Despite suggestions by Kizza Besigye that Ugandans are ready to rise up against the Museveni regime should there be proven irregularities in the polls, the country’s long history of military rule and turmoil has left many citizens apprehensive of such action.
Still, independent Uganda’s 49-year history shows no leader has left power peacefully.
They have normally been driven into exile through army uprisings.
The exceptions were Prof Yusuf Lule and Godfrey Binaisa, but these were interim or caretaker presidents.
From 1966 when the then Prime Minister Milton Obote ordered the army to storm the palace of the ceremonial president, Kabaka Mutesa II, and took over all powers of state, to the ousting of Tito Okello by Museveni in 1986, the story has been the same.
So, is Besigye taking this history into account? After 25 years of NRM rule, are Ugandans ready to see the back of Museveni by other means?
That would be a matter of conjecture.
Back to the country’s political history: In January 1971, Idi Amin led a disgruntled section of the army to overthrow Obote in a coup that was met with great jubilation, but was the beginning of an era of terror and tribulation for the people. Obote later went into exile in Zambia.
Come April 1979; a combined force of Ugandan exiles, under the umbrella Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLF), fighting alongside the Tanzania People’s Defence Force (TPDF), overthrew Amin’s regime. He fled to Saudi Arabia.
The first UNLF government was led by Prof Yusuf Lule as president.
Though well liked, his rule lasted only 68 days. President Lule was followed by president Godfrey Binaisa, and then by Paulo Muwanga, who chaired the ruling Military Commission that organised the December 1980 general election.
For a second time, Obote became president of Uganda.
In direct protest against the marred elections of 1980, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, then vice chairman of the Military Commission and President of the Uganda Patriotic Movement, launched a liberation struggle.
After five years, elements of the UNLA on July 1985 ousted Obote in a bid to find better negotiating ground.
The military junta of Generals Bazilio and Tito Okello replaced the second Obote regime.
But by February 1986 the “Okello Junta” had fallen. Shortly afterwards, the entire country was under the control of the NRA.
Even then, the NRA did not sit pretty for long. Soon after, in 1986, Alice Lakwena established the Holy Spirit Movement, a resistance group purportedly inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.
The movement later gave birth to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in 1987, under the leadership of Joseph Kony.
