Age Limit Should Not Be Amended

Just a few weeks after DP launched the K’ogikwatako campaign to ensure that the presidential age limit stays in our constitution NRM MPs have shown unprecedented panic by deciding that this contentious issue cannot await the process of a broader consultation. Some people say the whole circus is not motivated by conviction but rather the transactional politics of the day. News broke that some youth where being facilitated to promote the lifting of the age limit. 

Not to be outdone, the Commission Agents in the NRM Caucus had to start something to show they are working and thus get State House to loosen the purse strings.

Unfortunately given the stakes, these overzealous MPs may “die twice like charcoal” which dies as the tree is burnt and then again in the stove. The MPs will not get any money and in addition lose their parliamentary seats! Groupthink will not save them. 

For such a polarizing issue, you would have expected MPs to take time to feel the pulse of the general population. That they have rushed to judgement shows they are out of touch. If only they knew that the man they are fighting for can actually do without them. Anyway here are reasons why MPs should defend Article 102(b) without fear. 

1. Age limit will facilitate peaceful and constitutional transition of power. All Ugandans yearn for change without bloodshed. The age limit is the last remaining bulwark against the ever present temptation to resort to unconstitutional means to bring about change.

2. The presidency is not a career. The age limit keeps fresh ideas and new points of view in the vicinity of public office, it ensure that no individual can focus more on keeping the job than public service. Official decisions and actions will be made more carefully because the office bearer knows that within a definite time he will return to be an ordinary citizen.

3. Age limit controls graft and corruption. A rolling stone gather no moss. Long serving incumbents tend to focus more on simply getting re-elected rather than doing the right thing for the people.

4. It periodically clears the top deck. Age limit clears the ballots after a certain period and allows a new group of potential candidates to make themselves known and to vie for office. In the absence of age limit, many talented potential leaders will simply not contest.

5. The argument that the nation benefits from the experience of a perennial ruler is bogus. In fact, new leaders can benefit from the experience of long serving civil servants. This insulates the state against the fear that new comers lack the experience.

6. It limits chances of state capture by powerful moneyed interests. Government is supposed to serve the public but with time a long serving incumbent becomes a captive.

7. Democracy is about limiting power of individuals. The age limit will encourage us build and prepare potential leaders and establish the fundamentals of public service. It builds institutions and prepares leaders.

8. Scientifically, with advanced age, leaders can simply become fatigued and less energised but the adoring public may just not see what is actually happening because an incumbent has money, name recognition and influence to continue being re-elected.

9. Age limit creates opportunities for fresh faces. Long serving and entrenched incumbents deter opponents who see the virtual futility of mounting a challenge against an incumbent.

10. Age limit will end the era of indefinite presidencies. Only the age limit will remove the fear that there will never be a predetermined end to a single person’s ability to rule for life.

TVO Speaks Out On Life, Evading ‘Women Traps

A couple of years ago, Tom Voltaire Okwalinga alias TVO was approached by a beautiful lady who suggested a meeting.

TVO expressed willingness to meet the girl at Fang Fang Hotel in Kampala.

“When we made an appointment at Fang Fang, I put the place on survaillance and she came,” recalls TVO.

“And I told her the dress she had and the people who appeared to be with her and how they were dressed,” he added.

Unknown to the girl, whose identity TVO said should be kept a secret, he was already monitoring the place.

TVO wanted to be sure that the girl was not on a mission to nail him.

TVO had made a mark as one the harshest critics of the state, attacking the First Family from all corners.

He knew the consequences of being captured by the State.

When the girl arrived at the venue, TVO says he spotted an intelligence official in the vicinity.

“Funny I knew one of them who works with state house counter intelligence,” says TVO in an exclusive interview we held with him this week.

“She tried to trap me and I trapped her back,” he boasts.

TVO’s popularity soared during the ‘Kale leaks’ as secretly recorded audio tapes of Gen Kale Kayihura leaked to the public.

In the tapes first released by TVO, Kayihura was heard conniving with opposition leaders to undermine their own party structures.

The tapes went viral, bolstering TVO’s Facebook numbers and brand.

But a senior intelligence officer who insists TVO is Robert Shaka, says the tapes were simply leaked to TVO.

“I had those tapes long before TVO released them,” the officer observes.

“He doesn’t have the so-called classified intelligence.”

TVO says the lady he met at Fang Fang had seduced him with her pictures.

“I programmed my system and called her in one hour with 77 calls. Each call with its number and none of those numbers exist,” he tells ChimpReports.

TVO chose not to meet the suspicious lady.

“She got stuck. She was a regime agent and even sent me nudes to seduce me,” he adds.

Security services have for long tried to nail Okwalinga in vain.

But an intelligence source said “TVO is Shaka. No one is looking for him. We all know him.”

