Browsing by Author "Robert, Ojambo"

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The 1995 Constitution as a Tool for Dictatorship in Uganda: An African Dilemma of Constitutionalism
(SpringerLink, 2022-11) Robert, Ojambo
This chapter examines the interplay between the 1995 Constitution and the growing tendency of dictatorship in Uganda. The main argument is that whereas the drafting of the 1995 Constitution was seen by many as an attempt to promote democracy and good governance in Uganda, its implementation has often not appeared to point to that endeavour. Rather the 1995 Constitution has been used as a legal instrument for the promotion of Museveni’s political interests in the form of personal rule. The article, therefore, examines how Museveni using his position as president has continuously used the legislative processes as part of a strategic repertoire to portray a democratic picture to the international community while weakening political opposition, promoting patronage and hegemonic government in Uganda. Therefore, the 1995 Constitution has in the end created a semi-authoritarian regime where symbolic importance of the legislature and relatively free media contend with fundamentally a dictatorship at the centre that survives through legal manoeuvres and violence against any opposition. The 1995 Constitution is, therefore, seen as a tool for Museveni’s dictatorship rather than the promotion of democracy in Uganda.
The Arab springs and the “walk to work” movement in Uganda: contest for political space and freedom
(African Journal of Education, Science and Technology, 2016-01) Robert, Ojambo
This paper presents an overview of how the Arab Springs influenced events in the Walk-to Work Protests in Uganda during the period after the 2011 election. It builds on the previous analysis of the nexus between the Arab Spring and other conflicts that sprung in different parts of Africa to provide an overview of in the fight for political space in the sub-Saharan Africa with a specific focus on Uganda. The main argument is that the recent Arab uprising have led to significant changes that call for rethinking of critical issues in the study of social movement which has in turn led to enormous implication in the theories of revolution especially in the Arab world. This study employed a qualitative methodology using historical approach to investigate the ‘Walk-to-Work’ protests in Uganda in the larger study of impact of the Arab Springs in the Arab North. Employing the Resource Mobilisation, Political Opportunity Structural and Framing Theories, the study establishes that the Arab Springs influenced a lot of events in the ‘Walk-to-Work’ Protests in Uganda. Our argument here is also that despite the fact that the ‘Walk-to-Work’ protests did not lead to change of Government, they were not mere protests but instead a manifestation of a peaceful struggle for political space in Uganda that has made a big paradigm shift in the politics of this country.
On the waters: economic and political drivers of maritime conflicts between Uganda and its neighbors
(African Studies Quarterly, 2021-10) Robert, Ojambo
The Great Lakes region has, in the recent past, been awash with numerous border conflicts/or threats to conflict among the member states. Whereas various studies have endeavored to explain the emergence of such conflicts, many of them lay the blame on colonial cartographical errors and territorial hegemony that developed after independence. This article furthers the debate by examining why, in the recent past, there have been conflict/disputes on shared waters between Uganda and its neighbors. Escalating maritime border conflicts in the Great Lakes Region have been mainly due to the increasing need for both control and exploitation of key economic resources, leading to the struggle for control of these areas. The strategic importance of lakes such as Victoria, Albert and Edward will continue to make them sources of conflict among countries in the Great Lakes Region, as long as a proper resource-management mechanism under international protocol is not put in place.
Sugarcane plantations and the alienation of land from smallholder farmers through out-grower schemes in Busoga Sub-Region in Eastern Uganda
(Journal of African Studies, 2023-09) Robert, Ojambo
Despite wide research on land grabbing in Africa, much of the existing literature restricts the practice mainly to a situation where land is leased or sold to outside investors for the production of food and biofuel for export to the western world. This paper extends the debate further by examining how local sugarcane companies and individuals in Busoga Region in Eastern Uganda force smallholder farmers to surrender their land willingly through the out-grower schemes based on contract farming or private sugarcane production. Using a qualitative methodology that relied mainly on interviews of key informants and documentary reviews, the paper analyses the nature of the contemporary land alienations through contract farming between plantation agriculturalists and smallholder farmers, and how it has affected the livelihood of the peasants in the Busoga region especially when it comes to the production of sugarcane for sale at the expense of food for local consumption. The findings show that in the areas where sugarcane production through the out-grower schemes is the dominant economic activity, land alienation for sugarcane growing is rampant as the sugar companies and the agro-business farmers lure local peasants who mainly own land on customary tenure to grow sugarcane at the expense of producing food crops. The paper concludes that this is a new form of land grabbing in Uganda.