In a clear show of ingratitude Jimmy Akena, who he has supported and treated so well like his own son since 2006, has lately been accusing President Museveni of being the one fermenting problems for Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), a party his father Milton Obote and mother Miria Kalule Obote have had the opportunity to lead for more than half of its existence counting from its inception in the late 1950s.
Akena’s unsubstantiated claims that Dennis Enap, Peter Walubiri and others who are challenging his leadership and perpetual grip on the party are proxies of President Museveni merits a response and contextualisation, which is the purpose this opinion piece is designed to serve.
Firstly, Akena’s problems inside UPC are apparently self-inflicted and they are about governance. President Museveni has nothing to do with the UPC Constitution which requires Akena to strictly serve two terms, totalling 10 years, and thereafter leave for another person.
President Museveni has nothing to do with Akena’s failure to convene party meetings and delegates conferences, which is what his accusers have levelled against him. We have heard of cries about lack of transparency in the management of IPOD billions inside UPC. This too has nothing to do with President Museveni.
Akena has been accused of being shameless and of having a sense of self-entitlement namely that he has to lead UPC in perpetuity simply because his father Milton Obote founded the party, ruled it for decades and his wife (Akena’s mother) Miria Kalule Obote immediately replaced him and served for 5 years.
Critics say that because of that history Akena, who undermined Olara Otunnu (the only non-Obote family member to ever lead UPC), believes it’s his right and entitlement to lead UPC without accounting to anyone. This has nothing to do with President Museveni who only deserves commendation because of the generosity and compassion with which he has treated the Obote family members since their return from exile in 2005.
It was President Museveni who used his position as President to ensure that Dr. Obote got a decent burial in October 2005 at Akokoro village and also went ahead to get for Akena and others where to stay upon return from exile. Their Kololo house, along Impala Avenue, was in ruins and unhabitable.
It was President Museveni who funded its renovation and reconstruction to livable standards and this is where former first lady Miria has comfortably lived since their involuntary return from exile up to this day. Those can’t be actions of a person working with enemies and adversaries to finish off Akena.
In fact, inside the NRM Lango chapter, President Museveni has had to be castigated by hardworking NRM cadres from Lango who say that he has been pampering Akena, his wife Betty Amongi and other UPCs in Lango at the expense of the National Resistance Movement’s own cadreship growth in the sub region.
He has been paying all that price and getting misunderstood by his own long-serving cadres from the sub region, to the risk of demoralizing some of them, but President Museveni has never exhibited any exhaustion towards his continued being nice to Akena and other Obote family members.
Akena is simply politically exhausted and ungrateful. He has led the party, controversially, for nearly 10 years now and he must account to party members and fellow leaders like Dennis Enap, Joseph Ochieno, Peter Walubiri and others as opposed to turning President Museveni, his enabler for all these years, into a scape goat of some sort.
The spirit of the law and prudent practice requirement is such that party leaders in modern Uganda, which is a democracy, have to be accountable and transparent in the way they learn political parties. There must be corporate governance principles of transparency, accountability, inclusion etc which Akena has been found wanting on. And instead of carrying his own cross and owning up, he believes that he can turn round to mask behind blaming President Museveni who is busy running his own might party the NRM and can never have time for UPC.
In any case, which political threat does Akena pose to the President and chairman of the mighty NRM party? He had better find a better way to respond to his critics rather than going around scape-goating our great leader of the NRM because President Museveni, the way Ugandans come to know him, has honestly got nothing to do with chaos in UPC.
The author, Brian K Tindyebwa, is a senior grass root NRM mobilizer based in Rubaga & can reached via briantindyebwa0@gmail.com.
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