Interestingly, despite arresting and charging Shaka as the handler of the TVO Facebook account, the state could not prove it were him. The case collapsed due to lack of compelling evidence.

So how would the state be convinced that Shaka was TVO but couldn’t prove it in courts of law?

Many say security lack the technical expertise to bust secret IP addresses of such cyber fugitives.

Experts say the state would have succeeded in getting TVO if they could prove that Shaka’s IP address originates the TVO Facebook posts. This remains almost impossible unless the state get confirmationfrom Facebook headquarters.

The case filed by lawyer Fred Muwema at the Court of Appeal in Ireland would be helpful but Facebook has to put up a firm defence to avoid a precedent where it could be ordered anytime to release users’ confidential information.

I am not Shaka

TVO insists he is not Shaka.

“By persecuting Shaka in a registered magazine and putting his life in danger, he (Andrew Mwenda) has violated US and EU laws and am told the U.S. Embassy is mooting revoking his Visa,” says TVO.

We could not independently verify this claim. But it’s also widely believed in security circles that TVO used a secure server at the U.S. Mission in Kampala to publish his Facebook posts.

Asked why he was in a war with Andrew Mwenda, TVO does not mince words.

“I think he was hurt when a top secret on how he broke up with a U.S. guy leaked,” says TVO.

When TVO alleged that Mwenda was gay, the journalist posted pictures of his girlfriend Fifi.

Private life

TVO was unusually willing to reveal unknown details about his private life including age.

“I am the only child and my father was a police officer,” said TVO.

“I attended a school in Bugisu, one in Wakiso then Makerere University.”

TVO has repeatedly maintained he was at Makerere at a time when Sarah Kagingo was the Guild President.

He must have been a mature!

“I was born in a barracks in Busoga but originally Amuria,” says TVO.

He says his mother is a “Musoga.”

TVO says at the age of 43, he jogs a lot to remain healthy and fit.

“My father used to jog and he took me along. I became adapted,” he observes.

Asked to explain his source of livelihood, TVO responds quickly: “I do business and I am a landlord to 20 people.”

He does not tell us where his building/apartments are located.

If confirmed, this means some of you who are still renting could be tenants of TVO.

Regarding his love life, TVO says he is not married “but I have a daughter who just turned 5.”

Confidence

Many have been wondering whether TVO is not part of the intelligence apparatus.

Where the hell in this world would one derive confidence to post such nasty stuff about the First Family and top military brass?

Could this be a state ploy to identify internal saboteurs leaking information to outsiders?

If so, it would be a classic case of reverse psychology in intelligence gathering.

Some of the harshest critics and opposition figures have since turned out as regime informers and allies.

But TVO posts are too damaging to the State officials.

Multiple sources we talked to say the Ugandan public is so forgetful.

TVO started his so-called anti-corruption crusade by attacking Amama Mbabazi whom many knew would stand for president.

Rarely did TVO severely attack Museveni until long after Mbabazi was exposed.

Asked what motivated his works, TVO responded:

“The love for my country.”

Is TVO a patriot?

Many look at him as a source of uncensored news about the internal works of the state.

“I have close people who sacrificed their lives to bring a democratic dispensation and it was Museveni who convinced them and he turned around and became the opposite of what he was preaching and I decided to take his regime on,” says TVO.

He doesn’t identify the departed NRA combatants/supporters that helped Museveni to take power in 1986.

TVO boasts of having eluded many traps set by the State.

“You know I am not after money or fame,” says TVO, adding, “That’s why I can’t be blackmailed or betrayed.”

“If I were some greedy person like Mwenda, I would have been history a long time ago,” says TVO.

He alleges Mwenda wants to con President Museveni by promising to unmask TVO.

So we asked TVO: “How does he want to defraud Museveni? Secondly, is it true you unknowingly sent an email to some hackers who busted your identity as alleged by Mwenda?”

TVO had this to say: “He deceives Museveni that he has unmasked TVO because he wants payment for that.”

Mwenda has since described his actions against TVO as a war against cyber bullies and extremists.

But TVO believes Mwenda is not telling the whole truth.

“First he (Mwenda) says Shaka contacted the hackers and I am not Shaka. Secondly, that is a fake and imaginary story when you look at it logically,” he adds.

“According to the description of Shaka I doubt he cancontact such people,” says TVO, adding, “it looks like a fairy tale… I am not Shaka and in fact I only know Shaka through Facebook.”

He says even “Kayihura knows 100 percent that Shaka is not TVO. They are just stuck with him.”

Publisher

He further states some time ago he was approached by an Irish Publisher offering substantial sums of money for a book on his life.

“I was contacted by an Irish publisher through my inbox for a book deal and I turned it down,” he reveals.

