Opinion: NUP leader Kibalama was judged before being heard

By Muhwezi Joshua Lawel

The transition of NUP from the hands of its founders to the people power movement leadership is one of the best crafts that have happened in the modern political play in this country. Its precision and timely delivery was a master piece. Government and its agencies had been caught unaware, members of the electoral commission were fired, and the entirely country was mesmeric.

From an ambiguous movement to an autonomous structured party, this turned out to be the biggest opposition party the rest is but history.

For this craft to succeed it required utmost cooperation  and discretion from both parties , this required a relationship based on trust to triumph and indeed the success of it is evidence that such a relationship  existed.

The question then becomes what became of this relationship?  If everything had gone as it should have, why then were sections discontent? Which of the two parties did not fulfill their part of the bargain or rather was not contented with the success in and of itself.

For any agreement to merit there has to be something which in legal terms is referred to as consideration which means what any of the parties gives in for the two or more to come to a consensus. what is obvious in this case is that Kibalama’s offer was the party to the people power leaders , what is uncovered by the media and what the people have not addressed their minds to is what the people power leaders were to fulfill , what was their consideration.

The world is driven by perception; however I should say politics makes it more vivid. He who has the masses and their favor is unquestionable. Their story becomes the truth and their actions become the most appropriate. Look at it this way, if God decided to tell a lie and Satan tells the truth. God’s lies would be taken as the truth, and Satan’s truth would be seen as the lie.

This is simply because of the perceptions we have about the two it doesn’t matter what the facts are, people are too lazy to question the facts, that’s why genetic fallacies are the most successful of all.

This is worsened in popular politics because people are infatuated with their leaders and attach a high sense of infallibility. This explains why no one has bothered to check out Kibalama’s side of the story, all of us somehow assume that the holy trinity at the top of NUP is right not because we have interrogated the facts of the agreement but somehow we assume they are the right side.

The intellectuals of our time must always rise to the occasion in such instances to question. In this case if the transition is evidence that there was a good relationship between the two parties and indeed Kibalama smoothly handed over the party, how then did the relationship deteriorate?  

Many of us have been made to believe that it’s the regime pressure on Kibalama that got him at logger heads with the new leadership few months after the transition. if that be true, under the hostile environment in which all this transpired wasn’t this anticipated, the people who handled this master plan against all odds couldn’t they figure out the consequences of it, indeed they did, part of the agreement was that they would offer him protection, Kibalama would be flown out of the country until the tempo came down.

In fact Lewis Rubongoya took his passport, it is said that up to now he has never returned it. Kibalama was never taken and as had been anticipated the man was taken over by the security forces , the people power leaders had gotten the party but the plan had started cracking from their side , what happened to Kibalama before and during the court sessions we all remember but most especially what Kyagulanyi says Kibalama had confessed to him . The man was being gagged by the forces he had been exposed to what they all had dreaded.

Consequently NUP got a good day in court, they were relived of what would have been the biggest challenge but again instead of taking advantage to consolidate the party became confident and arrogant to say the least. Instead of reconciling the missing link by bringing the old man on the table they threw him farther.

They refused to fulfill all their promises, they had agreed to make him head of the elders council and other members of the old guard be incorporated into the party leadership but they did not. Again the only way of verifying the validity of these claims is by having a look at the facts of the agreement and the only way of accessing this agreement is if NUP new leadership is willing to adduce it to the media because Kibalama wont, not because he wouldn’t want to but because he doesn’t have a copy, the man had operated in trust but these boys were cunning they made sure they made only one copy which they kept themselves.

Kibalama also claims that the memorandum of understanding was supposed to be reviewed after a year. Senyonyi says they wouldn’t enter into such an agreement but again he doesn’t tell the public what the facts are. The New party leaders who lead a public entity should make the agreement reachable by the media; the other option is Kibalama going to court and forcing them to adduce it.

The earlier is highly unlikely because as much as they speak about the law hardly do they exercise transparency. Somehow most of us have never asked ourselves why the party constitution has never been made public despite it being a public document, what is the composition of the executive which is the second most powerful organ of the party?

Again Kibalama’s story might never see the light of day because he was judged before he was heard and the NUP current leadership was believed before they spoke however this controversy opens our eyes to the reality, arises the need for us to interrogate our own opposition formations, to explain why they are not able to organize better to take power, to realize that actually these are held by the character of their leaders and mismanagement of the internal politics than they are held up by the regime and its machinery.

The writer is a social, political critique