{UAH} Sejusa: a year in exile
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Gen Sejusa
Edris Kiggundu reflects on a year in which Gen Sejusa has faded from national headlines into virtual oblivion.
They say a day in politics can seem like a long time. What about a year?
The first days of Sejusa's exile were characterized by excitement and anticipation. A week after he fled to the UK, reports emerged that Sejusa would return home. Apparently, Sejusa, one of 10 army MPs, had sought permission from Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to attend to some urgent duties in London and would return shortly after.
A day before he was scheduled to return, The Observer website broke the story that Sejusa had decided he could not return to be "arrested like a cockroach".
It was assumed he had only temporarily cancelled his return. Yet as days turned into weeks and weeks into months, it became apparent that Sejusa intended to stay in the UK for a long time. His revelations had rattled the feathers of the powers that be back home. The army declared him a treasonous deserter. So the UK, it seemed, was Sejusa's safe haven.
BBC interview
In his first media interview after fleeing, Gen Sejusa told the BBC on June 18 that he would resist the Museveni presidency "by all means necessary." Sejusa, who sounded angry, noted that Article 3 of the Constitution enjoined Ugandans to resist anyone who abrogates, subverts or in any way threatens the supreme law of the land.
He said he and others had begun "to discuss other options," arguing that it did not matter whether Museveni clung to power himself or through his son. He asked rhetorically: "who gave Museveni the right to rule over us forever?"
Asked whether he harboured presidential ambitions, Sejusa responded: "A four-star general without ambition is in a wrong place."
Sejusa, 59, argued that the succession debate should not be personalized since a lot more was at stake than just Muhoozi taking up the presidency.
"Really, the son is a tiny factor. The central issue is a political monarchy. It is a terribly common African story. There is nothing strange about it," Sejusa said. He added that once "a system is decadent and perverse," the people who have been in power for 30 years start playing God.
When asked why he had served the 'decadent' regime for decades, Sejusa responded: "This is the point of saying enough is enough."
Sejusa further said that like many others, he could not speak out about the injustices because of the restrictions within the army. He added that the president had subdued other state institutions, which should have checked the regime's excesses.
VOA fire
Sejusa's most explosive interview yet was with the Voice of America in July 2012. He spent a lot of time defending his record in the army, following accusations that he had used violence to silence regime critics while still in government.
"Those are the occupational hazards of serving a dictatorship. Ultimately, you are stuck in there and your credibility suffers. But as you have pointed out, my history speaks for itself. It is not the first time that I am moving out. I have been standing [up] to this regime, some of its excesses, I did so in the constitutional assembly in 1994-95.
It brought me a lot of problems. I stood up against the regime publicly in 1996-97 when I went to court and I was actually conscripted and put back as is the wont with Mr Museveni that you must stay in the military until maybe you die in the military or until you are useless to do anything or threaten his power base," Sejusa told moderator Shaka Ssali.
He conceded that he should have ditched the regime earlier.
"I should have done what I am doing today. I should have done it in 1989-98 and become an 'outlaw' and done what I am doing now, and gone to exile and resisted the regime as I am doing now."
Fuf formed
Until now, Sejusa had not showed the mechanisms he would use. In December 2013, he joined hands with Col John Ogole, a former commander in the Obote II army, and formed the Freedom and Unity Front (FUF). FUF, they said was a political platform to fight dictatorship in Uganda using all available means.
At the launch of FUF, Sejusa revealed that Dr Kizza Besigye of FDC had won the February 23, 2006 election with a 69 per cent margin. Museveni, he said, had managed less than 30 per cent of the ballot.
"We organised another Electoral Commission of intelligence at Basiima house and it is our results that we pushed through to the [official] Electoral Commission. How can you win in that type of situation?" he said.
In 2006, Museveni was declared winner with 59 per cent, trailed by Besigye at 37 per cent.
"Anytime an African incumbent president is declared the winner by a 50 per cent margin, then you know he's lost," Gen Sejusa noted, in reference to the margin of the win as declared by the EC in 2006.
Back home, Gen Jeje Odongo, the minister of state for Defence and former army commander, told The Observer that they would defeat Sejusa and his new group.
"He has already declared that he is going to topple this government by use of force," Odongo said. "It is too early to say much, but we [UPDF] are here, and we will protect this country against all forms of aggression."
Brig Kasirye Gwanga also warned Sejusa that rebel activities in Africa are a thing of the past.
"If it is true my senior colleague wants to wage war in Uganda, where will he wage it from; Mubende or where? No way. Some of the people who liberated this country died before being paid and some of those who hid us have not been paid yet; who is so ignorant to assist rebels again?" Gwanga said.
One of FUF's most prominent recruits was Zoe Bakoko Bakoru, a former minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development who fled the country in 2006 after charges had been brought against her over mismanagement of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF). Bakoru joined FUF in March this year. Welcoming her into the fold, Sejusa said her revelations about the regime's corruption deals would be important because they came from an insider.
Besigye connections
On August 18, 2013, it was revealed that Sejusa had met former FDC president Dr Kizza Besigye in London. Besigye confirmed the meeting but declined to divulge details. To this day, Besigye maintains in interviews that he is still in contact with Sejusa.
Dr Besigye and Sejusa's closeness is historical. They were roommates at Makerere University and friends during the National Resistance Movement (NRM) bush war. Besigye was the best man at Sejusa's wedding in 1987.
However, over the past 10 years, this historical bond of comradeship had been so fractured by the struggle for power and each of them sat on the other side of the political divide.
In February 2006, when the High court freed Besigye and 22 others on charges of treason, Sejusa castigated the judges for "siding with wrongdoers instead of helping the state to get rid of terrorism."
Yet in his zeal to expose the dictatorial tendencies of a government he once served and to get close to the opposition, a year after he fled the country, Sejusa remains haunted by a dark past of what he did to secure the Museveni government.
Meanwhile, in recent weeks, sejusa has all but vanished from headlines in a country consumed by the Mbabazi-Museveni row in the ruling party. For now, it is as if he has become the forgotten renegade.
ekiggundu@observer.ug
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