Who Has The Capacity To Manage The Umsc?

Here we are again, in the midst of incessant Muslim wrangles. We have been there before and got out, by the grace of Allah. We shall overcome them again, insha-Allah. It is embarrassing to all of us, whichever side you find yourself on. There are some Muslims, though, who have decided not to be part of the ongoing confusion. This is not being indifferent, but a conscious decision not to fuel the divisions but at the same time work overtly and covertly, to see whether we can manage the situation so that it does not go out of hand.

This is the thrust and approach of the Muslim Consultative Forum, a think tank of some few willing Muslims with interest of the dignity and wellbeing of the of the Muslim Community at heart, and are not eager to become officials of the UMSC in its present form, at any level. So, the Muslim Consultative Forum is not a faction of the Muslim community, but a strategic effort to shape the future of the Muslim Community in Uganda.

The crisis in UMSC is a symptom of a serious deficiency of organisational, leadership and management capacity. Whoever takes over UMSC, with the present pathetic absence of organisational systems, inadequate organisational skills at most levels of the organisation, and less than desirable individual competencies, would find themselves in the same quagmire.

In my other occupation as a consultant on Organisational Development we have tried to study some other Muslim organisations in Uganda, even those that seem to be run by the better educated. Most suffer from the same syndrome that UMSC suffers. There are just no systems in place in these organisations. There is no transparency. Individuals are bigger than their organisations. There is also the lingering disturbing tendency to establish cliques within the organisations. Selfishness. Feeling more important than others. No budgets are prepared for planning purposes (except for begging from donors). Therefore no audited accounts or even balance sheets are read at the end of the year. They don't hold annual General Meetings, they run even large sounding organisations like any brief case association would be. No accountability.

So, even if you handed over UMSC (in its present form), to the most educated, the most agreeable (to you), the most enlightened (in your opinion), they will not be able to run the organisation the way Idi Amin, the grand strategist, who created UMSC had wanted it to be. UMSC was supposed to be an alternative government for the Muslim Community. To be an effective top leader of UMSC, you should be presidential material as well. Muslims in Uganda are over 6 million. Even if they were only 2.9 million as the official figures state, we know of countries with populations of under 300,000. Iceland has 290,000 inhabitants, but is a major donor to Uganda.

Uganda's true Muslim population is larger than the total population of many countries. So the idea of some Mufti, whether you like him or not, who does not have the capacity to be president of a country is absurd. Muftis in Uganda think their job is to officiate at functions, be nice to the government so that he can get a car and a perhaps a diplomatic passport, and to be welcomed in all parts of Uganda to attend Maulids and last funeral rights. And to receive unlimited praises from their followers. This is also the role most Muslims define for the Mufti of their choice. This is erroneous.

“Mufti” is an academic title, much like “Professor”. In Uganda, unfortunately, “Mufti” is actually a political position disguised as a religious office. This is a matter that ought to be resolved with time, so that a Mufti in Uganda (as in other countries) is chosen for the knowledge he has and the proven sincerity he has exhibited when traced several years before he became a candidate for the office. This would mean, at another level, that there can be any number of Muftis, just as there can be any number of Professors of chemistry in a given country. In Pakistan I met at least 10 Muftis, and none of them was in conflict with the other.

But let us focus on the “Mufti” of Uganda's context. The Mufti that Uganda needs in the 21st Century is a well grounded individual in the Islamic sciences with graduate qualification and who is in possession of a sound western education and/or exposure. He who has the capacity to put together a team of Ministerial material to head the various UMSC departments, not some obscure and often incompetent persons whose most important qualification is loyalty to the Mufti and their ability to mobilise political support for the Mufti. In the UMSC we should have, The District Kadhis will have to be properly paid, our schools well run, our health system in place, Mosques should become the LCI structure of the community, and a census of Muslims should be undertaken every decade so that proper (development) planning can be done for the community. Further, the UMSC Secretary General Uganda needs should be equivalent of an executive Prime Minister in a nation.

The Muslim community should have its own economic development blue print, structure, and its own interest free economic base. UMSC should have a foreign relations department run by qualified international relations practitioners, to liaise with the (global) Ummah. The Muslim Community should have a manpower planning department so that our institutions are advised to produce the right products (graduates) we need and in the right quantities, applying the most cost effective education technologies.

I will illustrate this. Today, if the Islamic University in Uganda reduced on the brick and mortar projects (buildings) and instead invested in ICT, it would deliver internationally recognised Degree, Diploma and Certificate programmes through Open and Distance Learning to not less than 50,000 local students a year and another ten thousand or so who live abroad, at half the cost of delivery. Apart from the huge income generation potential of Open and Distance Learning, this would also mean that within 20 years, there would be at least 300,000 more Muslim graduates in the community. (A percentage would drop out of course due to certain known factors).

Also, the debate of whether a Muslim girl should get married before 'completing studies' would cease. A Muslim mother in Uganda should be able to complete her undergraduate and graduate degree for the Islamic University in Uganda, from the comfort of her own home, taking care of her children, in front of a laptop, and a modem, at half the social and financial cost of the traditional University Education, which has excluded thousands of students from higher education.

The office of the Mufti of Uganda should be run like a typical President's office. The UMSC delegates should be at the level of Member of Parliament as far as level of education and analytical capacity are concerned. The General Assembly should be the Muslim Parliament. We can go on.

The present level of debate of who should be Mufti and who should overthrow who - falls short of the realisation that the Muslim Community of Uganda can only be managed like you can manage a fully fledged country. Mediocres cannot run the UMSC, regardless of which faction they belong to.

Can we then raise the debate and confront the Muslim Leadership Question that goes beyond the Sheilk Mubajjes and the Sheikh Kayongos of this world? The Northerners and the Southerners? The only constant qualification should be Taqwa (the fear of Allah). That is non negotiable. And Ikhlas, (sincerity of intentand action). Then we look for presidential and ministerial material to lead the UMSC. If it is not available now, let us consciously work towards producing it, and work to develop ourselves into ministerial material, into presidential material, into MP material, into Permanent Secretary material, into Heads of Department material... into Commissioner material - as we let the available type do what they can at their simple mauledi/lumbe/miggo/stones level, until the right time comes.

Your responsibility now, you who can read and understand this text, is to help all Muslim camps focus on development of their camps factions, not propaganda and simple politics of survival. And to convince the younger people below 40 years not to be involved in matters of history they know very little about. Attempting to have a faction - free Muslim community in Uganda (or elsewhere) is futile. It is much like hoping that the Shia (and all the Shia sects and factions) and Sunni (and all the Sunni sects and factions) would one day merge into one Jamah with one Khalifah in our lifetime.

For Allah's sake if this ongoing conflict in UMSC can give us another 5 FM Muslim radios, 2 Muslim Television stations, 2 Muslim referral Hospitals, 2 more Muslim Nursing Schools, 500 Muslim postgraduate scholarships, half of them in the sciences, 1000 Islamic Banking SACCOs countrywide, 1000 Muslim police officers and 1000 more Muslim military officers in the next 10 years... I would not complain.

Perhaps the competition between the factions would make them work a little harder, smarter, as we delicately move towards overcoming the negative impact of senseless divisions using the Prophetic method. No Muslim faction in Uganda can vanquish the other. They all have their inherent strengths and weaknesses that place them pathetically at par with each other. In the future, we will attempt to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the major Muslim factions in Uganda.

Please don't be part of this confusion. Let no other well educated Muslim be part of it either. Use your position to manage the divisions in a way that they can even become an advantage to the community, and not the tragedy they can become if fuelled by emotion, simple arguments and approaches.

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