Reverend Father Gaetano Batanyenda, the outspoken Catholic cleric
from Kabale Diocese gave an electrifying interview in the Ugandan paper,
Sunday Monitor September 23, titled “Museveni is hostage of his actions
and people around him”. A comment beneath his interview read “If
Uganda had 5 genuine patriots like Fr Gaetano, I think the Pearl of
africa would rise and shine again. Ndiwulira vva mu kasooli. I hope M7 takes
note of all these points raised by the man of God”. Ndiwulira vva
mu kasooli literary means, weevil get out of the maize corns.
Surely, this is an interview that should be taken very seriously by
all Ugandans and all partners of Uganda. I was particularly thrilled
by the fact that Fr Gaetano decried the failure to translate the Constitution
in the various Ugandan languages, a situation that has kept many Ugandans
not only poor but also ignorant.
Like Fr Gaetano stated, Article 4 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda
states that “The state shall promote awareness of this Constitution
by translating it into Ugandan languages and disseminating as wide as
possible and providing for the teaching of the Constitution in all the
educational institutions, armed forces, training and regularly transmitting
and publishing programmes through media generally”.
What baffles me, is that exactly seventeen years after the enactment
of the 1995 Constitution, no effort has ever been made to translate
the Constitution by the government or any of its agencies. The Uganda
Human Rights Commission (UHRC) is mandated to carry out civic education
among other functions. However, it has made no efforts to have our Constitution
translated into different languages. What some of the UHRC staff do
instead is to subject me, human rights activist Vincent Nuwagaba to
inhuman and degrading treatment in addition to labeling me a mentally
deranged person!
Credit must be given to the Human Rights Centre whose chair is Margaret
Ssekagya, former chairperson of the UHRC and current UN Special Rapporteur
on the status of human rights defenders. The Human Rights Centre has
at least laboured to translate chapter four of the Ugandan Constitution
which is dubbed the Uganda Bill of Rights into different languages.
The challenge, however, may be that the copies are not enough for the
entire country.
We must note that we have no legal obligation to put to task the non-governmental
organisations to translate for us the Constitution. What we have is
a mere moral obligation.
I understand, Machiavellian governments like the one we have in Kampala
derive pleasure in having poor and ignorant citizens. That is the sole
reason as to why our Constitution cannot be translated and distributed
to the ordinary citizens who are responsible for Museveni’s hold onto
power.
In the same issue of the Sunday Monitor, Mr Busingye Kabumba, a lecturer
of constitutional law at the once prestigious Makerere University wrote
under the article titled “The 1995 Uganda Constitution is nothing
but an illusory law” that “All power belongs to the President, who
exercises this power through the armed forces”. He went ahead to state
that, “Article 1 of the Constitution is a lie – and the Constitution
in Museveni’s Uganda is an elaborate farce that is cynically perpetrated
by the president to consolidate and extend his hold on power”.
I hereunder reproduce article 1 of the 1995 Ugandan Constitution,
1 (1) All power
belongs to the people who shall exercise their sovereignty in accordance
with this Constitution.
(2) Without limiting
the effect of clause (1) of this article, all authority in the State
emanates from the people of Uganda; and the people shall be governed
through their will and consent.
(3) All power
and authority of Government and its organs derive from this Constitution,
which in turn derives its authority from the people who consent to be
governed in accordance with this Constitution.
(4) The people
shall express their will and consent on who shall govern them and how
they should be governed, through regular, free and fair elections of
their representatives or through referenda.
Mr Busingye Kabumba
rightly avers that if one asked anyone on the Kampala streets where
power lies one would be told that all power belongs to the President
who exercises his sovereignty through the army. This is like he states
the unadulterated truth. What is particularly galling is that the president
no longer exercises his inglorious power through only the army but also
the police which ordinarily should be a civil force.
Why article 1 is a farce
But why is Article
1of our Constitution a farce? The answer clearly lies in the absurd
deliberate decision by President Museveni and his NRM machinery to confine
the knowledge of the Constitution to not only the elites but to a tiny
minority of the elites. During my days at Makerere University, we did
a course in Political Science known as Constitutionalism and Political
stability and then Administrative Law. That was the closest Political
Science students would come close to a Constitution. Not that they felt
the Constitution was important as a tool to defend and assert their
rights and demand accountability from the state but to many, it was
merely a tool to help them pass exams.
I stay with some
law students who have no copy of the Constitution and most likely they
last read it when they were studying Constitutional law or human rights.
The summary of it is that very few know their rights and the few who
know them don’t have the wherewithal to assert them. That’s why
the son of Kaguta will invariably tinker with that sacrosanct document
to suit his interests.
