{UAH} Thank you very much, Kira municipality!

                   Thank you very much, Kira municipality!

Written by Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda

Created: 02 March 2016

The stealing, call it rigging if you want to sanitize it, of the presidential vote didn't afford me the luxury of celebrating my own resounding victory in newly-created Kira municipality.

Restrictions on enjoyment of our rights, especially those of Col Kizza Besigye, was/is a more urgent matter to attend to. But now that torture, arrests and humiliation are getting entrenched, let me thank the people of Kira municipality for electing me their MP.

Kira municipality, with a total population of 330,000 and comprising of Kireka, Bweyogerere, Kirinya, Kyaliwajjala, Kira and Kimwanyi parishes, was created when Kyadondo East was divided into two.

Kira is one of the most populated constituencies, with over 130,000 voters and 186 polling stations. In terms of population, it is bigger than Kapchorwa, Bukwo and Kween districts combined.

These three districts are represented by seven MPs, yet Kira, with a bigger population, is represented by one. This is what gives NRM the majority in parliament and this is how elections are scientifically-stolen.

Wakiso district, according to the recent population census, has over two million people, but it is still represented by one woman MP; yet Kapchorwa, Kween and Bukwo, with 280,000 people, have three woman MPs.

I am not pleading for the division of Wakiso, but for equal representation. Why should Kampala, with one and a half million people, have one woman MP yet Bushenyi, Mitooma, Buhweju, Rubirizi and all the tiny districts carved out of original Bushenyi are each represented by a woman MP?

Isn't this what they call gerrymandering of electoral areas which was common under Milton Obote? It is also the reason why parliament has become very big. We are now a size of a big secondary school! Someone should raise a petition for constitutional interpretation.

Although there were deliberate administrative shortcomings with our elections in Kira, our efforts overwhelmed the regime. The regime candidate who Mr Museveni introduced at many public functions won at only one polling station and I won at 184. The DP candidate, Eddy Yawe, also won at one polling station.

In total, I polled 43,000 votes and the regime candidate came a distant second with 13,000 votes and the DP candidate was third with 11,000 votes. I owe it to the people of Kira and I want to thank them most sincerely. I faced a well-financed but poorly-organized state outfit.

For example, towards elections, Mr Museveni presided over the inauguration of a community health facility in Buwaate and, instead of speaking about decayed health service provision, chose to lambast me. He said I was the reason roads in my constituency are bad because I am from the opposition. I hope you remember images of Col Besigye and Gen Mugisha Muntu pushing a truck that was stuck in the mud in Kanungu.

Buwaate is one of the villages in my constituency. Museveni again returned to a nearby village (trading centre) called Najjeera at least twice and even donated Shs 400 million to some youths. He then went around parading them as examples of helping the urban poor to come up with successful projects.

There are about eight polling stations in Buwaate and Najjeera and I won at all of them. Mr Museveni also lost at all of them. Tokenism and handouts, I am happy, no longer work at least in Wakiso and in Kira.

When he came campaigning, Mr Museveni likened me to a rat that steals someone's millet and introduced the regime candidate as a cat supposed to catch me. This is a phrase he used against every opposition MP, especially in Buganda.

To Museveni, Uganda is his property and to work in public institutions like parliament, you must be his supporter. And that tells you a lot about the man and public service. He never addressed issues of abilities.

Never at any of his rallies in Buganda did Museveni speak about the quality of debate in parliament and ability to scrutinize policy. He only emphasised loyalty. Mediocrity is what he is promoting and he expects his government to deliver. If it ever did, it will become a case study in Africa and the whole world.  In Kira, we don't entertain mediocrity, maybe it is welcome in Kiruhura.

With Museveni still in our midst, it is difficult to speak about a better future. His focus and, therefore, investment is in retention of power. That is why he has more money to donate than the budget of Coffee Development Authority, Cotton Development Organization and National Housing and Construction Company combined.

He needs more money to buy his stay in power and that is the project that eats most of our resources.

That is why he has now deployed the military and police in all urban centres, so the population doesn't eject him from State House. I think he must be planning another money-distribution venture.


semugs@yahoo.com

The author is Kyadondo East MP.

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