Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Institutions in Uganda have been abused and overly desecrated

Vincent Nuwagaba

Written on 10th August 2009
I wish to heartily thank the African Executive and Pambazuka, the Pan African Voices for running all my thought provoking articles. Surely, such articles would have no place in the Ugandan Media not because the Uganda media practitioners have no sense of humanity but because there is the dearth of independence simply because the Ugandan papers in a way or another depend on the huge adverts from the government and would rather not risk running a story that will jeopardize their cake. That said, I wish to go straight to the gist of this article which is presenting the state of Ugandan institutions, notably the police force and hospitals.

The Police Force
The Police Force is provided for within Articles 211 and 212 of the 1995 Uganda constitution. Its roles include among others; to establish, advance and enhance peace and stability, rule of law and good governance. Article 211(3) gives the attributes of the police force and quoted verbatim says, “The Uganda Police Force shall be nationalistic, patriotic, professional, disciplined, competent and productive; and its members shall be citizens of Uganda of good character”. Ironically, most Police officers are rogues and heartless people although there are some few people with good character. You cannot imagine a person of good character perpetrating and orchestrating torture. Nonetheless, personally I am not surprised because the selection and recruitment of staff in any institution in Uganda is not based on meritocracy but on patronage-client relationships. What applies here is the spoils system which negates meritocracy and fills offices with people who are ready to protect and promote the selfish and often obtuse interests of the rulers. Constitutionally, the Police Force is mandated to protect life and property, preserve law and order, prevent and detect crime and cooperate with other institutions and the population generally.

I have stated before that I was assaulted by the Hospital Guards of Butabika Hospital on the Tuesday of 14th July 2009. To my utter surprise and dismay, the Police Officers under the Officer in Charge of the post Mr. Moses Muhindo refused to record my case even when they had been ordered by their boss Mr. Moses Muhindo to record my assault case. I was however later to be told that why they chose not to record the case and preferred that the case be reported at Jinja Road Police Station is that they felt they would be biased since the culprits work with them at the same hospital. Typical of all failed states I was forced to adopt a top-bottom approach and I thus reported to the Commissioner of Police in charge of Legal Affairs Mr. Sam Kyomukama who picked a phone in my presence and called the Divisional Police Commander (DPC) Jinja Road Police Station to handle the matter and submit the report to him (Mr. Kyomukama). Startlingly, on Monday the 27th July 2009 when I went to Jinja Road Police Station to follow up my assault case, which took place at Butabika Hospital in full view of the Hospital Administrators and medical staff, I was frankly told by the lady sergeant who was to investigate my case in the presence of all other officers in the Minor Controversial Cases (MCB) section that there was no facilitation to carry out investigation. I would have found no problem with facilitating her and indeed I later did facilitate her but I first questioned them whether it was not improper for me a civilian to aid them do police work. First, it undermines the credibility of their findings for they may be forced to lean in favour of the facilitator but secondly it vindicates our long held view that the state institutions in Uganda are utterly, starkly, spartanly, somberly, and ascetically dysfunctional. The state institutions have clearly gone to the dogs or the dogs have come to them like my friend Lyandro Komakech the President of Uganda Young Democrats has always asserted. I wonder whether I will make a claim so that my money is refunded but I also wonder why we should keep paying taxes that cannot be accounted for.

I called the Commissioner of Police in charge of Legal Affairs Mr. Sam Kyomukama twice, the first time in the MCB office and the second time in the office of the Officer in Charge of the Station Mr. Ashraf Seiko Chemonges. Mr. Kyomukama told me that it was not my role to facilitate police but I told him I wanted justice done because as the legal dictum says, “justice delayed is justice denied”. Given what I had discussed with Mr. Kyomukama on phone in the presence of the Officer in Charge of the Station, I pleaded with the OC Station Mr. Ashraf Seiko Chemonges to at least raise from his office some little money for a commuter taxi to Butabika, the scene of the crime, and he couldn’t. He told me, “Nuwagaba, you just want me to cut my wires. We are serving this country patriotically and we get no facilitation to do the job we are doing”. I wondered, does this happen in a regime whose leader upon capturing power promised in his inaugural speech not a mere change of guards but a fundamental change? If the Police institution is not adequately funded yet it is the police that interfaces with civilians on a day to day basis, what other institution is functional. Just a few days ago, Mr. John Ken Lukyamuzi took the President to court over failure to appoint judges (see Daily Monitor, July 24th 2009). What perplexes me is that the Justice, Law and Order Sector (JLOS) continues getting funding from the donors including my mentors, DANIDA Human Rights and Good Governance (HUGGO) - I am a product of DANIDA-HUGGO internship programme which aims at building a critical mass of human rights defenders that will demand accountability from state institutions without fear, favour, affection, ill will or malice. I wish to state without any fear of contradiction that I am living by the expectations of the internship opportunity that DANIDA extended to me. If the donors are genuinely interested in promoting human rights, democracy, rule of law, justice, constitutionalism and above all constitutionalism and accountability, then the Ugandan government during Museveni’s era should not be a destination for their aid for he has shown utter disdain for institutions that would promote the above values. Instead, the funding should be extended to civil society organisations and opposition parties to help them do credible research and documentation. This would help everyone know exactly what shape the state institutions are in.

