DFK MPANGA

Moderator: Its 7 p.m, Good evening.

DFK Mpanga: I don’t know if you can hear me. I’m having some trouble getting the connection. I can’t see everybody. I can’t hear anything.

Moderator: Yeah, you’re barely audible. I don’t know if that’s only with me. Agather? Yeah, he’s very low. Quite low. But even in that low tone, I heard him say something about the connection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said he’s having trouble. Yeah, and then he had told me earlier that he would be on the road. So maybe, can we just take two or three more people as Johnson speaks out? Well, who literally are going to think this discussion… Thank you, Johnson. 

Moderator: Good evening. 

DFK Mpanga: Good evening Toko on. Good evening, everyone. 

Moderator: Yeah, good evening. So we can now delve right into it. So for those who may not know, our guest today is David F. Mpanga. He’s an advocate of the High Court, Head of Dispute Resolution at AF Mpanga. He is, I’ll say this in Luganda, he’s from the Minisiture of Land and Property in the Kingdom of Uganda. He previously held the portfolio of special duties and the Attorney General in the Kingdom. So he’s a man, I would say, jack of many trades and a master of all, not a master of none. So we’re going to look at this conversation in three strands. I have placed the questions under history, traditions, cultural institutions, and then the legal issues. So I hope I can start right now with the questions. Is that okay? Yes, you can. 

Co-Moderator: Did you mention that he’s a DJ or did you forget that? 

Moderator: Ah, yes, he’s a DJ with a number of mixtapes to his name. Parm Awards are no more.We don’t know how we can get him to one of the Continent Awards, but yeah, I must mention that. And if you check his tweets every now and then, there is a mixtape. You can go and listen to some of the groups that he enjoys. Yeah, that said, so let me start with the questions. There’s a tweet. That tweet reads, We shall never see the Uganda we want until we develop a central nervous system that enables us to feel each other’s pain. This tweet was made on the 5th of August, 2016. Every now and then, I think it just keeps popping up with some notifications. Sorry, the network is on and off. 

DFK Mpanga: I don’t know whether it’s me or it’s Godwin. 

Co-Moderator: I think it’s Godwin. I can’t hear you myself. I guess Godwin wanted to start you off with your favorite tweet, I mean comment, that has become a favorite comment of everyone. Every now and then, something horrible happens, and people bring it back and say, I will give an example of Kitezi, which is really the most recent tragedy we’ve seen here. And people are always talking about that tweet that you made so many years ago. And I don’t want to guess what Godwin’s question was going to be about it, but I will ask mine, maybe when he comes, he can affirm his, that he wanted to say out of it. Perhaps I could ask. What were in your thoughts when you were writing that tweet, when you were making that comment? 

DFK Mpanga: Thank you very much, first of all, for hosting me. The basic thing that I wanted to bring out in that tweet, and I think that most people get out of that tweet, is the idea that we need to have empathy for each other. We can’t be a nation, and therefore we can’t make much progress in seeing the Uganda that we want. Understanding that we come from different walks of life, different ethnicities, different genders, different callings in terms of occupation or vocations. We can’t really, and we need to be different and varied and diverse, but we can’t be progressive and achieve those things that we see working in other places and which we had ourselves, unless we enable each other to understand each other, to get on with each other. But most importantly, I think, to feel each other’s pain, to understand that to get on with each other, but most importantly, I think, to feel each other’s pain, to understand that I don’t prosper and thrive if somebody else is not enabled to prosper and thrive in the same way, and if I’m having a great time and somebody else, it’s at somebody else’s expense, so for example, corruption and the like, we can’t see and can’t have the Uganda that we want, so I think that’s why it resonates a lot, because it’s a metaphor using our human body. I doubt that anyone can be in the disco having a good time if they’ve got a toothache, just because they use their feet to dance, and you know, they’re not going to eat anything, so the teeth will not be working. If your tooth is aching, your whole body is unwell, you lie down, if your little finger has an infection, your whole body will lie down, you get a fever, because we have a central nervous system, so I think we need to think of ourselves in such a way. 

Moderator: So now did we lose Daudi or? Yeah, it seems he dropped. 

DFK Mpanga: Sorry, I’m here, I can’t hear you. We are lost here. Sorry, I don’t know where you lost me. I’m really sorry, I’m stuck in terrible traffic. I had to attend a funeral in Mityana and I’m on the outskirts of town. But there’s terrible traffic, so I’m doing this in my car. Yeah, I think you’ll be there for a while. 

Moderator: Sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah, so let’s continue. We’re still, yeah, that central nervous system that makes your whole body, you know, lie down when there’s one part of it ailing. 

