Ronald Leonard Egesa

I am shocked by the recent developments at the Forum for Democratic Change Party. They claim that they are going to sue MTN and Uganda Telecom for allegedly blocking their communication systems during Elections! As if that is not enough, they now urge their supporters to boycott MTN products!

In the last week, the observer Newspaper also revealed that an FDC meeting agreed that they made no mistakes in the campaigns and they chose to squarely blame the party’s dismal performance on the ‘rigging machinery’ of the NRM. If indeed this is true, then this must be a party of cowards and it explains why they even lost miserably.

I am wondering where FDC is going to get the evidence to pin the phone companies when it is the companies alongside the regulator, UCC that can supply the Call Data Record [CDR]. I suspect, FDC wants to use the court process to forge accountability for funds they could not account for during elections to their foreign funders. Ugandans should not be surprised to see the voices behind this action purchasing property after this hullabaloo.

This is mere hypocrisy. I now believe that FDC has resigned to the fact that they cannot offer meaningful opposition and decided to make as much money from the unsuspecting, but ill-intentioned foreign players while the opportunity lasts!
I wish MTN could drag these guys to court and get them back to their senses. This is an ill advised hate campaign.

What does FDC expect out of the boycott? How long is this boycott supposed to last? Will FDC compensate their supporters for the business they may miss by boycotting MTN products? I just pray that FDC supporters are not that gullible to fall for this selfish move by the FDC party elites.

Ronald Leonard Egesa
leo@ronaldegesa.com

There has been a growing trend of politics in central Uganda since 1994, which has seen politicians seeking political office in the urban parts of Buganda by identifying with Mengo, and claiming to be the prime defenders of the interests of Buganda.

This started with the Constituent Assembly elections and has carried on thereafter. Top on the list of Mengo interests is federo and the return of the kingdom’s properties by the central government, among others.

It is on record that Yusuf Nsubuga Nsambu and John Ken Lukyamuzi campaigned on the federo card to get to Parliament twice, i.e. 1996 and 2001.

Hussein Kyanjo did the same to replace Nsambu, and so did Susan Nampijja to replace her dad as Rubaga South Member of Parliament. Erias Lukwago also played the same card and got to Parliament in 2006 and the same applies to Betty Nambooze who also recently got to Parliament.

Despite riding on these issues, chief among them federo, none of these ‘honourable’ people has ever tabled a private members’ bill or moved a motion in Parliament in the quest for federo or the return of kingdom assets.

If it is there and was not recorded in the records of Parliament, I challenge one of them to adduce evidence. This simply points to one thing: these men and women are opportunists and populists to say the least!

Moses Kalungi who is contesting to be reelected Makindye Division chairman promises federo on his posters! I have asked myself over 1,000 times how in the world a chairman of LC-III can deliver federo. Is this not an insult to the conscience of the electorate?

If Mr Kalungi reads this and realises that it is a desperate attempt to win over votes of gullible voters, then let him be honourable enough to come out and apologise to the electorate of Makindye. The same should apply to the others.

In fact, when I see such populists winning elections, I conclude that the quality of our voters is wanting and it makes me think, we are better off without elections.

Ronald Leonard Egesa,
Kampala.

Published in The weekly observer of January 20th 2011

I have just returned home after watching the Manchester United -Liverpool FA Cup third round tie at Old Trafford. Liverpool have lost the game and as a result bowed out of the FA cup at third round just like last season under Rafael Benitez. However, there were positives to take from the mouth-watering fixture.

Kenny Dalglish managed to show his managerial brilliance in the team selection. He made changes in defence by bringing in Fabio Aurelio at left back,  Martin Kelly at right back and Daniel Agger at centre-back. The three changes at the back underlined Dalglish’s taste of progressive defending as well as attacking football. This selection looked like a simple puzzle that Roy Hodgson failed to see during his six month at the helm of Liverpool Football Club.

Martin Kelly represents the future of Liverpool football Club and there is no better time to give him his chance than now in a campaign where we are not fighting for top honours, but we are simply lying mid table. Daniel Agger should be the number one name on the team sheet when it comes to central defence. He has excellent game reading, good forward movement and is a strong man. With the exception of the tackle he made on Berbatov that resulted in the spot kick, he had an outstanding game. Fabio Aurelio is a good full back, but also a dead-ball specialist and he showed just that when he nearly pulled Liverpool level with a freekick in the second half of the game.