I was shocked that after I was plainly told that there was no money to facilitate the lady sergeant who sadly spent the whole day without taking anything save for a small bottle of juice and a biscuit I bought for her, many senior police officers including Mr. Soroweni the Regional Police Commander whom I was told is the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Mr. Aguma, Senior Superintendent of Police also Divisional Police Commander Jinja Road Police Station, Mr. Moses Kafeero, Mr. Alfonse Mutabazi and many other junior officers the camped at Butabika Hospital because I was there. I am sure should I make it a habit of going to Butabika, both Butabika Hospital Administration and Police will have sleepless nights and may even die of blood pressure! Later I was told by Inspector of Police (IP) Mutabazi that they have discussed with Dr Tom Onen and therefore I should not go back to Butabika again until my case in the high court is disposed off. I told Mr. Mutabazi that my current case in Butabika has nothing whatsoever to do with Dr Onen unless I am told that it is Dr Onen who ordered the guards to assault me. I know the guards were invoking orders from above and I wondered who above and what above was. I later learnt that above is Ms Grace Lubale, a Senior Hospital Administrator who I wrongly thought would not sink so low as to abuse public institutions because as a person who is believed to have studied Public Administration from the prestigious and mighty Makerere University, she should know that public offices and institutions are impersonal. But also I would expect her to know that as a public officer, she is sustained by the tax payers’ money and as such the tax payer is her boss and hence it is morally repugnant, politically imprudent and legally inexcusable to mistreat any tax payer, Vincent Nuwagaba inclusive. That aside, I wrongly thought that Grace was in a way my friend because I was introduced to her by Honourable Norbert Mao whom she told me she served as a Minister when the latter was Guild President at Makerere University. As the saying goes, a friend of your friend is your friend, I never expected Grace to subject me to such kind of humiliation. I accordingly told her “Grace, look, you are not only a disappointment to me but the antithesis of your name: you are a disgrace”

I have told everyone who cares to listen that I carry no weapon of destruction. I only know how to fire a gun because my dear uncle Lieutenant Theophillus Muhangi was a military officer who served the state diligently but I have had to suffer with his children for so long but otherwise I detest guns for they are actually not meant to protect but to kill. In a civilized society I think there must be the reduction of guns. The fact that many people are applying to own guns is a pointer that criminality is on the rise.

Butabika Hospital
Butabika Mental Hospital has been turned into an extension of torture chambers. Sadly, for it, it is a sophisticated torture chamber because journalists and human rights defenders scarcely follow what takes place there. But it is very clear that the medical practitioners in Butabika who ironically are supposed to be healers have shamelessly turned themselves into killers all in the name of defending none other than Museveni in power. If you got to know exactly what they do, you would definitely be nauseated and disgusted and wonder whether this country has leaders with human hearts. Clearly, all the people taken by the police are 100% sane but are taken there because the police often want to avoid the wrath that would befall them when those illegally detained were to be produced in court. Moreover, it is internationally recognised that it should not be the police to refer people to mental hospitals but the courts of law.