DFK Mpanga: Yes. And what we’re doing after that, you can take it up from there. Yes, so I was just saying the value, I think, of that tweet is it relates to something that everybody can understand. We all have central nervous systems. We have different parts of our bodies, but our bodies are centrally controlled. They work in concert. We have one head, but two arms. Your left arm and your right arm work together, do different things, but work together. We have two legs. Those legs are connected to the arms by muscles, but more importantly, by the nervous system. So that’s exactly what I think we need as a nation to prosper. 

Moderator: Okay, so it’s now eight years since you made that tweet. Do you think we are any closer to having that central nervous system as a country that you envision, or are we still as far, or are we even worse off than we were the time you made the tweet? 

DFK Mpanga: You know, it’s hard to tell whether seven years is enough for the development or something as fundamental as that, but I hazard to say, I think we’re closer to the fact that we’re more alive to the fact that we need to empathize with each other. That awareness is simply how popular that tweet is. It gives me the thinking that many people do appreciate the need for empathy for others, and it’s an important value. But as to how far we are now from 2016, to be very honest, I don’t know what measurement can be used. There are many things that happen that make you think that maybe we are not. Like Agather just mentioned the Kitezi disaster. Tens of people died not very far away from Kampala city center. We just carried on. We’re kind of inured to mass casualty events. We have terrible road traffic accidents every other day, every other week. We don’t seem to feel the pain of the victims and act on that pain. Maybe we take up a momentary notice, but sometimes we don’t act like we have a central nervous system. And that’s before you talk about the regional imbalances, the inequality issues, income inequality. Those kinds of issues sometimes make you think that maybe we are aware of it, but not yet really where we need to be in terms of feeling each other’s pain. 

Moderator: Okay, finally on that tweet, we are a society, like you’ve already said, of people from very diverse backgrounds, different ethnicities, different religions, different generations now, and so much going on, different economic statuses. Are there societies that, like us, try to develop that central nervous system? And how did that play out? What are those things we can do as Ugandans, the guy from Acholi, me from West Nile, the guy from Buganda, the guy from Kasese, and try to just say, can we have this country, get to the point where despite all these differences, we have this feeling that we are Ugandans, and we feel each other’s pain. What are those things we should do, for instance? Agather, I hope you heard me. Yes, I did. I think that is the one that got a problem again. Okay, yeah, but yeah, it’s unfortunate with the network, but we’ll keep trying, and the fortunate thing is that each time it goes off, it eventually comes back in time. So, can you hear me? 

DFK Mpanga: Yes, we can hear you now. Did you get my question? Sorry. Yes, I got your question. What can we do to try and develop our nervous system? We can first, you know, it all starts with awareness and appreciation. First and foremost, the Acholi, the Muganda, the person from Toro, Bunyoro, wherever we come from, everybody’s looking pretty much for the same thing. Happiness, prosperity, security, you know, the basics, and we need to understand that these things can and are available in sufficient quantities to go around without it being a zero-sum game. The Muganda does not need to deprive the Acholi of anything in order to enjoy the space that they need to enjoy. Similarly, the Acholi must appreciate that, you know, they can enjoy things that they want to enjoy without depriving anybody else. I think we need to also look at state structures, and this kind of feeds into the discussion we’re about to have. I suspect that’s why you brought it up. Because the way that the state is structured at the moment, there is a center that runs and assumes, to a certain extent, to own everybody. Now, that center does not operate as a central nervous system, sadly. It operates as, you know, like a bureau, like an armed bureau that holds down the natives as extraction goes on. It’s the colonial nature of the state that we have. That does not enable central nervous system. Rather, it kind of tries to get each one of us in different categories to deal with the center individually and also to look at each other askance and think that maybe if I get it, then, you know, the Western Islanders would not get it. Or if the Western Islanders get it, then I will not get it. It makes us rivals of each other. Yet, more than anything, when, for example, we are out of the country and we meet, if you’re in Europe or something, and you meet not even just Ugandans but Africans, you end up having conversations about the differences in your languages, maybe the similarities in your languages, the differences in your foods, the similarities in your foods, cultural exchanges, etc. None of you thinks that any one of you is there to deprive the other of the things that they’re looking for. It’s only when we get caught up in these zero-sum competitions, which are really determined by the nature, the present nature of our state, that we start looking at each other and getting what is essentially negative tribalism. Instead of celebrating our diversity, we use our diversity as a weapon, as a negative weapon, to deprive others or to keep others down in order that we may enrich ourselves. And some of the things that we can and should be doing is looking out in the transition as to how fashioning a better state, a state that works for and protects the interests of all and fosters harmony rather than makes us look to this negative zero-sum competition that we’ve been trapped in for 50, 60, 70 years. 

Moderator: Okay, now let me move to the transition bit of the discussion. So, these years, 1961, 1962, 1966, 1971, 1979, 1979 again, 1979 one more time, 1980, 1985, 1986. These are years that saw some transition in Uganda with one president taking either absolute power that they shared at some point or a new face becoming the president altogether. So, those are the years. Of these years, which one for you of these transitions, many of them are similar with the violence and things like that, which one for you, um, is the most, should I use the word memorable, or which one stood out for you in any way, whether from what you’ve read, what you lived through, a personal experience, or any of that that kind of thing. Anyone in particular? 

DFK Mpanga: I mean, having been born in 1979, I was eight when the, uh, 1979 war that overthrew the Amin, um, took place. Um, I was 15, 16 when the 1986, uh, NRA, NRM, uh, victory over, um, the, uh, the UNLF took place. I was 15 when, um, Obote was overthrown by the UNLF. Um, I was, uh, 10, 9 or 10 when, um, the 1980 elections took place. Um, so I remember some of these things, but I wouldn’t say that I remember them from a position of full knowledge. Um, there were things that were happening, some things that I only witnessed by, you know, listening to my mother, uh, listening to the radio, listening to visitors that came to talk about things. Um, so my, my, my recollection and my, my experience of them, um, might not be, uh, um, yeah, you’re back. You’re the point of saying may not be as good positions was that there was acute fear. Um, there was a lot of violence and there was a lot of fear. Um, even in the 1980 elections on the night after the election on the night, election night, there was a lot of shooting. As I recall, um, we lived in Nakasero at the time. Um, in the 1985, uh, coup against Obote, there was a lot of shooting, a lot of looting, a lot of fear. 1979 was a war between Uganda and Tanzania. Um, many families run, run away from Kampala. Um, we stayed, we lived in, um, Mbuya we are my, my, my mother lived in, you know, our family lived in where, and I recall watching, uh, the Tanzanians walking in after the, after the Indian forces had, had run away and there were big barracks, uh, in Bugolobi, Bugolobi flats was a box as was, um, you know, the present Bugolobi are the present, we are barracks. So we saw, uh, Amin’s army run away. And then sometime later, after lots of shelling, lots of shooting, um, the Tanzanians coming in, um, all these times had fear they also had hope, in so far as people kind of thought that something good was going to happen. Idi Amin has gone, Lule has arrived, Lule has been overthrown, Binaisa, again people are running from town, I recall being in the back of the car and a gentleman saying to my mother that these are upstarts, I’ve never heard that word before, upstarts, and you know then there was a demonstration the following day, this is 1979, each of these things had fear associated with them and hope or some kind of expectation that something might happen. So I can’t say that you know one is a particular favourite, maybe 85, 86, I was much older and so I can understand more of the political dynamic that happened, but not having had peaceful, predictable, rule-bound transition in my lifetime when I’m 54 years old is something that you know is regrettable. When you look at other countries, they have elections, they’ve had transitions because maybe incumbents have died in office, they’ve had transitions because of resignations, these things are predictable, they’re rule-bound, they don’t have the element of fear, and to my mind that’s really something that I’d like to see in my lifetime and especially now for my own children, to have something that’s predictable, about the level of fear, I can’t describe, you have to have lived that fear to understand it, it’s a terrible fear, it’s a terrible thing to have, I hope that we don’t have to do it again. 

Moderator: Okay, so in your other job as a person that has served in the kingdom of Buganda, the biggest kingdom in the country and probably the most influential I could add, we know also that with previous transitions, a number of them the Buganda factor was really at the fore, whether you talk of 1962, whether you talk of even 1971, Idi Amin, says part of the reason was Obote mistreating the kingdom of Buganda and even the 1970s, where Obote came in much later, they say it’s because he was not the most popular person to bring in Buganda within the 1970s, so there’s that issue that keeps coming up, the Buganda question, and lately people say that some people, especially from the ruling party, seem to suggest that they’ve addressed that issue, the Buganda question has been addressed, kingdoms have been restored, part of their property, if I could say that, at least restored to them and things like that, so from your vantage point as a person that works with the kingdom but also comes from the kingdom and has this history, this legal knowledge, do you think we have sufficiently as a country addressed that question, the Buganda question? 

