Museveni’s forever wars on corruption

Why our president is caught in contradictions that he can neither grasp nor overcome

THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | So, President Yoweri Museveni declared a “tough war” on corruption; promising to apprehend all thieves and send them to jail. Then young people decided to march onto parliament, the seat of the most recent brazen corruption in the country, to protest this “evil”. The president declared a war on them. Today, the prisons are filled, not with the corrupt, but with those protesting corruption. While I admire the idealism of the young to clean up the country, I am very skeptical that any government, most especially a democratic one, can fight corruption in Uganda, or Africa.

Museveni came to power promising to “eliminate” corruption, the Number Two on his famous, now forgotten, Ten Point Program. Yet since he came to power, corruption has increased in scale and scope. After nearly 40 years in power, Museveni has presided over the worst forms of corruption in Uganda’s history. Yet the reader should not think that I am criticising our president for this. In fact, I think this was inevitable. Like the young Museveni, I think those fighting him would act exactly as he does if they replaced him. The differences would be in degree of detail but not in substance.

This has been the story of Africa since independence. In practically every justification for a coup, a popular insurrection, an armed struggle, an electoral challenge, those fighting an incumbent government have accused it of corruption. Almost without a single exception, the same “liberators” have stayed in power or left it being accuse of corruption. Corruption has been so deeply entrenched in our public life and it has survived every change of government in Africa. Nigeria has had 16 changes of government since independence in 1960. Except for the short-lived government of Gen. Murtala Muhammed (he lasted 200 days in power), every other government has been more corrupt than the previous one.

There was an attempt by Muhammadu Buhari (January 1st, 1984, to August 27th, 1985) to clean up corruption in Nigeria. He ransacked the homes of suspected public thieves and grabbed their loot. He even attempted to kidnap Umar Dicko, the most corrupt of Shehu Shagari’s ministers, from London because he was, as one newspaper of the time called him, “the ultimate symbol of the Nigerian plutocrat”. However, like Murtala before him, who was killed, Buhari lasted 20 months and was kicked out and sent to jail. I have read the political history of post-colonial Africa more than most people and can hardly find an example of a government that successfully fought corruption, the exception being post genocide Rwanda under Paul Kagame.

In fact, when Kagame launched his war on corruption in 2002, I flew to Kigali to warn him of the risks. I was scared he would be overthrown and/or killed. I told him the stories of the fate of Murtala, Buhari and Thomas Sankara, who was killed in Burkina Faso because of his anti-corruption stance. I argued that Western powers, while claiming the moral high ground on corruption, have been complicit in overthrowing those governments in Africa that sought to clean up the evil. I reminded him that the most corrupt governments in Africa were propped by Western powers – Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire (now DRC), Umar Bongo in Gabon, etc. I said that elites are kept in line with opportunities to profit through corruption.

Kagame listened carefully and promised me that he was safe. And 22 years later, he won the bet. But Kagame is an exception, which explains my admiration of the man. Yet I believe that there were circumstances in Rwanda that made him successful that cannot be found in other countries. These circumstances are rare to find and difficult to recreate. Why then is corruption so entrenched on our continent? I will first digress a bit. A Nigerian columnist, Pini Jason, propounded the now famous “Jason’s Law on Corruption.” This law states that the decibel of an average Africa’s public outcry against corruption is directly proportional to his distance from the opportunity to do exactly what he condemns.

“The difference between many a vociferous, sanctimonious and pontificating African and the villainous, itchy-fingered kleptomaniac is the absence of the opportunity to steal,” Jason wrote, “In all probability, should the opportunity occur, yesterday’s moral crusader is likely to crumble and disappear under the weight of corruption.” For Jason, the further the distance between an African and a position of power, the higher the noise he makes against corruption, and the nearer to power, the less the noise. Jason could say this because he is Nigerian and had seen the many changes of power in that country that never made any changes in governance.

The flaw in Jason’s argument is to see those in power as bad people and those opposing them as hypocrites. This line of reasoning misses the structural imperatives that impose particular choices on those in power in poor countries. Over years of researching, investigating and publishing articles in newspapers, academic journals and even a book, I concluded that corruption is a form of governance, a currency used to manage power relations. It is the glue that holds together the often flabby and heterogenous coalition of elites running a country. It is the way the system works, not the way it fails. I am convinced that without corruption, the state in most of Africa would fail to function and even collapse. How would a president placate the demands of the unruly elites from different backgrounds making unrealistic demands upon him?

So, we return Museveni. If he is to fight a war on corruption, it would only target rivals he wants to destroy and/or create a public perception that he is fighting an evil everyone is angry at. Otherwise nearly everyone in government today is corrupt. The chances that it is X who will be targeted is low, there is no incentive for anyone to stop stealing. In fact, Museveni’s war against corruption, if there was to be one, would entrench corruption further. It will target a few unlucky fellows, create a public impression that something is being done against corruption, and leave the rest of the thieves to continue stealing, thereby saving corruption.

If Africa is to fight corruption, it would have to reimagine the nature of the state, the structure of the reward system for public officials, the extent and role of the state in delivering public goods and services and the ethnics that underpin governance – subjects beyond the scope of this article.

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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug