Some of the displaced in South Sudan

The minister for Trade and Industry Amelia Kyambadde says that government is considering Airlifting Ugandans from South Sudan following the latest conflict that has left nearly 272 people killed, including Ugandans. Kyambadde says that government is consulting South Sudan to find a way of rescuing Ugandans from the renewed fighting in this country which has claimed hundreds of lives.

She however says that some traders in the country have been reported hiding so as they are not rescued from the conflict. She says that the traders who don’t  want to return from South Sudan claim that its within such situation where they can make much money. She also said that the Ugandan government should find ways of stopping such fighting in South Sudan since this young country is one of Uganda’s export market.

The fresh fighting between South Sudan’s biggest ethnic groups – the Dinka, led by President  Salva  Kiir, and the Nuer, under the first Vice-President Riek Machar  comes at a time when the East African Community  was contemplating to send its team of officials to assess the level of readiness of the conflict-torn country to integrate with EAC after its admission into East African Community on March 2rd  and signing of an Accession Protocol by President Salva Kiir in Dar es Salaam in April this year.

Furthermore Ugandan businessmen intending to travel to South Sudan have been urged by Police to wait until the current crisis is past. Addressing the media at the police headquarters in Naguru this afternoon, police spokesperson Fred Enanga revealed that the situation is very unstable and unsafe for Ugandans intending to travel.

Enanga also revealed that they have so far recovered two bodies Dr. Ben Kyandika a pharmacist and Batele Ceaser a UN driver. He says that they are patrolling the Nimule –Elegu border and not allowing vehicles to cross to South Sudan.

Uganda, Kenya and Sudan are some of the biggest trading partners with South Sudan.

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Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda

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Former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) President General, Dr. Kizza Besigye has thanked all those people who spent their time and resources at Kira Division in a bid to rescue him from police brutality.

Besigye says that hundreds of opposition politicians and supporters who were headed by Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, Kyadodno East Member of Parliament,  Ibrahim Nganda Ssemujju, Mukono Municipality Member of Parliament Betty Nambooze, Kaseese woman MP, Winfred Kiiza, FDC woman leader, Ingrid Turinawe, and current FDC president general Maj. Mugisha Muntu spent a full day with him at the police station where he was detained without recording a single charge.

Besigye was eventually carried to his home by the famous van led by the District police commander of Kasangati, Mr. Chemonges who is a son of Capt. Juma Seiko, the body guard of president Museveni’s younger brother, Gen. Salim Saleh.

Police arrested Dr. Kiiza Besigye from his home at Kasangati in Wakiso district. Besigye’s arrest followed a press conference where Besigye briefed reporters his next course of action accusing the Police of curtailing his freedom of movement.

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 There is no doubt that Uganda for sometime has been steadily registering high level of economic growth and development especially for the last 27 years of NRM’s governance. This economic growth and development is characterized by improvement in provision of social services such as health and education, reduction in poverty levels, improvement in infrastructure, and reduction in illiteracy levels, among others.

As a result of improved health services and literacy among Ugandans, disability as a result of polio which was hitherto the traditional cause of disability was contained. This would be a great cause to celebrate by all Ugandans irrespective of their political ideologies.

However, for us in Ultimate Media Consult, we are concerned that there are increasing cases of disability in spite of the successful fight against polio in Uganda and great improvements in Ugandan citizen’s knowledge and health.

The focus of my (Walakira Nyanzi) article is on spina bifida and hydrocephalus, conditions which cause physical disability. This news piece comes in the recent wake of revelations by Dr Michael Muhumuza, the Acting Head of the Neurosurgical

Unit at Mulago Hospital and Uganda’s hosting of an international conference on spina bifida and hydrocephalus.

Dr Muhumuza says in his report to the conference that seven-ten children with spina bifida are produced at Mulago hospital alone every week. This translates to about 480 children produced with this condition in just one year and at Mulago hospital alone. This is a very big number which cannot be ignored by medical practitioners and of course our health news team headed by Walakira Nyanzi.

Dr. Muhumuza says that a person can have both spina bifida and hydrocephalus, or either of the two conditions. Most people with these conditions normally have severe and multiple disabilities.

You could find many of the victims of spina bifida and hydrocephalus confined in wheel chairs, having epilepsy, slow learners and brain injury. Such a person and the family find the life very challenging as they are mostly likely to live in a life of great poverty and miserly.

You may be all aware that disability causes poverty and poverty also causes disability. The good thing is that these conditions can be managed and preventable to some extent.