Kenny also showed that in a bid to change the game, he is willing to take the risk and make a double subsitution before the 70th minute, that we have been used to under Benitez and Hodgson. he intoduced Ryan Babel and Jonjo Shelvey who did a good job in the second half. I have noted one  thing about Dalglish, he is an attack minded manager. This is the mentality that a manager of our football club MUST have.

United were quite lucky to have got a penalty the way they did and also get Steven Gerrard sent off early in the game. I am convinced that if Steven had played, 90 minutes, the scoreboard should have been reading differently after 90 minutes. Now that we are out of the FA Cup, Carling Cup.  Kenny can use the Europa league and the Premier league to re-establish the Liverpool spirit in our players so that we can move forward as the mighty team that we once had.

“You Will Never Walk Alone.”

Dr Olive Kobusingye, a sister to FDC President Dr. Kiiza
Besigye recently published a book which ‘exposes’  the bad side of the
Museveni regime. By 1996 while Besigye was still fervently serving in NRM, I
was 11/12 years old, but I had already studied the character of the then Lt.
Gen Yoweri Museveni and as it later turned out, I had by then predicted that
Museveni will do everything to stay in power –including switching political
systems to multi-party politics that he castigated at the time. I have also consistently
said that if “Federo” turns out to be the vote winner, then Museveni will
promise to hand it to Mengo! Events like President Museveni’s support for
multiparty politics, amendment of the constitution to erase term limits and the
recent reopening of CBS came as no surprise to me –that is the Museveni I have
always known and he has not disappointed.

H.E. Gen(Rtd) Yoweri Museveni is a living Political legend.
He is a shrewd Politician who deserves the highest accolade in the field of
Politics. I suggest the University of Dar-es-Salaam should award him a Honorary
PhD and Professorship in Political Science. The General understands societal
dynamics in Africa and has also excelled at playing Global Politics as
evidenced in his interventions in regional politics and security. Museveni has
over the years told people, albeit in jocular mode that Politics is a game of
lies and hypocrisy. I am surprised that people like Dr. Besigye and her sister
were not able to read this part of Museveni’s character earlier on despite
being closer to him than some of us ordinary folks.  They now come riding
on the fact that they want to hold Museveni accountable to his statements in
the early days of the regime. In the first place, at the time when Museveni
made all those promises, he was not a democratically elected President and as
such had no contract with the People of Uganda! He was in power because the
all-powerful formerly rebel outfit called NRA/M wanted him there. Secondly,
History has shown that leaders who are not flexible only sink nations just as
was the case with the late Mwalimu Nyerere’s Ujama policy in Tanzania. Had he
been as dynamic, he should have abandoned it in its early stages. Resigning did
not make Tanzania better than Ugandan economically. So was Mwalimu Nyerere’s
resignation a wise move? This is debate for another day!

Besides, Politics is not a natural SCIENCE, since it has no
laws that can be proved to hold true always. Politicians are supposed to be
dynamic and able to adjust depending on societal dynamics and this is where I
disagree with  the medical doctors –Besigye and his sister.  Should
we also say Besigye is a liar because he is not campaigning on the message of
restoring the 10-point programme, which he accuses Museveni of ‘forgetting’? If
Besigye was as trustworthy and principled as he wants us to believe, he should
have been saying that himself and FDC are fighting to be in power in order to
implement the 10-point programme to the letter.

I also find the argument of Dr. Besigye and his IPC that the
Electoral Commission is biased to be flawed. It actually carries truth in it,
but they are not trying to address the problem, they are complaining about one
of the symptoms and not the cause of the disease. The actual disease is; we
adopted and passed a very ambitious and unrealistic Constitution in the first
place. The most annoying thing is that Besigye, Njuba and Kanyeihamba were all
powerful men in the establishment at the time of making this constitution. They
were not strategic thinkers to realise that idea of vesting power of appointing
Electoral commissioners in the President in a poor country like Uganda had
flaws in it. “A poor man actually has no right and conscience, even if he
had them, they can be traded for a few pennies!” It is as simple as that.
This means that once the President has the powers over the national piggy bank
and also has the desire to stay in power, he can have things his way. This is
something that I know Museveni and his most trusted Lieutenant –Hon. Amama
Mbabazi knew  from the beginning and it was always going to be a question
of what comes first.

