We will escort Museveni to Rwakitura – Tumukunde

Over thirty years?
I left government in 2003 and returned for a short stint. I think in 2016. Are you hearing it for the first time? Why are you calling it over 30 years?

But you have worked with President Museveni since 1982!
We were not in government. We spent those years fighting. Have you heard my comments with NBS on ideas not having space in the NRM establishment? What if you give these ideas and no one follows them?

Are you saying you have been giving good ideas and they are not followed?
I have been with them for only 13 years. The most important thing is how we should manage transition from the generation that is holding power today to the generation of your kind and maybe younger ones.
I always hear President Museveni talking about Bazukkulu [grandchildren]! Where are the sons? Apart from being a grandfather syndrome, where are the sons?

I don’t know!
This technique is intended to eliminate some of us who contributed. Where are the sons? Wako wapi (where are they)?

But people say you have worked with President Museveni and you are the same!
You mean DNA? I want you to separate staying long in power with being aged. Biden is not young. [Bernie] Sanders is not young. But like me, he appeals to the youth and he gives them attention. Then, there is also this business of women. Women are so diverse. There are single parents, divorced, those not yet married, the aged. These generalities are not helping us anymore when you are dealing with women issues. You must dissect these people in order to give them sufficient approaches. So these young people need attention. When you see them running around Bobi Wine and they blame him, that’s not the issue.

The issue is they want attention, not giving them small tokens. Their fundamental problems must be tackled. Some apparently didn’t go to school. There are some incidents that were never attended to, partly because of the confusion of Idi Amin. There are people in Arua who didn’t get an opportunity to go to school because they were in exile for 10 years. There are young people in Gulu who didn’t go to school because of the war. Those ones need special attention. Although we offer UPE, some do not access schools.

You talked about UPE. How do you intend to reduce the problem of dropout because over one million children enrol in Primary One, slightly over 600,000 sit PLE and by the time they reach Senior Six, only one hundred thousand complete! And even when they finish university they have no jobs!
In order to know what we want to do, we must know what is wrong. You can describe them as young, not skilled and they cannot access income very easily. You can skill them. It’s not a complicated matter. As it is now because of tokenism and handouts, it very difficult. Why don’t you encourage people to develop proper business ideas, innovations and programmes for them to be financed?

You strongly believe these things can change if there is change of government but the Opposition says it is hard to change government in Uganda because of election rigging. What will you do to stop rigging?
The first thing is to put the opposition together as a critical mass. The thing I find in the opposition is sniffing. Everyone that comes in, they check at the face. There is also this great story of “I have been doing this thing for long.” Some of them don’t even check the facts of when you started the struggle. But of course among them, there is a bit of infiltration. This is what I call payroll party.
What is that?
Some of them are paid to keep in opposition. This must be trodden on carefully because this thing of calling others moles almost killed the ant-apartheid struggle. But they had a very good leader-Oliver Thambo who united them for the cause of gaining power.

They are calling you an NRM mole?
They have not told me so. But I know how many parties it has split. I am an informed person. I don’t want to go personal with people but my main question is we must learn new tactics. There are also people who are comfortable in Opposition because it is paying.

How?
Payroll Party

Do they earn a salary?
Those are the details I don’t want to go into here. But it seems they are comfortable. Then, there are other fundamentals which must be dealt with; “if it is to be, then I must be the one”. I called a group and we had a discussion and they were asking “what are you bringing on the table?” and I asked them; “what do you have on the table?” We levelled and talked. But essentially, these are the struggles that have the capacity to educate people. Tell them to graduate from being perpetual Opposition leaders.
There was a person I went to bury, I don’t want to mention his name but the speakers were saying ‘Yalemelako” [he persisted]. How do you kulemelako (persist) in Opposition permanently? But there is also a problem of ideological refining. We need to look into some of these things and streamline the struggle with what we have in our hands.
We even encourage NRM to join us. In fact, they have started coming. I don’t want to give intelligence to NRM but they are coming.

To join you?
Absolutely. This is an open house. I don’t have to ask them how long they have been in the struggle.
Imagine if [Nelson] Mandela was telling people that for you to qualify to be a member of ANC, you should have been in prison for 10 years. Or asking them why have you never been imprisoned.

You said you raised concerns that things were going wrong in the NRM. When did you start getting concerned that things were getting wrong?
At least, there was when I was on the record. I opposed the removal of presidential term limits. Imagine a whole Director General of Internal Security Organisation and you go and tell the President that he is abusing our Constitution and you call that light?

But you would tell him that and again work with him
Rigidity is not a political path. This helped me for example to leave the army. If I was in the army, would you be interviewing me today? Go and interview [David] Tinyefuza [Sejusa]. He was cancelled from the list of those who have retired. I am not saying that Tinyefuza is rigid. I am saying you must operate within the circumstances. People were saying I was campaigning for Museveni. I was campaigning for Uganda.

Were you campaigning for Uganda or Museveni during the last elections?
I was campaigning for you. May be I was not convinced that we were ready for change. It is a question on how you evaluate things. They even talk about Museveni’s son [Muhoozi Kainerugaba] standing. What’s wrong with Museveni’s son standing? Actually, let him join the race. Let him come.