Why was he suspicious?

He responds: “Not suspicious as such but my take is that I have a forum where I reach my audience and the book would only make people think I am after money.”

According to TVO, the huge sum of money is still on the table if he takes the offer!

In his conclusive remarks, TVO says he is an inspiration to many young people.

“Me and other activists have inspired many young people to stand up and be counted in confronting the dictatorship,” says TVO.

How does he know?

“I see the way they criticise the regime without fears,” says TVO, adding, “The Tunisian revolution started with social media activism and that is my goal.”

We probed TVO’s views on Uganda’s divided opposition.

This was his response: “The opposition has been compromised and you cannot talk of UPC or DP anymore. Even the FDC is infiltrated and now has two clear factions.”

TVO goes ahead to claim that “Only the people can bring change; the opposition is a discredited entity.”

On government promises of a middle income status come 2020, TVO argues, “There can never be middle income status when most of the resources like oil are already mismanaged, when unemployment is getting more and more, when businesses owned by locals are collapsing at a fast rate, when exports are dwindling.”

TVO says his “favorite team is Arsenal and locally is Onduparaka FC.”

As we conclude the interview, TVO is keen on assuring his fans that he will never be busted.

“I can assure you one thing…Nobody can ever unmask me,” he says in a confident tone.

“It is just impossible. I made it impossible the first day I opened this account.”

Anti Museveni Movement Rallies Trump to Suspend U.S. Aid to Uganda

A clandestine opposition movement operating from the Diaspora has urged U.S. President Donald Trump to block aid to the Uganda government.

Mr. Remigius Kintu, Chairman of Uganda National Front, petitioned President Trump and the U.S.Congress to “suspend U.S. military and financial aid to Uganda which is sustaining Museveni’s corrupt government.”

Kintu also urged Washington to “re-consider U.S. diplomatic relations with Museveni who is holding on power by stealing elections.”

Uganda’s relations with Washington remain unclear.

Trump is yet to unveil his foreign policy towards Africa but his strategists have since questioned the logic of aid to some countries.

President Museveni won the 2016 elections amid accusations of widespread rigging.

The Supreme Court would later rule in favor of the president, dismissing allegations of irregularities as baseless.

It also affirmed Museveni as Uganda’s legitimately elected President.

However, Kintu said in his petition seen by Radio Katwe on Saturday, that “United States cannot be the champion of democracy while at the same time propping up…Museveni with U.S. military and financial aid.”

He added: “We are calling upon President Donald J. Trump to make good of his campaign promise to never again let the U.S. support Museveni who has overstayed in power for 31 years…”

Trump never made the alleged comments.

Kintu said Uganda’s economy, infrastructure and essential services have been destroyed and that the elections are usually manipulated to keep the incumbent in power.

For many years, Kampala has maintained close ties with the west especially United States.

Washington provides Uganda aid in form of military logistics and medical supplies.

Uganda also plays key roles in Washington’s war on terror especially in Somalia.

Why Museveni Demoted Wamala Katumba

Ugandan online media journalists who these days sleep with one eye open last night got a scoop on what appears the most historic and extensive military brass shake-up in the aftermath of a decisive election exercise.

The removal of Gen Katumba Wamala from the much-coveted position of Chief of Defence Forces to the position of State Minister for Works caught many by surprise.

Why would Museveni remove one of the most disciplined, successful and clean officer from the helm of the armed forces to what appears an insignificant post of State Minister?

Insiders say Katumba will occupy one of the most strategic positions in Museveni’s government as the country prepares for the Standard Gauge Railway project.

The position of Minister of State for Works had been given to Hon Ismael Orot only for Parliament to realise he was weak on academic papers.

For some time, multi-billion shilling infrastructural projects have been marred by allegations of corruption leading to wastage and abuse of public resources.

But Museveni believes such projects need disciplined leadership hence bringing on board distinguished military officers to take charge.

This started with former Army Commander Gen Aronda Nyakairima taking over the national identity card project as Internal Affairs Minister.

The ministry had turned into a den of thieves only for Aronda to turn it around in a matter of months – people got passports on time and sanity was restored.

On October 19, 2016, Kenya launched phase 2A of the Nairobi- Naivasha leg which will take the line through large chunks of the rift valley.

The civil works of Mombasa- Nairobi SGR section is substantially completed and this segment of the railway is due for commissioning in June 2017.

The SGR Uganda project coordinator Kasingye Kyamugambi recently said Uganda’s land acquisition is nearing completion with sections of the compensated railway corridor already demarcated.

Currently, close to 80 percent of Uganda’s goods pass through Mombasa with the majority of cargo going through road.

It is expected that with a functional and efficient railway line, most of the cargo will shift to the road network thus increasing the size of cargo and speed of delivery which will ultimately impact on the speed and efficiency of doing business in Uganda.

