WE’RE NOT STUPID! Minister Otafiire Warns Group Plotting to Change Constitution to Stop Ugandans from Electing President

Internal Affairs minister Maj Gen (Rtd) Kahinda Otafiire has warned a certain group that is said to be plotting to amend the constitution of the Republic of Uganda to stop citizens from electing the president by adult suffrage.

Otafiire said he is clearly opposed to constitutional amendment to remove adult suffrage from the Constitution to give elective powers to small groups such as political party leaders or parliament even if these purport to represent the views of their constituents.

The constitution, a product of the post-bush war’s spirit of return to constitutional rule, has been changed many times, with constitutionalism experts warning that some amendments had removed safeguards that had been put to prevent the country from sliding into dictatorships, anarchy or a return to the dark days.

In 2017, then Igara West MP (now local government minister) Raphael Magyezi’s proposed amendment to remove the age limit clause from the constitution was passed. Following on the removal of the term limit clause a little over a decade earlier, the removal of the clause barring those aged 75 from running for president, political observers argued then, removed safeguards against a life presidency.

Mind you, when President Museveni took over power in 1986, he diagnosed the problem of Africa as leaders who overstay in power. But Museveni has ruled Uganda since then. By the time he concludes his current five-year term in 2026, he will have ruled the impoverished and landlocked East African nation of 45.9 million people for a cool four decades – and he is expected to seek reelection.

Otafiire is a former bush war fighter and one of the last National Resistance Army (NRA) fighters still serving in President Yoweri Museveni’s government of nearly four decades. A good number of those who fought have fallen out with Museveni, their bush war commander.

The Museveni bush war ran for five years following the controversial 1980 elections that Apollo Milton Obote of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) won. Although he had polled dismally, Museveni – then the leader of Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) – chose to go to the bush to fight Obote’s government.

According to Otafiire, who was a member of the Constituent Assembly (CA) that drafted the 1995 Uganda Constitution, insisted the framers were not stupid to insist on adult suffrage and what share of votes one must garner in order to be declared the winner. Otafiire further made it clear that the right of citizens to elect their leaders was fundamental.

He advised those seeking to amend the constitution to consult its framers but swore that his view of the importance of adult suffrage would not change until his last breath.

“We fought for democracy [and] the right to choose my leader. And on this, I have heard voices in Parliament saying the president should be elected by parties… I respect that view of yours but I don’t share it. Tell your colleagues who are peddling that idea that they should be humble enough to understand why those of us who framed the constitution said the president shall be elected by the people, and not only the people but with 51 percent of the population,” he said.

“We were not stupid to insist that it should be 51 per cent. Why aren’t they humble enough to consult some of us who were there and say ‘why did you do this stupid thing?’ That was my belief, it’s my belief, it will be my belief until the last post… down the grave.”

There have been allegations that as he grows older, Museveni might not find it as easy as it had been for him to traverse the country canvassing for votes. In 2022, a group of NRM cadres raised dust after proposing that the president be voted only by MPs. The group even appointed Minister Chris Baryomunsi as its chief advisor. (See Details Here, There and Over There).

Also, as Museveni grows older, there have been calls for him to peacefully hand over power and grant Uganda its first peaceful political transition since independence. Minister Norbert Mao had revealed the year Museveni had agreed to peacefully hand over power, but the president responded by trashing his claims in what looked like a deal going wrong between the president and his minister. (See Details Here and There).

Back to Otafiire, the minister has been making some serious statements that some, especially in Museveni’s NRM party and government consider controversial. A few weeks ago, Otafiire, known to speak his mind, left many shocked when he urged the youths to wake up and demand accountability, saying doing so was not hate speech after a former RCC was imprisoned for calling Speaker Anita Among ‘corrupt.’ (Read Story Here).

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