Why Museveni can now give Buganda Federo? Given the
discovery of vast oil resources in Bunyoro. Museveni can systematically turn
Bunyoro into  the most powerful region with less resistance; thanks to the
absence of a superiority complex in Bunyoro like in Buganda. With the Bunyoro’s
relevance to the economics and politics rising, Mengo’s ego will be smartly
brought under check and Federo will not grant them the Superior status they
have always craved for. The Banyoro are generally people you can trust more
than the Baganda in Mengo and this would play in Museveni’s favour. I therefore
find it a miscalculation for Besigye to ride on top of Federo promises to
Buganda. Besigye is actually going to suffer from the Ssemwogerere effect. As
he may realise after the elections in 2011, you do not win the Presidency by
winning more of your votes in Buganda alone –you need a national victory.

I am also inclined to believe that Museveni may have a hand
in the candidacy of Kamya, Bidandi Ssali, Lubega,  Bwanika and at least am
not the first person to say this. This is how I look at it; Realising that some
conservatives in Buganda were not going to give him the votes for issues such
as Federo, removal of Term Limits and being a non Muganda, Museveni may have
chosen to deny his closest rival, Besigye these votes by  ‘sponsoring’
BAGANDA candidates who have chosen to ride on such issues as Federalism, term
limits– which in reality are not as central to national development to warrant
Presidential candidacy of individuals like Kamya, Bidandi Ssali and Lubega.

As many other great thinkers like Aristotle on
Evolution and others, Museveni has had to abandon some of his earlier perceptions
of Politics and marched on with the dynamics, this is where I challenge people
like Dr. Besigye, Dr. Kobusingye,  Prof. Kanyeihamba, Prof. Oloka Onyango
to face reality and distinguish academics and medicinal sciences from the
‘dirty’ real world of Politics. As for me, the way forward, is for IPC and
other pressure groups to advocate for redrafting of a realistic and a
not-too-ambitious constitution, which takes into account the fact that a
country like ours need to go through crawling before walking on the journey to
democracy. I advise these intellectuals to pick a leaf from God’s plan for the
human being. You first learn how to crawl, then stand, walk and then run. It
was therefore TOTALLY wrong to draft a constitution largely resembling those of
democracies that are over two centuries old yet our nation was just being BORN.
Our Constitution would have served as an excelled PhD thesis for the Justice
Odoki Commission, but not as supreme law for the Banana Republic!

“For God and My Country”
Ronald Leonard Egesa

To all you slackers out there. I know you know how wonderful this distro is. It is the real Linux, however, if you have recently upgraded your box to version 12.2 or 13.0, you may have issues getting your MySQL server working fine. I have just narrowed down the basic steps you need to follow to get this working in 1 minute.

Assuming you made a full installation of slackware linux [4.8 GB+] and all packages were installed the proceed as follows at the shell prompt;

