Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi is a lawyer
I recently watched a heart-wrenching video where UPDF soldiers brutalized a NUP supporter and political prisoner during the court martial hearing at Makindye. The prisoner had raised his hand in the dock. Given a chance to speak, he took the occasion with unsettling oration to describe the horrifying treatment subjected to him and his fellow prisoners ever since they were arrested in the heat of the 2021 general elections. Everyone who watched this video commented below it saddeningly. Neutral comments like “Oh dear!” even induce more pain than politically charged comments against the NRM administration/dictatorship because they appeal to the humanity in all of us, regardless of your political persuasion.
This video is but just one of so many ordeals any politically conscious Ugandan by now must have read, heard or watched. So many “disappearances” have been recorded by the police and the media since the 2021 elections. There are video circulations of Police patrol vehicles knocking and running over some NUP supporters during campaigns. There are several disturbing videos of plain-clothed security operatives brutality arresting and whisking away NUP supporters in “drones”. There are several stories of mothers, wives, and children crying to the state of Uganda to free their sons, husbands and mothers. You do not need to belong to any political side in Uganda to be angered and hurt by the pain these victims of state violence have suffered.
The President of the National Unity Platform, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias “Bobi Wine” has also spoken out endlessly, sometimes with seething anger and disquieting demagoguery, against this state brutality. He also describes President Museveni in a language one can only describe an enemy, not an opponent.
On the other hand, President Yoweri Museveni has also often addressed the country with solemn sincerity on his face, calling these NUP supporters “confused elements”. At a certain rally, he unequivocally stated that he would “wipe out” this “Kyagulanyi group”. It is unclear whether by wiping them out he meant winning all of them over or terminating them. So, there is an almost equal conviction by both sides that the other is wrong. There is no common ground for sharing aggregable political differences.
However, I am more interested in understanding the primary executors and the primary victims of this violence. Whenever I find myself horrified by the suffering of NUP supporters, some of whom have been maimed, I also think deeply about the young soldier who carried out this horrible action.
When you watch videos of NUP members protesting for freedom, the valour in their eyes, the determination in their voices, and the conviction in their hearts to die for the “struggle” can only be compared to one thing. It can only be compared to the finality, the resolve, the obedience, the conclusiveness in the execution of orders or sometimes even the agency taken by ordinary policemen or soldiers to meet out the worst brutality on these protestors.
I think that even Bobi Wine and President Museveni would be surprised to watch their supporters or soldiers willing to die or kill for them.
Bobi Wine shares more in common with President Museveni than the vast majority of his supporters. If they examined their needs in life, their tastes, and their fears, Bobi Wine and President Museveni are well aligned. Equally, Bobi Wine’s supporters and Museveni’s soldiers share more in common between themselves than with Bobi Wine or President Museveni. Their social conditions are the same. Both cannot afford to put a decent roof above their families. Both have no access to the best schools in Uganda for their children. Both cannot afford good health care. They are exactly the same people. They are each other’s tribe.
When you interrogate their emotions, they are also two sides of the same feeling. The anger in the eyes of a NUP supporter and the brutality in the hands of Museveni soldiers is almost the exact same thing. Handed a gun, one doubts whether some of these NUP supporters would hesitate to summarily execute anyone who disagrees with Bobi Wine. The honour they put on Bobi Wine’s name is beyond reproach. This seems to be exactly the same reaction you see when this UPDF corporal or private pounced on the NUP political prisoner who was making a clarion call for his freedom and attacking Museveni’s government for being a brutal dictatorship. There was no Museveni in the courtroom to order him to strangle this lone protestor for abusing the NRM government. He took individual initiative to unleash all the brutality his muscles could summon onto this poor NUP supporter.
If we are to resolve the politics of this country, we ought to think deeply and act cautiously. It is not enough to merely demand justice and call on the government to “bring back our people”. It is not enough to sit before a court and speak legalese to identify, name and shame perpetrators of political violence.
We need to free, to save, to help, to embrace the brutal youthful soldier as much as we deserve to help the victim of his violence. Both need justice. Both are victims of politics. Neither Bobi Wine nor President Museveni is important enough to die or kill for. They also need our grace. They also need our help. All political players in Uganda, both opposition and government, need our help to free them from the shackles of their politics. Once we pity each other deeply enough, maybe that will be the start of building a great Uganda.
The writer is a lawyer.
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