What happened to the quality of political debates in Uganda? [Explainer]

However, even before that time, in the 1960s, Counsel Akena Adoko took on Prof. Ali Mazrui in a debate themed “What is the role of an intellectual?”

Both of them fought their corners with the forensic footwork of debaters who landed punches in bunches in the shape of hard-hitting facts.

Professors Mahmood Mamdani, Dani Nabudere, Omwony Ojok, Yash Tandon and several others also added to this intellectual tradition.

Mamdani and company were all switchblade sharp intellectuals who cut to the core of an argument without abuse or recrimination.

The 80s and 90s

Back in the 80s and early 90s, Museveni’s government was not as secure in power as it is today. So, it was still in its courtship phase with the already-taken Ugandan voter.

Thus, like a jealous lover, it outlawed political parties and spread its unromantic dogma through “siasa”.

This was a time when there were Think Tanks with President Museveni pulling on his boxing gloves and going toe-to-toe with ideological prize fighters like Mamdani.

The debates were televised, so the revolution had to wait its turn on the TV schedule.

Even prized intellectual unknowns at the time such as Mwesigwa Rukutana scored cerebral points at these public debates. And it was at this time that Professor Apollo Nsibambi launched the word “lugubrious” into intellectual orbit.

Sadly, when the government achieved a chokehold on power, debate gave way to brute force and the use of money to oil the wheels that had long since come off anti-intellectual debate.

As the government dumbed down, the opposition was cast in its image.

Then we witnessed the rise of the politics of abuse as political actors sought to scale the molehills of insignificant issues.

After all, the quality of debate depends on the content of the disagreement at hand.

Still, I have fond memories of when I saw Aggrey Awori (RIP) took on John Nasasira on Uganda Television. This was 1994.

Awori needled Nasasira on the need to open up the political space for political pluralism. And Nasasira, who was surprisingly eloquent back then, told him that the “no-party” dispensation at the time was ‘transitional”.

I will never forget Awori’s response.

“We can’t wait because even life itself is transitional,” he replied.

Considering that president Museveni seems to be aiming to rule for life, that response was prophetic in more ways than Awori could have ever imagined.