It is a common riposte that every war has its generals. The valor of steel exhibited on the battlefield instinctively confers honors to the victors. Gen Elly Tumwine being the victor, he cannot be reproved for blowing own horn. The recent altercation between Gen.Tumwine and Cecilia Ogwal is a historical reprise between the victor and the vanquished.
Anyone who has followed our politics for the last 33 years will attest to the fact that Hon Ogwal has just of late tempered the tone of the scathing rhetoric against NRA and now UPDF maybe because of age or failure to change the inevitable. She has never had kind words for the army for obvious reasons. Her stance to vitiate the image of the army can be traced to the CA, she was pivotal in the clamor to change the name NRA to UPDF saying that NRA represented murderers and she couldn’t stand the sight of the NRA sign on any military installation. She repeated the same stance on NBS, that Gen.Tumwine represents a murderous army that carried out mass murders in Luwero and the north during the Kony insurgency.
So, her hatred of the NRA is historical and now that NRA is no longer visible to her, Gen Tumwine is an embodiment of the army she loathes. It has been argued that her constant contretemps with the General is a microcosm of her wider dislike of the army and the government as a whole.
It is only human that you wouldn’t love an army that uprooted your government and the person who fired the first bullet who lurks in your vicinity. It was so interesting that when nbs TV journlaist Simon Kaggwa Njala asked her what exactly Gen. Tumwine said that caused the burst, her answer wasn’t only dramatic but condescending; she did not know what he had said but “it must have been so bad”.
Honestly, unless you harbor an inherent grudge against someone, you cannot fight over an imaginary remark. This kind of attitude is steamrolled by hatred anchored in the fact that Hon Ogwal has never come to terms that the power center shifted from Uganda house to plot 10 Kyadondo road.
Gen.Tumwine thrust in the public domain is traceable to his heroic display at the battlefield, he is not a General by default, unlike other people whose shove into the political limelight was a creature of what defined a beauty pageant five decades ago. These are two worlds apart, given that Gen Tumwine has a permanent scar to show for the heroic feat. Is it wrong to blow own horn in extolling personal achievement, isn’t it right to bask in your victory? Certainly, it will not be a bout of laughter if you are the loser and Hon Ogwal cannot be that recipient.
At the time Gen Tumwine was commander of the army, Hon Ogwal was part of the leaders who lived in denial of the existence of Kony and propagated the façade that Kony was non-existent, but a figment of the minds of the NRA in order to wipe out the people in the north, most of the people of her generation built their political fortunes on the bedrock of denial. Even when the excesses of Kony were pervasive and the insurgence occasioned immense suffering via amputations and mass murders, that group never came out to condemn the acts but instead danced on the mass graves and skulls of the Kony victims to political limelight.
So, a person like Gen Tumwine who laid a firm foundation of the army that routed the insurgents cannot be a darling to whoever made political capital out of others misery. At a personal level, Hon Ogwal at some point was the biggest supplier of posho to both the army on the frontline and the displaced in the IDP camps. The end of the insurgency meant punching a hole in her business lifeline. The cumulative anger over the years may be the cause of the current spurt.
We all know how Hon Ogwal came to be known as “iron lady”, her abrasive style of politics can turn a knoll into a mountain as long as it guarantees political mileage. And after all the theatrics she cries foul, this explains how finger-pointing turned into a gun at parliament, where guns are out of bounds, it’s a mind game, till you take time to analyze every twist and turn of the events leading to the fracas you may see her as the victim.
Sometimes facts are bitter, when Gen Tumwine questions certain statements made by the speaker and points out the need for separation of powers between the legislature and executive, he is faulted, but the reality is that the speaker can only express an opinion but not order the executive without recourse to the intervening variables. There is a balancing act to play between legislature and executive. It is not necessarily politically right for the executive to follow every dictate by the legislature. Sometimes timing may not be opportune or the process of execution may need elaborate planning. So, Gen Tumwine, being part of both, may be privileged to know the scheme of things. It’s only human, that if you know someone is part of those fighting you to relinquish Nomo gallery, an entity you cherish, certainly there will be no love lost. In my humble opinion, everyone must be proud of their achievements, in all human endeavors and be appreciated for the mean feat achieved. Hon Ogwal has consistently advocated for the removal of army officers from parliament without taking into account the rationale why they are there. Surely, for any army officer whose contribution heralded the current political dispensation, will feel unappreciated for the effort put in the struggle.
One former female MP from Busoga teamed with Hon Ogwal and referred to the army in parliament as people with “smelly gabs” only fit to be in the bush and not parliament. This is too demeaning to Generals like Tumwine who forever will keep it as an attack on their intellect.
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