Nabendeh Wamoto
Citizens murdered at almost every bye-election campaign rallies, are our security agencies failing, frustrated or demotivated?
The current economic hardships in the country point to some kind of Espionage: i.e. planned assassinations of senior government, security officials and opposition leaders, continued infiltration of foreign operatives into the country, subversive NGOs, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, carjacking , rising oil prices, volatile foreign exchange regime, food insecurity, increased youth unemployment levels and land wrangles. All these demand new strategies.
Article 99 of the constitution of the Republic of Uganda vests all the executive authority in the
President (note: any President not necessarily Y.K Museveni).
The Ministry for security under the office of the President is mandated and responsible for providing leadership in the security sector(s) namely internal security organization (ISO) and external security organization (ESO).
These agencies must operate under stringent principles such as observance of human rights (Ref: article 221 of the constitution), Non-partisan, non-sectarian (open to all Ugandans regardless of where which region they come from, tribe, religion and or gender), accountable to Parliament through the Minister for security, openness (established by an Act parliament hence their existence are known).
Their mission is to provide accurate, reliable and timely intelligence of national interest to support policy making and implementation, law enforcement, defence, counter intelligence operations and secondly to generate and provide pre-emption of internal security threats to the state.
Their vision is to have a secure, well governed and developed nation. I was privileged to live and work with Uganda’s finest spy officers at the inauguration of Uganda’s first senior command and staff college who included but not limited to the late Noble Mayombo, David Tinyefunza aka Sejusa, Elly Kayanja, Fred Tolit, Caleb Akandwanaho aka Salim Saleh etc.
I was educated by them that any security collapse is collapse of the state and pointed out particularly at corruption (rampant hemorrhage of public resources in all sectors of government) as one of the most dangerous of spark offs of state failure.
The security agencies must undertake their tasks through a set of strategic objectives to detect, prevent and curtail the commission of politically motivated crime and provide intelligence information to other agencies.
They need to cultivate and promote a favorable positive image of Uganda for enhancement of trade, investment and national culture, provide efficient and effective support to cabinet in the discharge of its constitutional mandate of formulating, determining and implementing government policies.
They should also ensure that government policies, programs and projects are adequately monitored, evaluated. Support the President in his role of provision of overall leadership in public policy management and promotion of good governance in public institutions and national security for sustainable development and be a leading partner in preserving peaceful and prosperous Uganda.
Nabendeh Wamoto S.P (0776-658433)
Email: simonwamoto@yahoo.co.uk