the country, their problems won’t go away and as long as a small clique monopolises power they will also monopolise use of national resources and therefore the poverty, poor services and unemployment won’t go away.

The second objective was to give them tools to organise and defy the injustice, create leadership and networks that can resist the injustice and defy it and I think the regime realised how potent that campaign was because in the short span of three months the whole country was up and active and involved and contributing money and other resources to liberate themselves.

{Are some of these things such as Power 10 and the defiance campaign not mere high sounding proclamations and empty slogans? Are they not paper tigers?}

Your first question was the in and out of cells situation and how I see it ending. Well, if the defiance campaign wasn’t successful then I would be a free person; they wouldn’t be scared at all.

Of course we had a short span of three months, we could only do so much but the little we did had a profound effect so they are worried now that if we drive it a notch higher they will no longer be able to maintain power.

The argument of the NRM is that it was elected, never mind the anomalies, by at least 60 per cent of registered voters and they have a constitutional duty to ensure law and order. You have vowed to make Uganda ungovernable and defy the State and that is why they are putting you to order for the greater good of peace in society
But how would I achieve that as a person? In fact, it is shameful that it is Mr Museveni and his regime making such arguments. Museveni took to the bush and used guns that killed people because he believed that an election was rigged. He didn’t test it anywhere.

Possibly the courts at the time couldn’t be a fall-back. Today, again notwithstanding your reservations, the courts are functional at least better than 1980.

Of course there were courts at the time. He didn’t test his belief that the election was rigged, he went to the bush and eventually the war was won, the winning of the war vindicated his belief that the election was rigged because if there was no popular support for the war it wouldn’t have been won.

But in our case this regime has been in power for 30 years, we have more than 80 per cent unemployment of youth, healthcare in total decay as we exposed it in elections and they had to guard so more filth is not thrown into the public eye. So the source of popular discontent is not unknown.

If Museveni had won with 60 per cent, you would have had somewhere people celebrating but as soon as Badru Kiggundu (EC chairperson) announced (results) an aura of mourning descended on the country.

The Constitution of Uganda deliberately envisaged that what the EC announces may not be true so it provided a mechanism of going to court. From the very day after elections I have been a prisoner and it is the candidate not the party that can petition. At any rate he has the responsibility of rallying the resources for the campaign and so on. The candidate would be having his agents everywhere.

Let me come in right there. You claimed you couldn’t petition the Supreme Court because the State frustrated you. What was the extent of this frustration?
It was comprehensive.

{Can you unpack it for the reader? }

Not only was I incarcerated, our head office was invaded and taken over for three weeks, the up country offices too were invaded, more than 300 leaders and agents were arrested in that time. You saw what happened to the petitioner who eventually went to court, Mr Amama Mbabazi, his lawyers’ offices were broken into, witnesses interfered with.

That is the situation we are encumbered with and why Mr Museveni cannot claim to be a conclusive winner of the election because you become conclusively elected if at the very least the constitutional processes have been exhausted.

That was exhausted when Mr Mbabazi, with all the issues you have highlighted, challenged the election in the highest court in the land and his case fell flat. The constitutional import of that is that Mr Museveni became conclusively elected.
But as I have told you in our case we weren’t afforded the opportunity to even consider going there.

{You chastised the Supreme Court throughout your campaign, blew hot and cold how you will never return to their lordships having lost the 2001 and 2006 petitions and now people are starting to compare your contradictions to the man you oppose. Why the change of mind?}

You see I was very clear it was a defiance campaign that means we shall resist the injustice and override it. We knew there is a partisan and biased EC but we leave it no room to announce another person if we are sufficiently organised.

What happened in Kasese is a case in a point, the reason the people there are in trouble is because everything was tried to rig but these people through defiance overwhelmed all this. They stayed at the tally centre for three days before they announced the winner, they shot and killed someone, they just pulled the body, buried and others stayed.

So even when institutions are clearly unfair you can win when there is such overwhelming power of right on your side.

So the court system has three main problems, first the time frame within which court processes are carried out. Ten days to file a petition that satisfies the substantiality test. By comparison, an MP has a month to gather evidence for a petition and a presidential candidate 10 days to cover the country gathering evidence and it must be ruled on in 30 days including time within which the other people respond to that evidence.

So in effect the court has about 10 days to hear the petition. Court is not supposed to conduct an election petition as a trial, it is an inquiry, so one would have expected that according to the mandate of the court they would be moved to investigate what happened, they don’t have the time to do so that is why a recount can’t be carried out.
The second weakness is the standard of proof that I have talked about and the third is the impartiality of the court because like in this case with nine justices all were made judges by Mr Museveni.

{In 2006 the same court with all the pressure from the regime came close to allowing your petition in a hair thin margin of 4:3. Justices Tsekoko, Oder and Kanyeihamba held that the election be annulled, are you being fair to the court?}

Well, he didn’t appoint Tsekoko and Oder, they were already judges.

But Prof George Kanyeihamba had been a minister and strong NRM cadre so it is not entirely true that serving Museveni strips a judge of their independence.
Kanyeihamba is the odd man out.