DFK Mpanga: Godwin, that’s a very good question, if you’ll excuse the pun, and I’d like to turn it a little bit, twist it a little bit, because there’s something in the question that I challenge, the premise of the question. To call it a Buganda question is to premise a 60-year-old country, 62-year-old country against the existence of an 800, 1,000-year-old kingdom. There isn’t a Buganda question. Buganda exists, as does Toro, Bunyoro, Ankore, Acholi, Bugisu, all our communities exist. It is Uganda, the … Moderator: Is he off again? Yes. Okay, yeah, you dropped at the point of saying that the Uganda question, not the Uganda question, just speak it from there. It’s a Uganda question. Why? Because Uganda is a construct, it’s new. It’s not any older than, you know, maybe 1900 to present, so it’s about 124 years old. Buganda, on the other hand, is 800 years old, 1,000 years old. Acholi is hundreds if not thousands of years old. Lugbara the same, Bugisu the same. But the nature of Uganda, the people who made it, have imbued it with this idea of supremacy, which therefore makes it think that the question is not Uganda, but the question is Buganda. The question has never been Buganda. The question has been how Buganda, Kasese, every community that is a people, which has an internationally recognized right to self-determination, can get on and enjoy that right to the maximum within the confines of the territorial integrity of Uganda. So as the colonialists who created Uganda were leaving, they said this must remain as it is. And leaving it as it is meant that communities, nations that were locked within it, or that were cut in half by it, for example, if you look at the people in Kasese over in Rwenzururu, or the Basamiya in eastern Uganda and western Kenya, this keeping the territorial integrity of Uganda is the question. And that’s why I was earlier saying that it’s important that we understand and find ways of dealing with the state structure so that we’re not in a zero-sum game. So has Uganda justified the way that it treats any particular part of Uganda? Buganda being one of those parts. Maybe great strides have been taken to try and address some of those issues, but there’s more to be done. There’s more to be done. It’s not simply a question of restoring a kingdom here or doing some property restoration or other. There’s a lot that has to be done, in my view, to ensure that these things are sustainable, they’re institutionalized, they’re not personalized, and that they address the concerns that people across the country have. It would be wrong for us to think that it’s all good if we’ve addressed Buganda, but then we’ve left Acholi unaddressed. At some stage, the pain of Acholi will overwhelm the joy of Buganda. Then the central nervous system, working properly, will mean the whole body will go down. So I think that we need this. There’s some things that are being done, but a lot has to be done. And that is one of the key questions in any transition. What is the nature of the state or the structure of the state that will enable native communities to enjoy themselves, to be able to determine, without undue and unnecessary interference, their social, economic, and political rights? 

Moderator: Okay, so sticking with your closing line, one can imagine that the central government of Uganda, for instance, the entity called Uganda right now, really has so many contradictions to deal with. So how then would you advise the leaders, if any of them is listening in, how do they take, I would even imagine it’s a delicate balance, of ensuring that all these different interests, that sometimes are even contradictory or conflicting, are addressed while still not losing their heads. Basically, serving the interests of Uganda, serving the interests of Acholi, all together that being the interests of Uganda, I assume, and sticking along that path without necessarily losing the focus. What are the things that they should basically do? 

DFK Mpanga: There are certain things, and the things may be similar, but the priorities might be slightly different, region by region, community by community. Certainly having an understanding of the priorities, the things that people want, and the priorities that they have. Is my number one, everybody’s number one? Or is my number one, your number three? That kind of thing. I think that’s about listening and being guided. Having responsive leadership is a very important thing, and I think that can help guide. We’re going to need to have not only intra-regional discussions, discussions within each region, within each community, but then we’re also going to have to have inter-regional, and inter-community dialogues. We need to find ways of making the centre a neutral, independent broker. I think that’s also been lacking over the years. Often the central government has not been a neutral, fair broker. It’s had an agenda. Another agenda might have been to suppress one community over another. It might have been to generally just keep one side down, and keep things going, keep itself in power. I think that’s one of the things that can be done. We talk about dialogue many times. National dialogue is something that people talk about. At some stage in the lifetime of this government, in the coming years, it would be useful if a genuine dialogue can be fostered. If those dialogues can come from down to up, out of the regions to the centre, and if we can find ways of listening to each other, then you can know the priorities, and you can try and harmonise those priorities. Because at the same time, we can’t all have our way about everything.

Moderator: Okay, there’s a video that I have scoured the internet trying to find, and I can’t seem to find. So I’ll first confirm if it is you that I saw in that video. It must have been some time back, maybe a year or so ago. In the video, you have a… There was a 1900 agreement that the entity called Buganda made with the entity that was the colonial government of Uganda. Then you said that agreement subsided. It concluded in 1962, and the British owed Buganda the duty to rescind the agreement with them. So you are arguing then that Buganda never signed an agreement to be part of Uganda. Was that an argument you made, or something along those lines?

 DFK Mpanga: No, I don’t think, Godwin, I don’t think I could have made that argument because I’m very conversant with the fact that there’s a 1955 agreement, and there’s a 1961 agreement, and the 1961 agreement between Buganda and Britain was the premise upon which Burganda agreed to have a federated status within Uganda under the 1962 agreement, the 1962 constitution. So, I wouldn’t have said if you understood it like that. Okay. I’m sorry it was your understanding, but it wasn’t what I said. 

