DR FRANK NABWISO: Dear Gen Tumwine, do you want Museveni to retire in 2026 or after completing the 50-year plan?

RE: NEED FOR YOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHY TO ANSWER SOME PERPLEXING QUESTIONS

Gen Elly Tumwine I have heard from a video recording what you told Hon. Major-General Jim Muhwezi Katugugu when you were handing him your Handover Report as the outgoing Minister of Security on 23rd June 2021. Among other things, you promised to advise President Museveni to prepare for a peaceful transfer of power, because he deserves an honourable retirement.

I congratulate you very much for making such an important statement in our country, at a time when uncertainties about the future of country are escalating. But you left many questions hanging. For example:Where and when are you likely to give him such advice? In what medium will you communicate your advice? What will you do if the President refuses your advice?

There is an English saying that “what is not written is hearsay”! Accordingly I suggest that you communicate your advice to him in a letter with copies to the Chairman and Secretary General of NRM, the Speaker of Parliament of Uganda, the Chief Justice, UPDF and the Media, since the President himself has been writing letters to the general public (particularly the youth and “abazzukulu”/grandchildren) on important national matters.

I am also requesting you humbly to come out with a book, preferably an autobiography, highlighting your contributions to the NRM/NRA bush war in 1981-1986 and the NRM Government in the last 35 years (1986-2021) in your capacity as a true freedom fighter. It is important that you do so, because you are the one who fired the first bullet on 6th February 1981 at Kabamba Barracks, signifying the start of a civil war in the Luwero Triangle which caused over 500,000 ordinary Ugandan citizens to lose their lives before NRM captured power in January 1986.

I further suggest that the book should explain your own interpretation of what has happened to Uganda in the last 40 years when you fired that bullet, and the legacy you believe you have already laid down for Ugandans, because you also need an honourable retirement.
Additionally, I am of the opinion that the book should answer the following perplexing questions:

According to President Museveni(“Sowing the Mustard Seed” page 120) the NRM started the bush war to solve “previous injustices and to give Uganda free and fair elections” in the future. Has this objective been accomplished successfully? What are those previous injustices?

You were involved in writing the first NRM 10-point program in the bush around 1984. Are Ugandan political and socio-economic development analysts correct to assert that the NRM/NRA leaders threw the said program back to the bush in favour of amassing wealth for themselves?

Around 1993, you allegedly participated in a meeting of 77 persons which was allegedly chaired by President Museveni, which vowed that a particular sectarian group within the NRM should retain power for not less than 50 years and that the said group should also control the UPDF, quickly educate their children to occupy important jobs in the country, and empower its people economically so that they also control Uganda’s economy, in the future.

If you may recall, I tabled that document in Parliament in 2004 and the Government never commented on in or outside Parliament.Would you like the President to retire in May 2026 or in May 2036 to complete the 50-year plan
Around 28th June 2005, you and nine other UPDF MPs (ArondaNyakairima, Gutti Andrew, KatirimaPhenhas, Kinobe Jimmy, Matovu David, Noble Mayombo, OdongoJeje,RwamiramaKanyontole, David Tunyefuza) voted for the removal of presidential term limits from the Uganda National Constitution, despite the fact that was supposed to be neutral.

It was an open secret that the 232 MPs who voted for the removal of the limits were bribed with Ug. Shs. 5 million each. Did you genuinely believe that you had put Uganda on a firmer road to democracy or good governance?
In December 2017, you allegedly organized security men who invaded the 10th Parliament and beat up numerous opposition MPs in order to ensure that the Age Limit Article is also expunged from the Uganda Constitution.

Since that was done only 3½ years ago, what are the new reasons which you now have on which you will base your advice to President Museveni to begin the process of leaving power peacefully?

Other important but unanswered questions are: To whom should the President Handover power when he retires? Kadogo descendants, fishermen/fishmongers or well tested, visionary, selfless and clean nationalists? Since you are both a professional soldier and artist, what role should artistes (poets, musicians, dramatists, dancers, novelists and playwrights) play in Uganda’s political and socio-economic development arenas today and in the future? Should a small country like Uganda have 529 MPs and over 80 ministers, when bigger countries with larger economies (such as USA, India, Nageria, the DRC, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Iran, Pakistan and Australia) have fewer MPs and ministers?

Since you are a Born-Again Christian, you and I who participated in different capacities to bring NRM into power, will remain in God’s court waiting to be judged for the many atrocities which have been committed against fellow Ugandans in order to sustain some corrupt, arrogant and selfish NRM/UPDF leaders, from the day you fired that first bullet at Kabamba.

 Dr Frank Nabwiso (PhD) is an Ex-Secretary of the NRM Wing in Nairobi 1984-1986 and Former Kagoma Member of Parliament 2001-2006