In Africa, the Politics and the Police Play the Same Game of Oppression

Africa is one place where politics and the police are so intertwined that every Regime seems to groom a police force loyal to the government of the day, contrary to the dictates of modern democratic dispensation.

Recent political events in Kenya and Zimbabwe appear to have left an infectious effect on the body politics of my country Uganda. Triond members are all too aware of the Post election violence in Kenya  and the role of the police played in trying to perpetuate an illegal regime that lost an election but was not prepared to leave political power. Many demonstrators were mowed down by the police for protesting against Kibaki’s illegal hold onto another politician’s victory.

In Zimbabwe soon after the hoax elections, the police would move about with charge chits in their breast pockets in readiness to charge opposition leaders at will for political crimes they have not committed. Whole villages known to be opposition stronghold would be dispersed and their voter cards confiscated and burnt by the police. God alone knows how many times Morgan the opposition leader was arrested and charged during the election period, he couldn’t even be given space ply the campaign trail by the hungry looking police. Enven on the actual day of the power sharing compromise swearing in, one white opposition leader was taken away before he could swear the oath of office of the Deputy Minister of Agriculture.

In my country Uganda, we just can’t explain what is gradually getting into the head of our great leader Museveni. He stormed our political scene way back in 1986 like a Messiah. There was mayhem in the country at the time, people were so afraid of their own police and the army under Obote and Okello regimes that they needed someone to save them, indeed, Museveni came and brought amazing sanity to our country. He wrote a new Constitution that clearly defined term limits and the rule of law. Power was clearly separated and we all hoped it would stay that way.

In 1996, Ugandans voted Museveni under the new constitution and in 2001, he was again voted the second time and we all hoped that would be his last term. Midway through his last term-he used his strength of numbers in the legislature and passed an amendment that removed forth-with the constitutional term limits. He can now rule this country for as long as he wants, never mind the fact that one of the reasons he went to the bush to fight Amin, Obote and Okello was to see to it that leaders don’t overstay in power.

In order to prop up his regime which many Ugandans see as completing veering off the constitutional track, the Museveni government is using the police too much and sometimes for the wrong reason. Late last year, 2008, police brutality reached epic levels. Opposition leaders were not allowed to consult their electorate-certain zones in the city centre were declared no go zones for opposition politicians, some opposition politicians were so high handedly treated that there was one spectacular case where a female legislator on the opposition was literally undressed to the inner garments by the police. One other very bizarre police action was one in which a professor at a University was forcefully arrested and driven to a mental hospital for his “head to be examined” This one was so hilarious that everybody in the country came to the conclusion that something is going way out of control in the ranks of the Uganda police force.

Right now we are looking forward to 2011!  Ugandans are extremely terrified at the thought that many of them will have to face the wrath of the police. That thought is making a condescending feeling to surge towards politics generally in my country because, people ask this fundamental question, what sense is there if an election is organized and the police coerce people to vote in certain way? The Uganda police are perhaps the most powerful threat to the popularity of our beloved President. I don’t care how many times the President stands, but, for sure, I care if he must keep winning by using the police to determine the course of every election. O yes I do!