first let us create a my.cnf file in the etc directory

cp /etc/my-medium.cnf  /etc/my.cnf

Now it is time to install the mysql database and its default tables

mysql_install_db

Now change the ownership of of mysql

cd /var/lib; chown -R  mysql.mysql mysql

Now start the mysql daemon

/etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld start

After this, you can go back to the shell and run

mysql

As we draw closer to the 2011 elections, Dr. Kizza Besigye and his IPC colleagues continue to charge that there will not be any elections until the Electoral Commission is reconstituted. In order to achieve this objective, they are preparing and staging demonstrations.
While Besigye and his IPC leadership will mobilise and rally poor market vendors and unemployed youth to go for the demonstrations, after the day’s demonstrations and run-ins with the Police and Kiboko squad, Besigye and the IPC top brass will receive their share of NGO funds. The poor market vendors and unemployed youth will go home on empty stomachs, as their hatred for the ruling regime multiplies.
Critically looking at this situation, it tilts the playing field in Besigye’s favour as his initial game plan is to create hatred for the regime and prepare the local population for war.
I think Besigye and his IPC top brass need to respect these low income earners and their families and stop using them as cannon fodder!
Also, Dr. Besigye, Dr. Olara Otunnu and the IPC have taken it upon themselves to speak for Ugandans by demanding a changed Electoral Commission. This too is unfair to Ugandans, since the voice of democratic Ugandans is through Parliament which vetted and approved the Electoral Commissioners. For Besigye and his group to purport to be speaking for Ugandans is to undermine the principles of democracy that they claim to be fighting for!
Ronald Leonard Egesa,
Kampala.

Published in The Weekly Observer of 01/07/2010

A lot has been said since the Easter Sunday remarks by Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga about the central government-Buganda question. The archbishop must have been busy so as not to notice that the Mengo establishment held talks with the central government in 2005 and reached an agreement which preferred devolution (regional tier) to the old feudalism that some of the conservatives were pushing for, only to turn around and reject something that was unanimously endorsed by the Lukiiko.

The learned bishop relates the Buganda-Uganda question to the Vatican-Italy question. He should note that the Vatican controlled the Italian economy through and through whereas in Uganda, the capital can be shifted and the economy is not controlled by the Mengo establishment through and through, therefore they cannot boast the same bargaining power as the Vatican boasted.

While the archbishop has a right as a citizen to express his view on the political climate in the country, he ought to remember that he has a duty of not dividing his flock on political grounds. It is therefore my humble prayer that the aArchbishop steers clear of political talk.

Ronald Leonard Egesa,
Kampala
Email: leo@ronaldegesa.com

Published in the Daily Monitor of April 20, 2010

Ndorwa West MP David Bahati is the news man of the moment. What I find interesting though is the fact that those opposed to his private members’ bill are failing to give good reasons to convince the liberals to join their side. The media has been awash with headlines pointing at the powerful people of the west (President Obama, Top US Diplomat Hillary Clinton, British Premier Gordon Brown and the Canadian Premier among others) being against this bill. One of these was quoted as saying that passing this bill into law would be a major setback in the protection of human rights!

Interestingly, top Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda and Scientist and leader of opposition in Uganda, Prof Morris Ogenga Latigo argue that homosexuality is a trait exhibited by a small proportion of the human race just as is the case in other animal species. This is the reason they are suggesting that the bill is uncalled for and it is diversionary. I would like to remind these two learned men that every human being is born with a trait of theft and deceit among other common sins! For this very reason Jesus asked the fellows who brought a prostitute before him to front only one who had sinned not to be the first to cast a stone unto her! We all know that at one time in our lives, we have stolen something from a friend, brother, sister or even told a lie to achieve wealth, but we never oppose legislation that is geared towards addressing acts of Theft and telling lies and uttering false documents. Why then are we so much determined to fight the Bahati bill? Something is fishy here! There must be more than meets the eye that we must look out for in whoever is coming out to call sodomy a “HUMAN RIGHT”! It is also on record that Hon. Margaret Muhanga (sister to Andrew Mwenda) once said that God did not create Adam and Steven, but created Adam and Eve. She ought to tell this to her baby brother.

On the other hand, making the legislation is laudable and promising to make Uganda one of the most dangerous destinations for sodomists, but the question is will this law be implemented? What happens when the fellow implicated in sodomy is your brother, sister, father, mother, friend? These people who are close to you would be implicated in having had knowledge of homosexual activity in the vicinity. It is very hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone had prior knowledge of sodomy between a pair of two other consenting adults since this does not amount into a conspiracy. Why then don’t we have such clauses in the penal code when dealing with theft or robbery or trespass?

In conclusion, the Bahati bill is a step in the right direction to let the sodomists not set foot in our motherland Uganda, but it needs to be panel-beaten to remove some clauses that are not directly dealing with the sodomists themselves. There is no point in the law being harsh to third parties who have other pressing issues to deal with.

FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY

Ronald Leonard Egesa
Email: leo@ronaldegesa.com
Tel: +256-752-442375
Kampala