But the most
important reason why our Constitution has become illusory is because
the ordinary citizens have never had a chance to read it. True, our
reading culture is poor but some people in the villages take time to
discover what they are entitled to. I remember when I was a primary
school kid, my grandmother used to read and sometimes give me some books
to read for her – Abagyenda bareeba; Rwakyekoreire Buhaano, Eirwariro
rya Rwango, among others. My grandma couldn’t fail to read the Bible
and catechism book for the Catholic Church.
I am even sure,
if our Constitution was translated some of us would go with copies and
urge the ordinary people to read telling them that is what we read at
the university. How many wouldn’t want to get the knowledge that is
disseminated at the universities?
Museveni capitalizes on lies and the masses’ ignorance
For all the years
he has been in power, President Museveni has built a wedge between the
elites and the ordinary Ugandans. This, he has managed to do by maligning
the elites as liars and opportunists and portraying himself as a Godsend
saviour to the ordinary people. Whenever some of us attempt to teach
these people their Constitutional rights, many of them ignore us as
liars. In Ankole and Kigezi, there are two sayings which go, “Amaisho
gomukiga n’omunyankore nokwerebera” and “Amaisho gomukiga n’omunyankore
nokukwataho”. This means that for anybody from Kigezi or Ankole to
believe what one is saying, they have to see it with their naked eyes
and touch it with their hands. We have many doubting Thomases but like
Thomas said my Lord and my God after touching the scars of the risen
Jesus, the peasants will say, “our redeemers and saviours” when
we access them translated copies of the Constitution. Accordingly, our
people will believe the talk about rights – God given and Constitutional
rights when they see with their naked eyes official instruments where
those rights are documented.
And I believe
if the people fully understand that they have rights, they will surely
assert those rights. I spent nine months in Luzira prison over trumped
up charges of assault and threatening violence which the superior court
set aside and quashed the conviction upon appeal. But I was told many
people were condemning me for opposing the increment of fees to the
tune of 126 percent in public universities which according to Section
2 of the Universities and other Tertiary Institutions Act are universities
which must be maintained out of public funds. People didn’t know that
what I was doing was in my constitutional powers.
The Constitution
and all other human rights instruments that Uganda has ratified emphasise
the principle of non-discrimination. Sadly, we have people who courtesy
of patronage and clientelism are sponsored by taxpayers’ money by
statehouse while the majority sons and daughters of peasants drop out
of school. The Constitution decries sectarianism but the jobs are given
on the basis of “Ori Mwana wa ani” (whose son or daughter are you)
not meritocracy.
Some of us have
a record of excellence in what we have studied and we deem ourselves
to be the refined brains necessary for the transformation of Uganda.
However, we are denied the opportunity to serve our countrymen for two
reasons – 1) we are critical, 2) our parents and relatives never fought
in the senseless war that brought this regime to power.
While I appreciate
Fr Gaetano’s views in his interview with Sunday Monitor, I am diametrically
opposed to the idea that Museveni shouldn’t be held accountable for
the mistakes he committed while in power if he accepts to step aside
in 2016. This would promote impunity and I am worried should Museveni
study the public mood and realise it is in consonance with Fr Gaetano’s
view – that he should be for forgiven, he will concentrate on the
looting that has never been witnessed before and then steps aside in
2016 to enjoy the primitively accumulated wealth in a first class country.
Therefore, even if Museveni steps down in 2016 he should be tried for
the atrocities he has committed. Fr Gaetano must be reminded that errors
of commission and omission by Museveni since he launched his bush war
through the 27 years he has been in power don’t amount to mere mistakes.
They are sordid and grave atrocities. Remember the Mukula massacre in
Teso and all the crimes against humanity in northern Uganda. Remember
also that he has privatized state property without giving accountability.
His sectarianism has killed our generation and today people spend ten
to fifteen years roaming the streets with first class and second class
upper degrees when jobs are given to the mediocre with transcripts from
Nasser Road. What about the decrepit state of our hospitals when he
flies his daughters to give birth from developed countries when Ugandan
women cannot be attended to because of lack of gloves.
I have personally
suffered gravely at the hands of Museveni and his machinery which he
(Museveni) knows very well and no remedy has ever been extended to me.
I will commit suicide from the constitutional square should Museveni
and his associates be forgiven all the grave atrocities they have committed.
Finally, all
serious actors in Uganda whether religious leaders, civil society groups,
the opposition and the state agencies which are maintained by taxpayers’
money should push for the translation of our Constitution in all local
languages. Our people have been kept in ignorance for so long. But the
prophetic call by Reverend Father Gaetano Batanyenda should be a wake-up
call for all of us. Like the Bible in Luke 4: 18 says “The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good
news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are
oppressed”. I definitely have no scintilla of hatred for President
Yoweri Museveni whose sense of humour I like. But I have all the hatred
for impunity which is not concomitant with constitutionalism, rule of
law, democracy and human rights values that I have devoted all my life
to promote. For God and my country.
Vincent Nuwagaba
is a human rights defender
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