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The long reign of President Museveni has worsened negative ethnicity in Uganda. Vincent Nuwagaba, himself a victim of ethnic prejudice, urges his compatriots to reject the vice and fight for justice for all regardless of ethnic origins.

My friend Angela has been an ardent supporter of Uganda’s opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party and has together with her husband vigorously campaigned for Dr Kizza Besigye and Jack Sabiiti in all the three past elections. But in a sudden twist of events, she met me last November and told me she had defected to the Museveni camp. Angela went ahead to accuse meof being President Museveni’s supporter Let him reign and thereafter his son and his grandson should takeover’, she said. Reason? She was exasperated by some elites from Buganda who travelled with her in a taxi and vowed to ruthlessly crush all westerners should Museveni quit power. When she reportedly said she has never supported Museveni, the other passengers reportedly told her to shut up. ‘We know you. You are all the same’, they charged.

I understand Angela’s exasperation with the anti-Museveni camp, especially those from outside western Uganda. I have personally been stigmatised, abused and suspected by my would-be allies because I hail from Ankole. However, I told her that that’s the most important reason why she should continue to strongly oppose Museveni and dissuade many other people from supporting him. But Angela rejected my reasoning.

WE ARE ALL LOSERS

And that is the gist of my article. To begin with, it’s amazing that, despite the fact that the most acerbic critics of the National Resistance Movement and Museveni are from the west, many non-westerners have not appreciated the fact that the west as a region has lost almost as much as the other regions during Museveni’s regime. During currency reform, all Ugandans lost 30 percent of their money; when banks were raided by the bush war fighters, all Ugandans lost; the adoption of structural adjustment programmes and the botched privatisation policy made all of us losers; and when cooperatives died, the Banyankole Kweterana also died. When the government sanctioned the increment of fees in public universities by up to 126 percent in August 2009, some Banyankole and Bakiga children dropped out of college.

Yet we have people who naively think that, when there are no drugs in the national referral hospital at Mulago, western region’s referral hospitals and other health centres there have drugs. That’s an illusion. There are people who naively think that all Bakiga and Banyankole (who by the way are like identical, if not Siamese, twins) have their children accessing state house scholarships; there are people who think that corruption is a project by the ruling NRM party aimed at enriching the westerners; there are also people who believe that all westerners that oppose Museveni are implanted into the opposition as spies. I know of some friends in Uganda Young Democrats (UYD), a youth wing of the Democratic Party, who used to think I was one such spy but I also know that many of the UYDs knew that I was genuinely opposed to injustice and that I cherished the principles of truth and justice – principles espoused by the Democratic Party.

On Monday, 14 November, I had a discussion with Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesman Ibin Ssenkumbi and he told me: ‘As a person from Ankole, you even have a road paved up to your home; you went to Makerere University on government sponsorship; you are favoured and you shouldn’t criticise this government’. Sadly, that’s many Ugandans’ mentality. I never wanted to waste time refuting allegations that as westerners we are favoured. What I told him instead was that that’s exactly the reason why I criticise the establishment: it has divided Ugandans rather than unite us. I said I cherish justice, which entails social justice, economic justice and equal opportunity. I know as a social scientist equality is an ideal that is impossible to realise. But equality among equals is an ideal, a value that we must cherish and fight to realise. Equality among equals means, for instance, that all Ugandans should have access to quality education, quality healthcare and decent standards of living; they should also be equal before the law since they are all citizens. Equality among equals also means that if Nuwagaba, a son of peasants from Kanyabwanga and Bitereko in Busheny,i has a master’s degree, he should stand equal chances of getting opportunities as, say Francis Musinguzi Otafiire, a son of a minister. If they apply for a job, it should be given on merit. If there are two people with similar credentials who put in similar efforts at work, they should be paid an equal amount of money regardless of what departments they work for – that’s equal pay for equal value of work.

Equality among equals means that scholarships should also be given on the basis of merit and need. But shockingly, in Uganda scholarships are given to ministers’ children and foreigners. You well know that we have an ethnic group known as Banyarwanda in Uganda. When the Banyarwanda of Uganda go to Rwanda, they remain Banyarwanda and when those from Rwanda come to Uganda they become Ugandans. And we have many Banyarwanda getting state house scholarships. Recently, a young man found me in some Makerere university professor’s office and bragged about how he was not bothered with tuition because he was on a state house scholarship. After his departure, the professor asked me: ‘What is this, that you people fail to raise fees when our taxes are used to pay fees for Rwandans?’ These developments annoy Banyankole, Bakiga, Banyoro and Batooro as much as they annoy all other Ugandans. It’s morally repugnant and politically imprudent that we westerners can be targeted for stigma just because of our region. In any case, we didn’t apply to be westerners.

PIECE OF ADVICE

I have a word for those who make inflammatory statements about westerners that they will ‘crush them’. Please be reasonable. All Ugandans are very accommodative people and I must say the Baganda have accommodated all Ugandan ethnic groups, including foreigners. The elites shouldn’t debase themselves by fanning ethnic sentiments. We must advocate individual responsibility for individual actions. If President Museveni or my area MP Otafiire wronged anyone, what does it have to do with me? Is it criminal to come from the same region with the president and other political rulers?

While studying the unification of Germany and Italy, I learnt that Germany and Italy had similar problems and had to adopt similar means to solve them. Likewise, Ugandans face similar problems of poverty, graduate unemployment, corruption, a collapsed healthcare system, a disoriented education system, an unjust and selective criminal justice system, meagre wages for workers resulting into the phenomenon of the working poor, and general misery instead of general happiness. We can only solve these ills by focusing on things that unite us rather than those that divide us. Let’s focus on things over which we have control such as ideological paradigms not those over which we cannot have control, such as ethnicity. We must preach and practise love, unity, justice, transparency, honesty and brotherhood. Lyandro Komakech and Opobo Wilfred from Acholiland helped me so much while at campus; Asuman Basalirwa has always been there for me when the state attempted to dump me in Luzira Prison; Livingstone Sewanyana gave me a job that helped me pay for my masters’ degree. So many Acholi, Iteso, Karamajong, Baganda and Basoga have been there for me. Likewise Banyankole, Bakiga, Batooro, Banyoro, etc have stood by me. I don’t think they do that because I am from their region but because I am a human being entitled to human dignity. We should harness our cultural and ethnic differences to enrich our society. Why can’t we advocate intermarriage and ensure a great mix of Ugandans?

Finally, to Angela and all my brothers and sisters from Ankole, Kigezi, Mpororo, Tooro, Bunyoro and Bukonzo, if we support Museveni we will only postpone the danger but will make it real at any time. Accordingly, we should be at the vanguard of opposing NRM’s injustices. I am sure before Museveni, Uganda was not so polarised along ethnic lines. We had many northerners and easterners studying in the west, westerners studying in the north, and that enhanced social and political cohesion in spite of cultural diversity. From my own district of Bushenyi during President Obote’s regime, we had five ministers and other key government figures. Tell me any single district outside western Uganda with three ministers. Surprisingly, those ministers hardly help us as westerners they only endanger us. When Obote lost power, the Luo suffered; when Amin lost power the Kakwa and Nubians reportedly suffered. We as westerners shouldn’t suffer after Museveni has lost power. We can forestall the suffering when we distance ourselves from him as his government commits atrocities. For God and my country!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS.

* Vincent Nuwagaba blogs at www.vnuwagaba.blogspot.com. He can be reached via email at mpvessynuwagaba[AT">gmail.co.ug
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.