You know that even lower courts such as the High Court have acquitted you in cases attracting a maximum of a death sentence and those judges are appointed by and in the same system. They could have as well been manipulated to secure you a place in the jail.

But you see now the source of impartiality is that all the nine were made judges by Mr Museveni, many of them were NRM cadres including the Chief Justice, the others were ministers and in the NRM secretariat so inherently one would at the very minimum consider their impartiality suspect but if you have amassed overwhelming evidence because you are going to present it in the face of the country one would consider the court option. Again an act of defiance; throw everything in their face and see what they do with it so the court is itself put on trial and exposed just like we have done with EC.

{Mr Njagagua said Kenyans should not pretend that the 2008 chaos never occurred.}

A Jubilee MP has said that Kenya should not pull out of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC), saying this would be the best way to help deter future chaos.

Mbeere North MP Muriuki Njagagua said the country was usually torn along tribal lines and it would be inappropriate to withdraw from the court that could tame any individual out to cause chaos.

“I don’t want us to leave ICC because chaos may erupt again. The West should, however, treat us as equal partners,” said the legislator.

He at the same time called for the disclosure of the contents of the Waki envelope that named key suspects in the 2007/2008 post-election violence, saying this will help reveal the truth about it.

Mr Njagagua said Kenyans should not pretend that the chaos never occurred, even after the dropping of cases against the six individuals who had been charged in the ICC.

Speaking Saturday at Siakago Girls High School during the opening of a dormitory, Mr Njagagua said there was need to know who was actually to blame for the fight to help initiate a healing process.

“Let ICC look at the real culprits who were involved in the fight.

“We demand the disclosure of the names in the Waki envelope so that we can know the truth. We paid for the commission and deserve to know the contents,” he said.

COMPENSATION FOR PEV VICTIMS

Mr Njagagua also called for complete reparation of the victims of the post-election violence, saying many lives and property were lost.

The legislator, at the same time, defended the Jubilee administration against accusation from Cord leaders that it had underperformed, saying it had scored excellently.

He said the construction of the standard gauge railway and other infrastructural developments had helped the country make huge strides in development.

“I would give it an A, or an A- on the lower side,” he said.

Mr Njagagua criticised Cord leader Raila Odinga for giving a state of the nation address, saying it was unconstitutional.

He said Mr Odinga broke the law since only the Head of State is allowed to make the address.

Mr Njagagua also called on the Central Bank of Kenya to tighten its supervisory instruments to weed out errant bankers who were carrying out illegal activities in the banks.

He said it was unfortunate that three banks had gone under in a span of six months while CBK only learnt of it while it was too late.

“Central Bank (of Kenya) must tighten the bolts and nuts of monitoring what banks are doing.

“It is disheartening to see people lose their life savings. Three banks have collapsed in a span of six months which is not right,” said Mr Njagagua.

{The International Organisation of la Francophonie suspended cooperation with Burundi, citing worsening security and the East African nation’s failure to hold inclusive political dialogue to end a yearlong crisis.}

The Paris-based group, which was created in 1970 to encourage solidarity between French-speaking nations, announced the decision in a statement on its website. All programmes have been suspended except those “directly benefiting the civilian population and those which may contribute to the restoration of democracy,” it said. French is one of Burundi’s official languages.

Landlocked Burundi has been rocked by unrest that’s killed more than 470 people since April 2015, when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans to stand for a third term, a move criticized by his opponents as unconstitutional.

Presidential adviser Willy Nyamitwe criticised the organization’s move in comments posted on his Twitter account. “It’s as if la Francophonie was a god and Burundi should bow down to this denial of its sovereignty,” he said.

{Burundi is to sign a memorandum of understanding with African Union officials following concerns the government is violating citizens’ rights.}

Burundi Foreign Minister Alain Nyamitwe denied accusations that his government uses state security agencies, as well as supporters, to violate the rights of opponents. He says the administration in Bujumbura is cooperating with African Union (AU) officials, who are currently in the country to investigate allegations of abuse.

The government is committed to protecting the rights of citizens regardless of their political affiliation, Nyamitwe says.

“I, again, don’t understand that while we are using the language of openness, others are in the business of blackmailing the government, calling the government names, which I believe is not going in the right direction,” he said. “Now as far as we are concerned, it is up to the AU monitors through the AU military experts to tell their part of the story. But as far as we are concerned, we have done our best.”

Nyamitwe’s comments follow criticism by opposition groups that the government has been engaged in violating citizens’ rights. Fueling this claim is the March 31 death of former Rwandan Ambassador Jacques Bihozagara in prison in Bujumbura.

Critics of the government say the death is an example of the administration’s disinterest in protecting the rights of citizens. They demand an independent inquiry into Bihozagara’s death, as well as complete access to international human rights monitors and the United Nations police in investigating rights’ violations in the country.

Nyamitwe dismissed critics’ claims.

“These are the same people who … asked the Security Council to get involved in Burundian affairs,” he said. “Now that the Security Council has come up with a resolution, they are the very first people to reject the resolution. … they don’t know what they are talking about.”