Moderator: Okay. Yeah. Too bad I didn’t even find the video when I scoured the internet. But now, traditional institutions like religion are a very, very powerful part of Ugandans. Each time the kabaka is moving, there are all these youths, hundreds of them, riding water boat as escort team, chanting, and all that. You see the euphoria that they have. The kabaka, basically, when it makes a statement in Buganda, it is said that statement becomes a very, very powerful thing for the people to follow. And one could argue that maybe not with the same magnitude, but other traditional institutions also have such power over their subjects. So, these institutions, the traditional institutions, they are now, you can use the word, numerous in Uganda. Do you think they owe us, as Ugandans, perhaps they owe their subjects a role to ensure that there is peaceful transition that Ugandans have never had? And if they do have a role to play, do you think they are playing that role? 

DFK Mpanga: Traditional institutions and other institutions in the civic space have a great role to play in ensuring that we have peaceful transition. They represent the basic interests of many people in different ways, bearing in mind that, as I was saying earlier, we are diverse. Our interests are diverse. Makeup is diverse. And our identities, if I may borrow a word from, that’s usually used in feminist discourse, are also intersection. So, I’m a Muganda, but I’m a professional, I’m, you know, a Ugandan, I’m an East African, I’m a man, I’m Christian. You know, there’s so many different shades of identity and institutions that might lead me or guide me in the different aspects or the intersections of my identity. So, if I used the kingdom of Buganda or the kingdom of Bunyoro or the traditional institution of the Alur, for example, each one of those reaches into the very homes of the people that it leads, right into our homes. And the language we speak, the food we cook, our dress, our culture is determined by… Can you hear me? 

Moderator: Yes, we can. 

DFK Mpanga: Excellent. Our culture, our basic identity on that front is determined by and personified by these institutions. So, if you look at the traditional institutions, I’d like you to approximate them to a coffee table. Different people might be having a discussion around a coffee table. One person might have a beer on that table. Another person might have, or all of them might have their phones on that table. Someone’s having a cup of tea, another cup of coffee, another glass of juice, and they might have different viewpoints based on where they’re sitting, what they’re consuming, and what they’re using the table for. But the traditional institution, as a coffee table, is interested in keeping its stability and ensuring that everybody there is enabled to do what they need to be doing, gets on well, and, you know, if they have different views on the best beverage to have, finish their beverage and leave. If there’s a disagreement on, you know, whether it should be beer or coffee or tea, the last thing you want is that table smashed. I was talking about transitions that I’ve witnessed earlier. Each of those transitions has entailed violence, and that armed violence has generally taken place here in Buganda, because that’s where the capital city Kampala is. It cannot be of any pleasure to the head of the traditional institution, and the institution at large, that people in Buganda are dying, that there’s fear in Buganda. It cannot be of pleasure to any traditional institution, whether it be Alur, or Bugisu, or Lango, or wherever, if there is war or instability or violence in those places. So they have, as civic bodies, a responsibility to encourage and use their influence over the people that they can, and most especially their elites, to ensure that everything is done to ensure a peaceful transition. It’s, to my mind, it just makes sense. The same for the churches, the same for all the other institutions that bring us together in one way or another. Rotary, all these institutions that might even think that they’re not political must understand, professional bodies, professional associations, all these must understand that in order to function, peace, security, happiness, prosperity is a basic, is fundamental. So you can’t say, well, we’re only the Rotary Club. So as the Rotary Club, peaceful transition doesn’t concern us. It must concern you. Because, you know, they don’t generally have happy Rotary meetings in a place where the state has collapsed and there’s civil war.

 Moderator: Okay, finally, with the traditional institutions, we’ve seen that since the return of the traditional institutions, I think it must have been 1995, we’ve had, we’ve seen the government create a number of them. There’s a whole book on that for those that may want to read it. It’s a very interesting book. I’ll probably share the title much later. But we’ve seen these kingdoms created. In the last budget, there was a supplementary budget, not just the budget, but a supplementary budget that, among others, was supposed to get each of these kingdoms 60 million per month to run their affairs. So the creation of all these traditional institutions and kingdoms, the fact that the government bankrolls basically most of them, gives them so much money, gives them cars and all these things. One could argue that, from what you’ve said, the role they must play, and then the government, the ruling party or the government or the president having this much financial power over them could basically corrupt them and put them in an institution where they’re unable then to do the role that you’re saying they should do. Do you share that view? 

