Dear President Yoweri Museveni, look at Iran

As you can imagine, Mr President, it is on how to safeguard your NRA/NRM ‘revolution.’

Like most Ugandans, I would rather that once you are out of power, all that you represented and your associates left the political scene completely. But there is a more sobering reality about your long, stay that prompts me to make some proposals.

The fact is you are the only institution left in Uganda that gives you potential to either ruin or make the country in the years ahead – especially as the question of peaceful transition rages on.

This, therefore, prompts me to make some sobering proposals. Over the years – especially the last 15 years – it has become explicitly clear that your plan for a transition does not exist.

You have been coy with the idea of your son taking over, but it seems you do not trust him that much. (Otherwise, for how long has he got to wait?) The country has come to chasten ourselves with the idea that your plan is death in office and the country will take care of itself.

While this would be good for you personally – you’ll be gone – it will be catastrophic for your friends, family, and close associates. Most of all, it will be deadly for the country. Look, Mr President, there is a lot of pretence around our politics.

People mouth constitutionalism but we all know none will abide by the constitutional provision in case of your sudden demise (We pray it does not happen). All the holders of these offices in the transition line (Vice President, Speaker, Chief Justice, among others) have no legitimate claim, and they seem bound to your personal existence.

In seeking to preserve Uganda, sadly and painfully, we have to impress it upon your friends that they also stand to lose immensely. Thus, in writing to you, I am also appealing to your friends.

IRAN – AND HOW TO PROTECT REVOLUTIONS

The 1979 revolution in Iran happened seven years before you your NRA liberation struggle concluded.

While yours is not strictly an organic revolution, (and many of the readers will chide me for making this comparison), both – NRA and IGRC – succeeded in taking power, whichever way this happened, make this comparison possible.

I will limit my comparison to the transition question. (An earlier commentator compared your gains and Iran’s gains in these times, and was met with immense vitriol from your fanbase).

Since then, the Iranian revolution has seen three supreme leaders – governing under the title, Ayatollah, which literary translates into ‘Sheikh’ with immense learning: Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini (1979-1989), Ayatollah Ali Seyyid Khamenei (1989-2026), and Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei (2026-onwards).

Your “revolution” has only seen one man: yourself. Mr President, this is a recipe for disaster, not specifically for you, but your friends and associates – and I am hoping you care about them.

See, one of the major challenges the Israel-American coalition aggressing Iran has met, is the absence of a strongman – a single individual around whom all power rested. They thought Supreme Leader translated into strongman; Gaddafi, Bashir, yourself or Saddam Husein – and once taken out, Iran will crumble.

They were wrong. Western media is still trying hard to craft a strong man from the men presently running the show – Mojtaba Khamenei, Ali Larijani, Masoud Pezeshkian, Alireza Arafi among others – but neither of them fully fits, and these men are even ready to exit the stage confident the revolution will continue after them. Because the revolution has not been personalised.

STRONGMAN VS STRONG SYSTEM

What the absence of a strong man has enabled in Iran is (a) continuity of the gains of the revolution and the ability to function normally after the departure of the original revolutionaries.

Mr President, do you see your NRM continuing after you have left? Unlikely. Because they are lacking in ideology, and your revolution was personalised. Notice that continuity here is not just institutional-ideological, but also at a personal level.

If there are any friends of the revolution who have been able to accumulate things (as has egregiously happened under your government), they stand a chance of protecting their gains.

They are protecting them under war time. The absence of a strong individual (b) also enables the country to tap into the genius of its many peoples. You don’t get to employ “fishermen” because of their sycophancy.

Have you seen the profiles of the men running the country, Mr President? Kantian philosophers, heart surgeons, political science professors, among others, and they don’t simply bring their titles to the table – as we have come to know under NRM – but the fluency of their learning.

To this end, the revolution is endeared to the people it serves. Even when mistakes are made, there is not a single individual (or ethnicity) to blame, but the entire team. The point I am making is this: anything can happen. Old age comes with many frailties and complications.

The Baganda have a saying that goes: kabukulu asomba, which, loosely translated, means old age is a collector of illnesses. There must be an equivalent saying in your native Runyankole- Rukiga. And as we say in the Islamic tradition, “every passing day is a step closer to the grave.”

Neither of us being immortal, the country needs to have a clear succession plan – one that has been publicly articulated and understood. We are not a democracy, Mr Museveni, and this pretence is at the core of our pains.

Look at Iran, Mr President, the icons of the Islamic Revolution understood their mortality and established a network of replacement clearly communicated and respected. This is why Ayatollah Seyyid Ali Khamenei would bravely wait for his death in his humble home, for he knew his people, his legacy, his revolution had been liberated from himself. Dear Yoweri Museveni, look at Iran.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.