About Tushabomwe Gaudence
The innocent lady is still being fed on drugs which I am certain will ultimately kill her. They stopped her from talking to me arguing that I am a person of unsound mind. Of course this is laughable for I know even the readers have the capacity to discern whose mind is sound and whose mind is unsound. Personally I am convinced now that those heading state instituitions don’t have sound minds. I have written down their names down and they are free to file defamation suits against me. I am aware of two defences in defamation- fair comment and justification. I am more than ready to justify what I have written down. That to date Tushabomwe is still held in Butabika sophisticated torture chambers shows how heartless some Ugandans can be. I know Butabika is no longer a healing institution but a killing institution. All concerned Ugandans, Africans and lovers of humanity world over should wake up to this reality and vehemently, rigorously, strenuously and assiduously oppose this nasty practice. Otherwise we are receding and relapsing into a Hobbesian state of nature where life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. In a state of nature, every man was against every man and I am convinced that here in Uganda that is the direction we are heading to.

The situation of the Uganda Police
That the Uganda Police Force is in an appalling situation goes without saying. One unipot is shared by more than two families; even the senior officers sleep in dilapidated houses; they are underpaid, they are ill-facilitated and the misery is written allover their faces. It would be expecting too much to expect justice, efficiency and efficacy from officers who are 24/7 (twenty four hours, seven days) annoyed. Recently I was in the professional standards unit (PSU) offices in Bukoto and I heard the officers complain about the corrupt police officers. I just laughed at them and asked them if they expected Police Officers to be corrupt-free given their inhuman, despicable and horrid working conditions with very poor pay, dilapidated accommodation and yet they are human and they have human needs like any other member of our society. They need good schools for their children, they need adequate medical care, they contribute to weddings and funerals, and they also have relatives and friends depending on them. President Museveni has totally shown utter disdain of the state institutions but when it comes to the police he has gone into the extremes. No wonder, in the aftermath of 2001 elections in which the police officers massively voted against Museveni, he vowed to restructure the police so that they may learn how to vote “wisely”. This he did by putting the leadership of the Police Force in the ambit of military generals, first with Edward Katumba Wamala and later with Kale Kayihura. General Katumba Wamala tried his level best to enforce discipline in the Police Force and ensure high standards of professionalism. When the public seemed to have appreciated his role, the appointing authority must not have been happy and that explains why he was replaced by the hardliner, hardcore, radical and extremist Kale Kayihura when it comes to defending and implementing the interests of his boss. Museveni’s interest is consolidation and retention of power using any means typical of all Machiavellian Politicians who are guided by the demonic principle of the “end justifies the means”. In a democracy and civilized society it is the purity of means that justifies the end. General Kayihura is a lawyer and I would take him to be a bright lawyer for he has a master’s degree in law but he is one of the most unlawful officers I have seen.

I know the Police Officers or any other Museveni’s crude allies may decide to kill me for I know they fear arguments and debate; they fear the power of the brain; they fear the pen more than the sword. But my little and humble ideas that I have put in black and white will outlive even those who may naively choose to exterminate my life. I look at the nonviolent revolutionaries as my role models and I surely have no apologies over choosing that nonviolent path. Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Patrice Lumumba, Rossa Parks, but above all Jesus Christ are my role models and it is always my prayer to follow into their footsteps. I am also inspired by the Uganda martyrs. Many of my role models are long gone but the standards they set will stay and stay forever. I have no doubt in my mind that Uganda will be liberated and will be liberated soon. The two necessary conditions at the moment are for the peasants to know that the National Resistance Movement has never been for them and hence prepare to show it the exit and the donors to come clear and clean and stop financing this predatory, overly corrupt and antidemocratic establishment for the people for whose donor funds are meant never have access to them. Just like Edmund Burke said, the necessary condition for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Finally, I know President Museveni and his crude allies detest and fear ideas and brains more than they fear guns. Accordingly, out of naivety they may choose to kill me but it would be foolhardy for anyone to attempt to kill me yet I am innocent. Even if I was a criminal, offences that attract the barbaric death penalty are few. That said, I am sure just like a bean seed germinates and produces more beans if buried in the ground, my products will be innumerable if the government kills me. I also would like those wielding power to know that I have studied with too many people, I have too many people and I have interacted with too many people either orally or through my writings. But also, the people of Bushenyi where I hail from still want me to live. So, if they inanely choose to end my life, many government vehicles will be burnt and many other government functionaries will inevitably die as a result for my principled stand against corruption, human rights abuse, deception, moral decadence and social injustices of all forms has surely endeared me to the right thinking members of the Ugandan society and even beyond. All of us have a significant contribution to make to ensure our country is on a democratic path. Together we can make a difference.

Vincent Nuwagaba is a human rights defender and can be reached at vnuwagaba@gmail.com or +256772 843 552


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