DFK Mpanga: I speak for a kingdom that is authentic, very well documented, and whose history is well known. And the authentic, well documented institutions, I think all of us know. Some are not as authentic, some are not as well known, some are not therefore as widely legitimate, even to their own people as others. I wouldn’t advocate for the propagation of a single formula that all kingdoms must, or all traditional institutions, to use a neutral word, must look like or walk like one particular one. They’ll look different and they’ll be known by their own people. I think the constitution itself says you’re entitled to a cultural institution in accordance with the aspirations. And I’m just looking for the exact words so I don’t misquote it. In accordance with the culture, customs, traditions, wishes and aspirations of the people to whom it applies. So, you know, it may not look like what I think a traditional institution looks like, but what’s more important is the people to whom it applies, how they’re inspired, their culture, their customs, their norms, their traditions. One. Two, the sustainability of each of them may vary, and the level that they need government sustenance may also be debatable. What I would say is this. One, none of these institutions under the present constitution can compel loyalty or allegiance. But those that are legitimate are generally able to sustain themselves for a number of reasons, but reason number one being that the people who pledge allegiance to these institutions are generally willing and able and happy to support them even in the absence of government support. So, you know, the ones that either have been, you know, latter creations, political machinations, or, you know, are created for divisive reasons, those ones have tended to need more support than others. And those ones will wither on the vine and die. They’re not natural, they’re not native. They’re trying to walk in a way that they didn’t ordinarily and couldn’t ordinarily walk and sustain themselves. But I think that, as has been proven by, if you could call it a political experiment, from the period that we didn’t, that we had an abolition of traditional institutions, and from the period that we’ve had them since 1993, I think we’ve had more stability in the period before they were abolished, in the period after they were restored, than in the interim where they had been abolished. And I’d be the first to say we need them. And I think any politician who says we can do without them doesn’t really have their ear to the ground and doesn’t understand their value. 

Moderator: Okay, so now let’s turn to the legal side of things. The 1995 Constitution is now evidently the longest-serving constitution in our history, 29 years. If you look at the 1995 Constitution, with the amendments it has gone through, with the way it is respected or disrespected in its current state and form, do you think that constitution is sufficient to guarantee us the one thing we have never had, that of the peaceful transition today? 

DFK Mpanga: When I was studying for my general paper for my A-Levels way back in 1988 or 1989, I remember having to discuss a philosophical question, which was about the essence of things. And the way that they used to frame that question was, if a ship made of planks of wood set off from a port, and set off to go around the world, to circumnavigate the globe, and as it was doing so, they were replacing one plank of wood at a time, so that it could remain afloat and keep it sailing, but it was, you know, each plank was being replaced. So by the time it got back to the original port where it set off from, all the planks of wood had been replaced. Is the ship that set sail the same ship that arrived, or is it different? And if your answer was, it’s the same ship, because it hasn’t changed name, you’d end up having to discuss, you know, the essence or being of things. What makes that ship, if it’s not the individual planks that were initially on that ship? You talk about the 1995 Constitution, and you talk about the amendments that have been made to it, and I think the 1995 Constitution has been amended by two-thirds, or more even. The people who drafted and framed the 1995 Constitution would find that, you know, two-thirds of the planks that they put in have been changed. It’s a fairly different ship. Some jurists would in fact argue that, and this is the basic structure of the School of Thought, that if you amend a constitution beyond a certain thing, it’s capable of ceasing to be the 1995 Constitution just because you’ve amended it so many times. I think the fact that we’ve needed to amend it so many times speaks to the fact that it’s actually not an adequate instrument presently framed to guide us through the things that we need to go through as we transition. I also think that we need much more than just an instrument. We need a culture. Constitutionalism is a culture. We need to understand it and believe it to be the basic law, and we need to understand it and believe it and behave in a manner that holds it as the yardstick or the, you know, it’s the thing that confines us. So if we have different interests, the problem that these amendments have generally shown, there have not been amendments, and the classic big ones most definitely, have not been amendments brought about by situations that had not been brought about by the framers that have then required, you know, something like, oh my God, we don’t have an article in the Constitution to deal with artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence is now capable of legislating for us. We need to put in a provision that enables for legislation by artificial intelligence. We’ve not seen that. We’ve largely seen situations where interests have come against the confines or the constraints of the Constitution. Sadly, where those interests have been big, it’s the Constitution that’s been made to give way. It’s never been the other way around. Those interests have not been curbed. So the holder of a particular office comes to the end of his two terms. He doesn’t yield the office. The Constitution yields and lifts the limits on those terms. The holder of a certain office grows older than the age limit. He doesn’t leave the office and yield to the Constitution. The Constitution is made to yield to him and the age limit is lifted. So we’ve had particular things where the Constitution is treated as a mere kind of like a higher law, but certainly not the kind of grounding which you need to have to show that this is the supreme law of the land. Civilians are still being tried in the general court martial, despite rulings in 2005, 2006, when the Ugandan Law Society petitioned the Constitutional Court, despite the Kabaziguruka ruling of the Constitutional Court, the more recent one, and despite judicial officers knowing that this is unconstitutional and it’s illegal. There isn’t that sufficient and, how can I put it, anger or outrage at this unconstitutionality. Interests override the Constitution frequently. So the 1995 Constitution in and of itself has its problems, but there’s also a bigger problem of a lack of constitutional culture, the lack of abiding by a Constitution. And if we were to have a rule-bound, predictable, peaceful transition, sustainably, which would then lead us into a better situation, we also have to work on the culture of constitutionalism, which is seriously lacking. And again, linking it back to the point that you were making earlier, one of the ways in which this can be done is just even simply translating the Constitution as it’s supposed to be translated into our native languages. So the Constitution is not something that is owned and known by a few trained lawyers. It’s something that’s accessible to more people in a language that they understand, in a language that speaks in their heart. And they can then understand that this is what should be happening and why it should be happening, rather than leaving it to a few people and expecting that five people with wigs and gowns will interpret it and then everybody will abide by it. I think it needs to be owned by the people. And maybe again, that’s lacking. The people don’t feel like they own it. It’s something that’s hovers over them and that’s kind of handed down to them, and it doesn’t belong to them. And maybe the best way of contrasting this, I’ve used this example when speaking to constitutional law students, that certain things that we perceive as binding norms and which are socially abided by, for example in Buganda you can’t marry within your clan. That really, really applies if the person that you wanted to marry is the most eligible, the most beautiful. The one of your dreams, the moment you discover that they’re from your clan, you can’t marry them. If you came over your own personal revulsion and the fact that this person is from your clan and is therefore your relative, if you overcame that revulsion in some way, society wouldn’t let you. Society wouldn’t let you. There’d be an uproar. There’s been a case in the High Court about it. Families disown people over these things. Why do we feel that we cannot marry within our clans where there isn’t even a real penalty other than ostracism and outrage, but feel that the Constitution can just be amended other than when? Why don’t we feel the same vigilance towards the Constitution as we do to these customary norms? And it’s a theory. I think one of the reasons is because people don’t feel that the Constitution belongs to them. It’s not in their language. It’s not accessible to them. It’s not about them. If somebody read the Constitution in Leblanc, I think they’d understand whatever the word article in Leblanc is. They’d understand that article and feel it deeper than when it’s Article 62 and they need Godwin, a lawyer, to come and read it for them to explain it. 

