If there is one thing that the race for FDC leader Dr Kizza Besigye’s successor will teach Ugandans, then it is whether or not Ugandans are indeed a bunch of tribalists.

One of the people who have of recent come in the crosshairs is FDC National Mobilizer, Maj. Gen Mugisha Muntu whose party colleagues are questioning whether he is Ugandan, and whether he qualifies to lead the party.

It’s not the first time that tribal sentiments come up when it comes to leadership positions. Gen. Muntu’s nationality is doubted by many Ugandans.

Where were they, during the so many years that he was army commander; did anyone question him then? Before then, he had a stint as the head of military intelligence, but no one questioned that.

When Muntu was still army commander no one questioned his nationality. There is belief in Africa that some people like Muntu who have relatives across the border are less citizens of given countries.

In DR Congo there a joke that the only “true Congolese president was Ugandan fallen president, “Idi Amin.”

The belief in Democratic Republic of Congo is that of all the presidents who have ever ruled DR Congo, none of them was Congolese!

They claim that the current president, Joseph Kabila, is Rwandan and many attest to the fact that his mother is from Rwanda. The late Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, was said to be a Mukiga from Uganda, while Mobutu Sese Seko of then Zaire (now DRC) was from the Central African Republic. In Tanzania, former President Benjamin Mkapa was told to go back to his country of origin, down south in Mozambique.

The people of Kenya claim that the founding father of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, was a Uganda from western Uganda. Sometime back Zambians claimed that Fredrick Chiluba, their former president, was from DR Congo, while their founding president Kenneth Kaunda was from Malawi. In Uganda president Museveni is looked at as a Rwandan, while his predecessors Milton Obote and Iddi Amin were claimed to be Southern Sudanese.

Julius Nyerere, the founder of the Republic of Tanzania, was said to be from Burundi. The late Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, was claimed to be from Eritrea, never mind that he staged a fatal war with Eritrea over a piece of rocky border. Because his father was from Kenya, President Barack Obama’s nationality has been a bone of contention, with some Americans claiming that he is not a true American. He has been at pains to produce evidence that he was actually born in America!

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