However, managing the conditions is as expensive as the child may need surgery and services of many specialists such as physiotherapist, occupational therapists and close supervision and review of doctors and nurses. We are aware that these specialists are not available in our Ugandan communities and where they are available, their services are so expensive. The children also need assistive devices, rehabilitation and clean intermittent catheterization and bowel management as they cannot control urine and bowel movement.

Dr. Muhumuza therefore says that the government and the communities should highly concentrate on the preventive measures of spina bifida and hydrocephalus because it is cheaper to prevent the cause than managing the effects of spina bifida and hydrocephalus. The two basic preventive measures are mandatory fortification of foods (adding folic acid to foods) because spina bifida is caused by lack of folic acid by pregnant mothers. The other one is improvement of the health service delivery more especially maternal health, avoiding of infections and cerebral malaria. These are highly responsible for causing hydrocephalus. Spina bifida and hydrocephalus are some of the types of physical disability currently crippling Ugandans.

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We have been told by sources in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) that the burial of president Museveni’s father, Amos Kaguta will cost the family and Ugandan taxpayers at large 34 billion shillings.

The sources told us that the 34 billion shillings would be spent on accommodating and feeding mourners who will include international diplomats. The source further alleges that the money will come from the presidential budget and from the coffers of the ruling party.

Kaguta passed away on Friday morning at the International Hospital in Kampala. President Museveni in a message to all Ugandans has described his late date as “a father, grandfather, great grandfather, nationalist, freedom fighter and father of the nation.”

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He might have all the money and security but Brigadier Elly Kayanja now needs only prayers to survive. He has asked all Ugandans irrespective of their political briefs and religions, to pray for him because he is not feeling well.  

The brigadier was admitted at CASE medical centre in Kampala a fort night ago after he collapsed at his home. The doctors later established that he was suffering from multiple organ failure and breathing impairment. Speaking to his family members and some of his allies in Uganda Peoples Defence Forces in Kampala on Wednesday, the Brigadier said he needs prayers from all Ugandans because he feels his life is not under control.

On Tuesday a medical specialist tending to him said that Kayanja had huge quantities of toxic (poison) substances in his body. The brigadier’s vital internal organs are now dysfunctional according to CASE Medical doctors. Brigadier Kayanja is being attended to by seven medical workers including nephrologists, physicians, a nurse and intensivists and one hematologist.  Brigadier Kayanja became famous during the time he commanded ‘Operation Wembuley.’

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Uganda citizens and many Africans in general say that it inconceivable that president Museveni, who prides himself in being an avid reader, would somehow be ignorant of the history of Uganda’s oil exploration.

The question then is why would the president be desperately trying to sell to Ugandans and the world in general his cock-and-bull oil story? It seems the president is copying a leaf from fallen Ugandan Presidents Milton Obote and Field Martial Iddi Amin Dada who wanted all Ugandans to believe that Uganda existed because they ‘wished it so.’

Like President Milton Obote and Amin’s ‘s characterization, it looks that president wants all people to believe that he is the one who discovered Uganda’s oil such that Ugandan citizens look at him as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and generally invincible.

President Museveni’s desire to be seen as unbelievably brave and “visionary” is, apparently, one of the clinical attributes of pathological liars around the world. President Museveni’s critics argue that if he can massage something as well documented as Uganda’s oil story, they wonder how many of his heroic bush war stories are really true. The critics say that during Idd Amin’s regime many people in Bunyoro kingdom (western Uganda) were using crude raw oil for lighting so for Museveni claiming that he discovered that oil its an abuse and insult to people of Bunyoro.

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With due respect, Prof George Kanyeihamba’s news article that the speaker of Uganda Parliament Ms Rebecca Kadaga erred in refusing to recall Parliament” published in The Daily Monitor of 3 February, 2013, was as naïve as the reference to Speaker Wapakhabulo’s 1998 ruling on withdrawal of signatures for petitions submitted to the Speaker. For such bold rulings, Wapa’s popularity soared through the roof, ending his Speakership!

To her credit, Kadaga attempted a spirited resistance against president Museveni’s position on the recall of parliament, and like Wapa, naively assumed that Parliamentary Rules of Procedure were all the ammunition she needed! Like Wapa, her popularity hit the roof, but her “real” Speakership is in serious balance!

I have argued in many fora that Uganda’s problem is not Museveni per se, but the influence he wields arising out of a Constitution that was deliberately designed to enable him win political battles (of importance to him), and after a protracted twenty years’ struggle to become President of Uganda, Museveni knew the exact kind of Constitution he needed to be President for a long time. The general view that the “Benjamin Odoki Commission” is responsible for the Constitution of Uganda is another naivety!