But he is still serving in the army!
He can leave. He is entitled. We need to remove small things from the bigger things. He is entitled, very entitled.

You have been accused of disorganising the Opposition during campaigns, specifically landing a chopper at the venue where former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi was supposed to hold a rally during the last elections.
Let me take this opportunity to explain that. That day was not an appointed day for Amama Mbabazi because there was a campaign schedule given out by the Electoral Commission. I have also heard him being branded that he is going back to NRM. When you meet Museveni does it mean you have crossed?

You have talked of uniting the Opposition. Do you think having a coalition will help defeat Museveni?
You can’t be looking for soldiers for an important battle and you start eliminating the old people. Anybody who comes to join the struggle are welcome.

Would you support a joint candidate in the coalition?
If he is competent and capable of delivering the change we want, we support him.

Do you have anyone in mind?
Why do you want to bias the process we have started?

Did the army withdraw the guards because of these plans you have?
How would I know? But let me tell you, I would provide security for President Museveni if for no reason but eighteen hours he worked every day for Uganda. Even presidential candidates are guarded.

What do you say about reports that the army may not accept any other person other than President Museveni?
I haven’t heard that and it doesn’t make sense. Why would the army do that? Just win elections. It’s possible.

But the other day you said people who organise are the same who count the votes and announce the winner
We know the disease and we shall find the medicine. And I want to send a signal to those who earn money from government to stop working for individuals. March 2021 is not far.

What will you do if they announce President Museveni as a winner?
There is a high possibility that we may overwhelm President Museveni and for those who have been personal will be disbanded. The paymaster is the Republic of Uganda, not President Museveni.

When you retired from the army in 2015, you said it was necessary to have a president from another region. Why do you want to contest now?
A small ant had lost either a sister or brother and someone met them and said “why don’t you get a helper and the small ant said he who should have helped me is the one I’m carrying on my head. If no other people are offering themselves, what do we do? You must offer sufficient competence for the whole machine of change. Even when you listen carefully to my statement, I never said never.

But you have Bobi Wine and others!
He is most welcome. Doesn’t he need my hand? Either behind him or on top of him. It’s a crusade of change.

Would you stand down for him because he is from a different region?
If I was Bobi Wine, I would organise and work with others to learn how governments work. For me, I have no problem with that. But we are going to meet as a group and I wouldn’t want to predict what will happen.

Are you already in touch with Bobi Wine and the group?
I meet everybody. Everyone, everybody, The simple qualification is participating in the change we need.

What would you do to have an efficient government?
In my time, efficiency must be a priority. When I say this people say Tumukunde is very strict. Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore had one important consideration-“Recruit the best of the best”. Pay them very well. See where Singapore is!

Is it inefficient or a broken system that must be worked on?
What is the difference? We must study corruption in detail. There is corruption by need and corruption by greed. They both rhyme. We have to study it. Is it corruption or is it leakages? Accountability is important. If I was in charge, I would pay people well.

What is the best way to fight corruption? Is it about making the system efficient or making corruption very risky?
Both. An efficient system stops leakages and the fact that you can punish reckless handling of public affairs you will stop corruption. Some of these public servants are not trained. For us, in the army, how many courses have we attended? So many. If I was president, I would bring in more soldiers into public service like what’s happening in Egypt.

Do give Museveni credit for building a strong army?
Why do you want to deny Museveni any credit? Why should you even threaten to take him to ICC? ICC for what? You are entrenching him. It becomes a life and death matter. If ICC wants him, why don’t they come and pick him? Why should a Ugandan help ICC to get Museveni? Aiding and abetting! One of the ways to have a stable system is that you have a [Benjamin] Mkapa in Dar es Salaam. You can have a [Jakaya] Kikwete in Bagamoyo. You can have [Hassan] Mwinyi in Dar es Salaam. Why should your leaders run to Zambia? Kwanini?
It because of the methodologies of handling transition and handling change must not be self-destructive. [Edward] Mutesa died in England. [Idi] Amin died in Saudi Arabia.

But it’s them to blame because they don’t want to leave peacefully.
You should give Museveni credit because he has tried to woo them back. But three presidents of the Republic of Uganda have died in exile. Their kids and grandkids are there. Give credit to President Museveni that [Tito Okello] Lutwa’s son is a minister. One of [Milton] Obote’s sons is an MP and the daughter-in law is a minister.

What would you do for Museveni if you win and he accepts defeat?
We shall give him security, escort him to Rwakitura. Give him allowances, give him packages because it gives a good signal and is good in politics. That’s why when I see them running to disarm me, I get surprised. Like I have never seen anybody recognise Dr Besigye as defecto leader of the opposition. You have seen how many millions of votes he gets. Why wouldn’t you give him security?

Where is the politics of intolerance coming from?
People around Museveni are more intolerant than himself. The magnanimity he had has been killed by these self-seekers. The gang of self-seekers. He used to have sufficient magnanimity. They are gangsters. When you see them talking about NRM.

You wanted to stand for mayor of Kampala. Why did you change to president?
I was testing my popularity and acceptability. There are strategic problems in Kampala, because government keeps making the Mayoral seat weak and weaker, I didn’t want to be a phantom.