KAMPALA, Uganda
Some top leaders of Uganda’s traditional churches have served notice that they may not be ready to support President Museveni’s re-election bid next year.
They have aired a range of complaints against the ruling NRM and
party chairman President Yoweri Museveni. On September 11, Godfrey Kiwanda
Ssuubi, the Tourism minister, set out on a one goal political mission: rally
religious leaders to support President Museveni’s 2021 re-election bid.
Kiwanda sought to pump immediate energy into President
Museveni’s re-election campaign in the central region, three weeks after he was
elected the ruling NRM’s vice-chairman for Central region.
To sway religious leaders, Kiwanda carried with him a collection
of NRM publications that included the presidential speeches, the party’s
constitution, the manifesto implementation score card and a plaque declaring
Museveni as the ruling party’s sole candidate in next year’s general election.
“We have come to
introduce to you our candidate for the 2021 general election, and ask you to
put him and the NRM in your prayers so that we successfully go through the
elections,” the minister separately told the different clergymen he met.
He started off with a visit to the Supreme Mufti’s office on
Kibuli Hill on the outskirts of Kampala and soon the youthful minister realized
that the task ahead was bigger than he had anticipated. At Kibuli, he drew a torrent
of criticism for the violence in NRM’s internal elections that led to the death
of six people in different parts of the country, plus Museveni’s unfulfilled
promises.
“I didn’t know that this is how NRM conducts its affairs; if we
can see so much violence in an internal election, what is going to happen in
the general elections?” Sheikh Silman Kasule Ndirangwa, the supreme mufti, told
Kiwanda last week.
The Kibuli group, speaking mostly through its spokesman, Sheikh
Nuhu Muzaata Batte, wondered why President Museveni remembers Muslims during
election time and sometimes, during funerals of prominent Muslims.
From Kibuli, Kiwanda headed to Namungoona in Lubaga division, to
meet the head of the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Yona Lwanga, who without
mincing words told his NRM guests that he had lost hope in the country’s
leadership and elections.
“The last time I voted was in 1980, and when [former vice
president] Paulo Muwanga rigged the election in favour of [former president]
Apollo Milton Obote. I vowed never to participate in any election until when
the country gets back on track… we are not yet there,” Lwanga said.
The Namungoona team had compiled a list of unmet promises
President Museveni has made to the church over the years. Top on the list is
the Shs 300 million the president pledged to support the construction of the
Orthodox cathedral at Lubya Hill in Lubaga division.
This pledge was made in May 2019 during celebrations to mark 100
years of the Orthodox Church’s evangelical mission in Uganda. The president
then made an instant cash payment of Shs 30 million, promising to send the
balance as soon as possible.
Museveni also promised a further Shs 80 million to capitalize
the church members’ savings credit and co-operatives society (Sacco) and
another Shs 20 million for the priests’ sacco. At Old Kampala, the Mufti,
Sheikh Shaban Ramathan Mubajje too had his complaints, but majorly as chair of
the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU).
“We approached the president about getting involved in the
poverty eradication campaign and presented him with a budget of Shs 5.5
billion, which he agreed to. But when it came to the point of implementation,
bureaucracy set in; it is now three years and the bureaucracy at the ministry
of Finance is making it impossible for religious institutions to access the
funds,” Mubajje said.
In April 2018, Museveni took religious leaders under IRCU on a
tour of farms in Ibanda and Kiruhura districts, before hosting them to a
luncheon at his country home in Rwakitura where he implored them to embrace
poverty alleviation programs.
A month later, he hosted them at State House, Entebbe, where he
committed to facilitate them with Shs 5 billion and cars to enable them to
promote wealth creation among believers.
“It seems that government thinks that religious leaders are
voluntary workers who don’t need to be facilitated. Your people in the ministry
of Finance have stifled our efforts,” Mubajje said.
All Kiwanda could do was to promise the clergymen that he would
take their concerns to Museveni.
“Being NRM vice-chairman for the Central region put me closer to
the president because under the party hierarchy, I am number four below him,
Hajji Moses Kigongo [1st national vice-chairman] and Rt Hon Rebecca Kadaga
[2nd national vice-chairperson],” Kiwanda said.
He also asked the religious men to scale down on their criticism of the NRM shortcomings.
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