Are we witnessing the last of NRM?

Museveni addressing NRM supporters

Prison is ugly. Even the best prisons of the world are entirely humiliating.

Locked away from family, denied pleasures and comforts of the world especially own scheduling is just too much to bear. But in slowing down time, and forcefully ridding its victims of their own routine, prison has often, unintendedly, made inmates more reflective, and calmer.

Especially for political prisoners, and public intellectuals, prison turns them into philosopher kings: Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther Jnr. Nawal El Sadaawi, all braved prison and wrote powerful reflections on life and politics.

It was the first thing Hon. Muwanga Kivumbi said to me when we visited him last week at Kitalya Prison. That prison has given him the chance to calm down, catch up on his reading, and reflect more about the struggle for reform in Uganda.

Indeed, as I’m about to tell you, dear reader, this man was in good spirits and delivered some really eye-opening analyses of our condition. As soon you can imagine, besides simply checking on him, I had many questions for Kivumbi.

Indeed, as soon as the chit-chats ended, I became both moderator and debater of a mini political talk-show. There were a couple other colleagues who often chimed in or modified the questions I was asking. It was edgy sometimes, but Muwanga Kivumbi was calm, incisive and funny.

The most fascinating questions were about the campaign trail and verbal artillery he had unleashed on his friends, especially Hon. Mathius Mpuuga – and how they had looked at each other when Mpuuga visited him in prison.

To all of these questions and curiosities, Kivumbi defended his positions convincingly, and theoretically concluded, “We were all victims of the same dictatorial machine.”

On that note, I challenged him whether he thought there was any genuine (electoral) political opposition left in the country or it was just a matter of time for the ruins of time to expose them.

“How easy is it to tell between Yellow and Red or Yellow and Green especially that everyone has a deceptive jacket on?” I asked.

We argued a bit, but then agreed that protracted struggles tend to embarrass hitherto genuine strugglers – a point I have made plenty of times, especially when a new crossover is publicly announced.

But it was when we started talking about the tragic events in Butambala on election night that Kivumbi emerged as a man who indeed had given this thing plenty of thought. He would say, sombrely, pointedly, that opposition groups were now dealing with the NRA/M’s last line of defence. It is definitely lethal and dangerous, but was the last.

FROM PEASANTS, NRA CADRES TO SFC

Spelling out a thesis that revolutions have to have layers/lines of defence before reaching Namunswa, Kivumbi demonstrated that NRA/M had depleted its most secure layers.

As member of the Uganda Young Democrats in the 1990s, Kivumbi told that when they went in the villages to campaign for candidate Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere, it was the peasants and Jua-Kali workers – the first line of defence – that would chase them from their villages, singing the goodness of NRA/Yoweri Museveni.

Museveni was their man. (Fast forward, 2021, 2026, peasants are carrying chicken to Bobi Wine campaign rallies). In the 2000-2016 interval, the peasants had been thoroughly disappointed.

Opposition groups then started battling with NRA cadres, and the NRM elite – the second line of defence. These famously included John Nagenda, David Mafabi, Jaberi Bidandi Ssali, Odrek Rwabwogo (who used to write that column, “Ideology”, in New Vision).

Some still active cadres include Tony Owana, Ofwono Opondo, and newer recruits, Andrew Mwenda, Marcela Karekye, Obed Katureebe, and Allan Kasujja. Notice that nowadays, even pro-NRM voices have become less active.

Yes, they too have been generously disappointed or find it embarrassing defending 40 years of ruin. Hon. Kivumbi continued that in the period beginning 2016- onwards, opposition forces are engaging directly with the NRM inner circle – their last line of defence: the Deep State.

These include units such as SFC, JATT, CMI, and our co-president brother Gen. Salim Saleh himself. But with the exception of Gen. Salim Saleh – negotiator and underground deal-cutter – the others are not into much talking.

They understand raw power, force. As the incarcerated legislator concluded, these are more lethal and dangerous – and we’ll have to brave them – but after them, there is nothing left. As we left Kitalya Prison, I couldn’t stop thinking about Kivumbi’s analysis.

I recalled my peasant father who summoned my elder brothers during the 1996 election and warned them against voting for candidate Ssemogerere.

“You don’t know where Museveni has got us from,” he had said. He did the same in 2001. But in the 2006 election, he gathered all of us and asked us to vote for Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye. He had had enough.

IRENE NAKIBUUKA

This analysis of dealing with the more lethal and utterly ruthless NRM’s last line of defence coincided with the death of Irene Nakibuuka from Ntwetwe in Kyankwanzi.

As per her tragic story, Nakibuuka had been kidnapped by a patrol of soldiers on election day – only to be released after a month of detention. Standing on the streets in Kampala, she had been talking about the potential victory of their president, Robert Kyagulanyi, when she got kidnapped.

Her tormentors, speaking in Kiswahili amongst themselves, would often tell them, they were being battered to understand that government was not a joke! Before her death, she said they had injected chemicals into her body, which had substantially weakened her.

The captors became merciful and allowed them to go after appearing so fragile. Nakibuuka is only lucky to have given her story to AGORA Discourses before her death. But where is Sam Mugumya? Why are Dr Kizza Besigye and Hajji Lutale still in Luzira? Why?

Yes, it is the last line of defence in charge, and has no time for words.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

What we know about 22 year old Nakibuuka Irene that died yesterday; on March 9th, @yubdenis1 shared a TikTok video where Irene was saying she was kidnapped by security officers on January 15, the day Uganda went to the polls. She said she was found with other girls talking about… pic.twitter.com/FYYH5pOYwY