Businessman Wavamunno attacks Museveni in new book, tells him ‘it is time to go’

City businessman Gordon Wavamunno in his new book has released his frustrations and urged President Yoweri Museveni “it’s time to go.”

Wavamunno in his 139-paged-book condemns Museveni for the removal of presidential term limits from the 1995 Constitution of Uganda in 2005. He accuses Museveni for the mismanagement of the succession debate even after staying over 30 years in power.

The businessman says that having ruled Uganda for this long, Museveni ought to have left the chair many years ago, giving a chance to young budding people within or outside the National Resistance Movement (NRM) to take charge.

“To avoid being splashed with all the mud, rulers should stay for a reasonably short time and above all choose people around them very carefully,” he says, it’s a major failure for Museveni not to have named a successor up to now.

“There is no shortage of people capable of governing Uganda properly,” he writes, adding that at all times leaders will emerge. “In the last 30 years, no grooming school has been set up either. Thirty years of relative stability is enough to establish a grooming school so that the next generation of leaders can go through their paces and become seasoned leaders,” he says.

On political succession, Wavamunno, also blasts leaders for dismally botching the process since independence culminating into mayhem and political instability.

“…leaders like Museveni “owe it to their country to make sure that their departure is not followed by the shedding of blood and martyrdom [because] that is the real measure of their success in the high office.”
Wavamunno says Mr. Museveni should reflect and emulate his mentor, former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere and retire for any of the successors he is ideally supposed to have groomed in the last 30 years.
“[He] apologized to Tanzanians in 1985 when he realized that Ujamaa had failed. He then left the stage and enjoyed his elevation to elder statesman until his death. He remains one of the most highly regarded and respected leaders Africa has had.”

Wavamunno who claims he has interacted with all Uganda’s post-independence governments by virtue of the conspicuous business roles he has played, says gun rule is one of the many common features he has noticed whereby leaders stay in power by virtue of the gun more often than for the votes they get.

He says this unleashing of violence on political foes has been a constant.

The businessman also gives his assessments on all post-independence governments, blaming former presidents such as Idi Amin and Milton Obote before attacking Museveni over his long stay in power.

He who fell out with the regime also attacks the way the oil and petroleum resource has been managed – telling Ugandans that they should forget about the oil.
In the book, Wavamunno further castigates Museveni for intriguingly referring to the resource as “my oil.”

He says this presents what he calls indicators that oil has already “been mortgaged” to Chinese and other foreigners under the guise of funding numerous mega infrastructure projects costing over $15bn “implying oil discovery isn’t a big deal and it’s not something that makes Museveni special in any way.”

He claims the powerfully connected NRM actors (he refers to them as oligarchs) have already accepted gratifications (like trips to casinos in Las Vegas, fancy cars, mansions on the Riviera etc) in order to betray the poor Ugandans especially in oil-rich Bunyoro/Buliisa regions.

Wavamunno equated the NRM gurus to forefathers who accepted “brightly colored beads and bottles of hard liquor” centuries ago to agree in the slave trade by slave traders whose greed for material accumulation he equates to that of oil companies targeting contemporary Uganda.

He concludes by calling upon Museveni to emulate Nyerere and leave power, arguing it’s the only way all he worked for can be sustained for him to have an enduring legacy.