Moderator: Okay, so the next question is probably even ironic given your answer. There are those who are saying that to guarantee the thing we’re asking for, the peaceful transition, would need another amendment of the Constitution saying, well, if the Constitution is not sufficient, we can’t make it sufficient. They’re not talking about constitutionalism, but the Constitution. Do you think that would work? If we amended the Constitution again, probably I’d say we could restore the term limits, perhaps Parliament elects the President or anything. Could that guarantee? 

DFK Mpanga: No, I think the biggest guarantee of peaceful transition is first and foremost building civic institutions as well as shoring up our economic position. I think there’s a school of thoughts and it happens a lot, not just even with the Constitution. You hear it a lot where people say, we need a law to address this. Any challenge that there is, oh, we need a law to address this, we need a law to address that. It looks or sounds like if there’s a law, then it’s command. It has this super command that makes everybody behave in that way. Unfortunately, we know that there are laws that guarantee freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of promotion of culture, but many of these laws and many of these constitutional articles are frequently ignored without consequence. It’s only if there’s vigilance and understanding and deep understanding in the community and the civic organization and vigilance at a civic level that generally people will begin, and when I say people, the actors on that stage will begin to behave in a rule-bound way. If there isn’t sufficient political cost for the violation of the Constitution, any article of the Constitution, unfortunately, then you’ll find that the Constitution will be treated like a rack. It will be tossed from side to side, abided by when it suits and disregarded when it doesn’t. I’m not of the school of thought that we need to amend the Constitution in order to get the peaceful transition. The Constitution is not a magic document. The magic lives in us. We need to understand, we need to fashion the future that we want, and we need to be able to have the civic engagement and levels of vigilance that would then guarantee the thing that we’re looking for, and then maybe the Constitution can be made to reflect the bargain that we have then struck. And I’ve said in the civic but as well as in the economic sense, there’s nothing as easy as the oppression of poor and emaciated people. There’s nothing as combustible as poor and, you know, impoverished people. If you think of any form of civil war, any form of violence, or state collapse, these things tend to be driven by amongst other things, breakdown of civic institutions, popular impoverishment. People are getting poorer or they feel they’re getting poorer. Income inequality. We need to address those things. Those things are what are going to help us guarantee peaceful transition. If you amend the Constitution but the people are poor, they’re angry and hungry. If you amend the Constitution but the people who are supposed to act in certain ways don’t believe that this Constitution binds them, you’re wasting time. You will not get a peaceful transition. 