Uganda’s Constitution fuses Government and the State, trapping both under the President’s patronage, by making him appoint holders of all decision-making positions in this country, the result of which, 20% of Parliament (10 soldiers and 70 Ministers) are directly appointed by the President, while common sense tells the rest to keep off the collision path with him because he holds the key to life after Parliament. This is not farfetched considering that the President appointed all NRM politicians who lost in the Party Primaries and National Elections to the numerous Government and State offices at his disposal. That gives him the necessary clout to influence public officials. Moreover, it makes his own job is secure, since he appoints the Electoral Commissioners, top Judicial and finance officials, as well as top police and army officials.

Kadaga, on the other hand was armed with just the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure and 10 vocal MPs!

We need to wake up to the fact that what made Wapakhabulo resign as Speaker of Parliament to take up the considerably lowly position of NPC, is what made Ssekandi play ball as Speaker, and is what influenced Kadaga’s decision not to recall parliament – the formidable clout of the President, largely bestowed on him by the Constitution of Uganda.

Because the President appoints, at his discretion, officials in charge of all State institutions, he necessarily has immense influence on the institutions. It is in the interest of each institutional leadership in this country to perpetuate Museveni’s reign because by so doing, they guarantee their own perpetuity!

Key democracy and accountability institutions like the judiciary, parliament, police, Electoral Commission, IGG, Auditor General, DPP and the Human Rights’ Commission should never be put in a position where they owe favours. But Uganda’s Constitution does just that by having them appointed by the President, at his discretion!

In order for those institutions to function independently, a conclusive environment must be provided for them, like advertising the top jobs and filling them through an open, competitive process, so that they do not owe their jobs to anybody.

Kenya achieved this through the 2010 national referendum that led to a constitutional amendment that requires the offices of Chief Justice, Deputy Chief Justice, Judges, Electoral Commission and Inspector General of Police to be advertised and filled through an open competitive process. Uganda must do the same.

Beti Kamya-Turwomwe

Chief Petitioner for a National Referendum to trim the Powers of the President and she is also the President of Uganda Federal Alliance

ENDS

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The Democratic Party (DP) is watching Gen. David Sejusa, popularly Gen. David Tinyefuza very carefully. Why? Norbert Mao, who is the DP President General, says that General Tinyenfuza has in the past hoodwinked Ugandans by claiming that he had switched political sides (he had crossed from Uganda’s ruling political party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM)) and abandoned President Museveni (whom Mao refers to as ‘the Dictator’).

Tinyefuza then went back into NRM fold and President Museveni promoted him to the rank of General in Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) and also appointed him as the Coordinator of Security and Intelligence Agencies in Uganda.

“Do we believe him (Tinyefuza) today when he speaks of peoples’ uprising as being legitimate?” Mao asked on Friday as he was addressing the DP National Executive Committee (NEC) members at the DP headquarters on City House building in Kampala.

“Aren’t Tinyefuza’s security and intelligence services the ones killing and torturing Ugandans and opposition political activists in particular? Where has Tinyefuza been when some members of the security organisation violating peoples rights and freedoms?” Mao asks.

He says DP members are open- minded and they are waiting to see what follows in General David Sejusa’s corner. His recent statement that an uprising against government would be so legitimate could be his usual boxing tactics of the Museveni regime.

Mao fears that Tinyefuza could be tricking opposition activists to come out and then the same man pounce, arrest and charges them with treason, terrorism and concealing treason.

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The Democratic Party president general, Norbert Mao has said that for the last 27 years president Museveni has been trying to sell to him a ‘commodity’ labeled ‘the National Resistance Movement (NRM)’ saying that the product is good for all Ugandans to ‘buy’.

“On radio and TV talk shows, in phone calls, emails, and person to person communications president Museveni and his allies in government successfully failed to sell to him NRM ideology,” Mao told the DP members at the party head offices in Kampala on Thursday.

Mao says that one day Museveni told him that he (Museveni) was the only good man for all the years Uganda has had presidents and that NRM was the best political organisation the country has had ever since.

But Mao says that a product that does not immediately sell at its launch and needs over 27 years of marketing before its leaders convince customers must be defective.

And it gets worse. He says that the same product was once bought and returned by some of the marketing officers. The very people (read politicians) that sold NRM to Ugandans have either gone underground or abandoned it and apologized publically to Ugandans.

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