This is considered Museveni’s legacy project and the president would not risk putting it into the hands of greedy civil servants hence tapping Katumba’s discipline and talent.

Army spokesperson Lt Col Paddy Ankunda praised Katumba, saying, “He has demonstrated that he can reach out to the lowest soldier and listen to them.”

He added: “We were together in Somalia and he went to the extent of sharing lunch with the soldiers and understanding their problems”.

Many describe Katumba as pragmatic, intelligent, honest and hardworking. He still is a Rotarian, mingling with civilians without fear.

Weaknesses  

However, like any other human being, Katumba had his own weaknesses which could have encouraged Museveni to remove him from the highest position in Uganda’s armed forces.

Having received training from Russia, United States Army War College, Tanzania Military Academy, Nigerian Command and Staff College and United States Army Command and General Staff College, Katumba served in DRC and also as Inspector General of Police.

Katumba would later serve as Commander Land Forces before being elevated to CDF following the exit of Gen Aronda Nyakairima.

One of Katumba’s biggest failures was intelligence. It was during his reign that intelligence lapses threatened national security.

Corruption increased in military procurements including the widely-publicized ghost Russian pilot, sell of foodstuffs and arms in Somalia and the arms deal scandal broken by this investigative website.

It also was during Katumba’s time that cases of subversion increased.

“We were crushing attempted coups almost every 6 months. There was one planned by Gen David Sejusa then the planned attack on the presidential jet. There was another foiled attempted attack of Kabamba barracks and the recent one in the aftermath of the presidential elections,” said a source.

Many blamed this on military spies’ failure to preempt these plots.

Just recently IGP General Kale Kayihura said a mafia group had developed in the armed forces, perpetrating a reign of terror in the country.

Soldiers were arrested in connection with murder of businessmen and robbery of commercial banks.

When Museveni summoned the High Command late last year, he clearly told officers he would not tolerate impunity.

Kayihura’s public statement about the mafia in the army left no shed of doubt that Katumba was no longer actively in charge or had failed to do his job.

Another reason that explains Katumba’s downfall was the infiltration of the army by enemy forces.

Highly placed sources told Radio Katwe that many officers were recruited by external forces to cause regime change, pushing national security to the edge.

The 2016 voting patterns showing opposition winning in areas surrounding the barracks also alarmed president Museveni and his strategists.

“Katumba was a nice man but the army is not supposed to be a place for nice men. It’s a killing machine with lethal force which must be tamed,” said a source.

Asked whether Museveni was infuriated by media reports that Katumba had distanced himself from the UPDF raid on the Rwenzururu palace, the source responded: “That’s not true. He didn’t deny. He actually defended Elwelu. It’s the media which intentionally misquoted him.”

Katumba who recently clocked 60 years of age will be succeeded by former Commander Land Forces, Gen David Muhoozi, 46.

Besigye On Meeting Museveni

The four time presidential candidate further cited hisdetention immediately after the February 18 polls, describing it as something that shows the impunity of the state which he said ought to end before any dialogue can go on.

Besigye said keeping him in what he termed as illegaldetention is one of those situations that cannot be wished away by having ‘a chat’ over a table but proper process.

Conditions
The former FDC president said that the only chance for him engage in dialogue with President Museveni is when a number of issues have been resolved before the talks can commence.

“There must be a properly structured process. We have been talking about agreeing on a mutual facilitator who starts the process but not Museveni or Besigye inviting the other or another Church leader inviting us for a dialogue,” Besigye said.

The opposition stalwart said the person to facilitate and convene the dialogue should be one of high repute and recognized by all, on top of considering a guarantee to the implementation of the outcome of the dialogue.

He said that before the talks can kick off, there must be a mutual agreement by all parties involved, laying down a strategy and mechanisms in which the agreed principles would be implemented after
the talks.

“There have been many agreements gathering dust in the shelves .Like in Gambia, Yahya Jammeh was defeated and conceded but later changed his mind. What would you do to a person like that?”

“One must think of a process that can cause the implementation of what has been agreed. There must be an agreed mechanism and put in place guarantors to ensure the agreement  is followed.”

According to Besigye the agenda of the dialogue ought to be first discussed before the actual meeting.

Asked to comment on the botched meeting with President Museveni in 2006, Besigye said that he received the invitation for the meeting but was stunned that he never knew the agenda of the meeting. “I wrote to them so I could propose an agenda plus another venue for the meeting. They sent back a letter saying I was just invited and the invitation was as it was. I just said I won’t go.”

The meeting in 2006 was subsequently attended by  Miria Obote(UPC), Ssebaana Kizito(DP) and Abed Bwanika among other people.