KAMPALA – City business mogul Gordon Wavamunno has let out his heart, telling President Yoweri Museveni “it’s time to go.”
The entrepreneur decanted his frustration with the regime, in his 139-paged-book – sarcastically condemning the removal of term limits in 2005 and the mismanagement of the succession debate.
He says that having ruled Uganda for this long [33 years], Mr. Museveni ought to have left the chair many years ago – giving a chance to young budding figures within or outside the NRM to take charge.
“To avoid being splashed with all the mud, rulers should stay for a reasonably short time and above all choose people around them very carefully,” he wrote, claiming it’s a major failure for Museveni not to have named a successor up to now.
“There is no shortage of people capable of governing Uganda properly,” he wrote adding that: “And at all times leaders will emerge…In the last 30 years, no grooming school has been set up either. Thirty years of relative stability is enough to establish a grooming school so that the next generation of leaders can go through their paces and become seasoned leaders.”
On political succession, Mr. Wavamunno, also blasts leaders for dismally botching the process since independence culminating into mayhem and political instability.
“…leaders like Museveni “owe it to their country to make sure that their departure is not followed by the shedding of blood and martyrdom [because] that is the real measure of their success in the high office.”
Prof Wava says Mr. Museveni should reflect and emulate his mentor Julius Nyerere and retire for any of the successors he is ideally supposed to have groomed in the last 30 years.
“[He] apologized to Tanzanians in 1985 when he realized that Ujamaa had failed. He then left the stage and enjoyed his elevation to elder statesman until his death. He remains one of the most highly regarded and respected leaders Africa has had.”
The tycoon who claims he has interacted with all Uganda’s post-independence governments by virtue of the conspicuous business roles he has played, says gun rule is one of the many common features he has noticed whereby leaders stay in power by virtue of the gun more often than for the votes they get.
He says this unleashing of violence on political foes has been a constant.
The business also gave his assessments on all post-independence governments, blasting common figures such as Idi Amin and Dr. Obote before he viciously centred his frustration on Mr. Museveni’s long stay.
The tycoon who fell out with the regime also callously attacked the way the oil and petroleum resource has been managed – telling Ugandans that they should forget about the oil.
In the missive, Mr. Wavamunno, rebukes the President for intriguingly referring to the resource as “my oil.”
The says this presents what he calls indicators that oil has already “been mortgaged” to Chinese and other foreigners under the guise of funding numerous mega infrastructure projects costing over $15bn “implying oil discovery isn’t a big deal and it’s not something that makes Museveni special in any way.”
He claims the powerfully connected NRM actors (he calls them oligarchs) have already accepted gratifications (like trips to casinos in Las Vegas, fancy cars, mansions on the Riviera etc) in order to betray the poor Ugandans especially in oil-rich Bunyoro/Buliisa regions.
He vehemently likens them to forefathers who accepted “brightly colored beads and bottles of hard liquor” centuries ago to agree in the slave trade by slave traders whose greed for material accumulation he equates to that of oil companies targeting contemporary Uganda.
He concludes his argument on that succession point by urging Museveni to emulate his mentor Nyerere and bow out at earliest arguing it’s the only way all he worked for can be sustained for him to have an enduring legacy.