Moderator: Okay, I am almost at that point where I bring in members of the audience, but I’ll carry on with two questions then get to that. So this is the queue for those who may want to ask questions or make comments. You can start asking for the microphone now. So we’ve had this conversation for close to an hour now. We have another hour to go. we have another hour to go, so I’ll ask this question, but yeah, those who want to ask questions, please ask for the microphone. So we haven’t seen a change in Entebbe, but we have seen changes with the people facing the person in Entebbe. Of course there was Paul Kawanga-Semwogerere in the 1966 election, then you had the new kid on the block, if I could use that phrase, for Dr. Kiiza Besigye, who took the rest out up to 2016, and now you have Bobi Wine, or Mr. Kyagulanyi. These changes on the other hand, the opposition, especially now with Robert Kyagulanyi, who is just 42 years, meaning when President Museveni was 40, he was two years, is that change in the politics on the other side leading us closer to a peaceful transition, or perhaps the differences in understanding generational appreciation of society and life, and things like that, perhaps even leading us closer to more anarchy? 

Moderator: Agather, have I dropped? No, we can hear you. We can hear you now. 

DFK Mpanga: Yes, sorry, I was saying that I’ll desist from making it about individuals, purely because we need to understand power in the sense of structures. No individual, whether it be His Excellency the President, or Bobi Wine, or Robert Kyagulanyi, or Kiiza Besigye , or Mugisha Muntu, or any other single individual, as an individual, would make a big indentation on the country. It’s really structures that determine how things are running. So the power structures at the moment are largely in, one, primarily the security organs, two, the technocratic state, which is a civil service, et cetera, three, the economic structure, and as we were talking about earlier, cultural institutions, and others. And then individuals kind of work together with others within these structures. The way that the structures are presently arraigned are top-down, very disciplined, in that sense, security structure, which enables one person at the helm of that to generally have an upper hand when it comes to elections, electioneering, campaigns, et cetera. If you think about it, the Constitution empowers the President to appoint the Electoral Commission, Parliament, which draws the boundaries, the judiciary, which determines electoral disputes. So we have that imbalance because this person is at the helm of a structure that enables them to maximize, if you think about a hydraulic machine, just to put their foot down on this brake that causes massive transfer of pressure into the brake discs through a hydraulic system. That’s exactly what we need to think about, the hydraulic system of Uganda. So it may be Museveni at the helm of that security structure at the moment, but if the security structure is not modified, it will be Mpanga, it will be Kyagulanyi, it will be Okello, it will be Kwizera or Ogwang, whoever. If you don’t modify the hydraulic system, it will enable one person to be able to step up on that system, on that pedal, and exert a lot of pressure and squeeze others out. So to my mind, what hasn’t changed isn’t just the incumbent. Unfortunately, what hasn’t changed has been the situation where one person can commandeer a structure that then makes all the others. So you have a kind of an exaggerated imperial presidency in the 1995 constitution because you know the term limits meant that every 10 years there’d be a new president um that president would not have an overwhelming grip on the army that president would not have an overwhelming grip on the police having appointed all the senior police officers that president would not have an overwhelming grip on all the intelligence agencies that president you know new president would not have an overwhelming grip on but traditionally um would not have an overwhelming grip on the economy um those those things um when were uh what make our elections generally unfair but there’s been an amendment there’s been an enabling of a super imperial presidency um and i’m taking away from just the individual i think we need to to think through how we overcome that and then how we prevent it happening again based on the experience that we’ve had and the things that we’ve seen and known that uh you know a 40-year presidency can bring the absurdities and the imbalances um the constitutional imbalances that can arise in situations like this i don’t think any of the framers of the constitution even the president himself thought that there’d never be a time when every single judicial officer every single serving judicial officer is appointed by the sitting president now he doesn’t know them personally but you know there’s there’s that aspect they all owe their allegiance to him all owe their appointment to him when we hear about discussion of matters of this nature say in other countries where there’s you know judicial appointments are material we hear about there’s an obama appointee there’s a trump appointee there’s a bush appointee um you you you there might be harmony in their ideological positions because of the party of the president that appoints them um but certainly not you know down to the person of the that particular individual having been the same um those kinds of things i think are what we need to address um more than just the individuals and i think that’s the challenge that we’re faced with now how how to overcome the situation that really personalizes politics in uganda and doesn’t consider structural important issues the heart we tend to really concentrate on the who and the what is far more important in a sustainable and long-term basis okay um 

Moderator: so yeah i’m now going to start bringing in members with the audience but i just want to ask which method would you prefer do we take two or three questions at a time or perhaps you answer each question as it comes whichever works best for you and 

DFK Mpanga: I prefer to take each question as it comes or two at a time so uh we might have the first question from Agather and then the one from robert Kabushenga and then you respond to those then we get others.

 

This is the an X space from Agora Discourse with me Godwin Toko: Transition Question: A conversation with DFK Mpanga and transcribed by Henry Otafiire. This material may be protected by copyright