Uganda rows over Museveni’s rule
As MPs scuffle over the president’s ageing reign, protesters take the battle to the streets
When the police arrived to break up the protest, Muhammad Ssebuuma and his fellow students knelt. “We put our hands up and started singing the national anthem,” said Ssebuuma (23), who is studying education at Makerere University in Uganda’s capital Kampala.
It was meant as a gesture symbolising peace in a country where many believe the veteran president, Yoweri Museveni, whose political future dominates the national agenda, has brought them to their hands and knees.
“We thought the police would sympathise with us. Instead, we were beaten and arrested. I was beaten on the back with a baton,” said Ssebuuma.
The students are not alone in expressing fears that Museveni, in power since 1986, might be overstaying his welcome.
This week, chaos over an age limit debate broke out in Parliament. MPs hurled chairs, shoved each other and came to blows, while protests once again took place across the East African country.
Uganda’s Constitution bars candidates under the age of 35 and over 75 from running for president, which means that Museveni, who is supposedly 73, would be ineligible for running in 2021 elections.
The president, one of Africa’s longest serving, came to power after the civil war that unseated Milton Obote, and won a fifth consecutive term in an election last year.
Now the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) wants to scrap presidential age limits altogether. The controversial motion, introduced by NRM MP Raphael Magyezi, was due to be debated on Tuesday, but the vote had to be adjourned after scuffles broke out between Museveni’s supporters and opposition MPs, who donned red headbands to symbolise their struggle.
Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda (44), who has been in Parliament since 1998 — first as a reporter and now as an MP with the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party — told the Mail & Guardian: “There was pandemonium, something I have not seen in my life. I saw chairs flying, chairs turned into weapons. People hit each other. One MP fell on the ground and I saw people stamping on him.”
There has been talk of amending the Constitution for months, and the controversial motion was originally expected to be raised in Parliament on September 21. It did not come to fruition then, but led to demonstrations across Uganda on the day, with the biggest protests held at Makerere University. Police fired teargas and rubber bullets at students.
“It was very, very bloody,” said Brian Katana (24), a law student at Makerere. “The people are tired of this dictator. The future of this nation belongs to us, not to the 70and 80- and 90[-year-olds]. These guys will be dying soon.”
Uganda’s police chief Kale Kayihura had issued a statement on September 20, claiming there were “groups who intend to cause violence and mayhem particularly in [Kampala] targeting Parliament”.
He said, although “police recognises and has always facilitated the exercise of the right to demonstrate peacefully and unarmed”, the authorities had to “keep law and order [and] prevent crime, as well as protect life and property”.
But the defiant protesters the M&G spoke to, including Katana and Ssebuuma, estimated there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people scattered across Makerere the next day, and blamed police for an over-zealous response.
Katana said he set off from the university’s Freedom Square to Parliament in a group of about 150. Some students carried placards reading “k’ogilkwatoko”, which means “If you touch, you are likely to get in trouble with us” in the Luganda language, according to Katana.
But they only walked about 1.5km before the authorities appeared.
Two students were shot, according to Katana and his fellow protesters, and about 45 students were arrested.
There were reports that students had hurled stones at the police.
Katana said the police also broke into dormitories, sprayed teargas, undressed some students and bundled them on to police trucks.
Local media quoted police as saying 48 students had been arrested, but one newspaper said the figure could be higher, with scores of people
“Mandela did not have time. Some people think being in government for a short time is good. I think it is bad”