Kayunga District by-election: Museveni’s failed sinister mission “nja kubamalaho” is officially dead and buried!

By Stephen Lwetutte

With only a couple of days left to the by-election in Kayunga District to fill the position of the elected District Chairperson, left vacant by the suspicious death in June 2021 of the incumbent Ffeffekka Sserubogo of the National Unity Platform (NUP), the outcome is a foregone victory for yet another NUP candidate for the vacant position. Faced with the stiffest challenge yet since he became President mounted by Mr Kyagulanyi’s NUP ahead of the January 2021 presidential elections, Mr Museveni had publicly declared a mission to “crush” and finish NUP off. Facts on the ground, however, attest to a humiliating and humbling failure of that project.

Barring excessive rigging, the country will at the weekend almost certainly wake up to NUP’s Harriet Nakwedde Kafeero as the Kayunga District Chairperson-elect, following this coming Thursday’s, 16 December 2021 by-election. The only aspect of the victory that may still be unclear is the scale and size of the landslide – her predecessor, the late Ffeffekka Sserubogo, garnered by far more votes than all the other candidates, including Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), combined, in a crushing landslide.

Mr Sserubogo, an acerbic Museveni regime critic, was found hanged on a tree outside his house, with the police saying, reportedly on the basis of post-mortem reports, that he had committed suicide, a claim dismissed out of hand by his family and NUP. It is widely believed that Mr Sserubogo was assassinated. At those elections, the NRM candidate had come a distant second, with less than half of the votes that Sserubogo got. The results in this election are likely to be more than matched by Ms Nakwedde, against all the odds erected by the Museveni regime.

Exactly one year ago, on 19 December 2020, Museveni, while addressing his party’s elections candidates in Hoima City in western Uganda, boasted how he was going decimate and destroy NUP both physically and as a political force – “ogu Kyagulanyi na group nja kubamalaho”, he roared in local Runyoro language in an emotional tone, meaning “l am going to destroy that leader Kyagulanyi and his followers”. 

He had severally given himself a deadline of the period before the January 2021 elections to accomplish that mission. In the event, not only was he thoroughly trounced by the then 5-month old NUP party at the January 14 2021 polls nationally, NUP has continued not just to survive, but also to thrive despite the repression visited upon it before, during and after the elections by Museveni’s security organs. These elections have by consensus been described as the most violent in Uganda’s electoral history. The November 2020 massacres of unarmed peaceful demonstrators, many of whom were NUP members and supporters, following the arrest of Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi, left no doubt in anyone’s mind, if there was still any, the type of regime that was running Uganda and kind of dictator the world had on its hands.

Reviewed together with other recorded atrocities- the Kasese (Western Uganda where the army killed more than a hundred people at a the Palace of a culturally leader), Kayunga (in Buganda Kingdom when at least several dozens were indiscriminately and randomly shot dead in support of the Kabaka), Acholi (in the context of the war against Joseph Kony) and Kasubi (when unarmed demonstrators were shot dead while trying to obstruct his visit to the Tombs after they were torched) massacres, the world has now got a clearer picture, formed a view of President Museveni and taken a position in relation to him. With the entrenched corruption and a history poor governance, you understand why Museveni is now a net liability to the country and it is about time Museveni gave way!

Concrete, tangible and practical measures have now begun to be taken by important governments, that are known previously to have propped up this regime politically, militarily, economically and diplomatically. This is a most welcomed change of tack in norder for them to live up to their policies and commitments, lest their image and future interests in Uganda and internationally are jeopardised by supporting or being seen to support Uganda’s dictator. Museveni’s regime is now crying foul and accusing NUP of galvanising adverse sentiments within the international community against it, but facts are facts.

On the ground in Uganda, the people have continued to defy his unlawful regime in light of and notwithstanding the ongoing political persecution and atrocities, including harsh and unfair restrictions, extrajudicial executions, abductions, disappearances and Political persecution of members and supporters of opposition organisations.

Mr Museveni’s methods of clinging onto power through instilling fear and intimidation, as well as resorting to bribery and corrupt means to reward sycophancy owing to the biting poverty in order to subdue dissent have demonstrably failed as evidenced by the growing opposition activism, especially by the youth, regardless – they seem to have nothing more to lose except the chains holding them under oppression and poverty.

To all intent and purposes, the “nja kubamalaho” project has not only spectacularly failed, it has backfired on the dictator with the country and world now demanding credible and thorough accountability for the atrocities committed by his regime against the opposition of Uganda. It is not that far-fetched to suggest that the tables may have decisively turned, and that President Museveni is under incessant pressure deal with the ingrained culture of impunity of his government for human rights abuses that have now come to define his 36-year tenure of office. 

Far from achieving its objectives, the “nja kubamalaho” mission has come back to haunt and bite him, as NUP achieves yet another victory of National significance. Despite “nja kubamalaho”, NUP and other opposition actors are live and kicking and have now become unstoppable. Advance congratulations to NUP are in order, in my view.