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John Musinguzi
HAVING followed the rallies of Front for Democratic Change (FDC) during the opening of their district offices in Mbarara, Bushenyi and Ntungamo and the people's reactions, I have been provoked to write this cautionary comment. I empathise with the youth, who might soon fall into the self-consuming inferno being peddled by the FDC.
The manner in which FDC leaders demonise President Museveni is not only unfair, hypocritical and fallacious, but also uncivilised. It lacks moral and logical foundations, which is likely to render their project yet another futile gamble, an infantile disorder and an irrational outburst.
FDC's appeals for "defiance", "civil disobedience", "bravery" could soon lead Uganda into a scenario where political parties conduct themselves as if they are above the law. One can be rebellious for revolutionary, political or religious ideals, but obstinacy and disorderliness for their own sake are anarchist, suicidal and retrogressive.
Belabouring to portray Museveni as spoilt old wine does not make them any new wine. It benefits no one that FDC should pride itself in acting the old wine in new bottles.
At first, FDC leaders and their public relations and propaganda infrastructure denied the existence of the People's Redemption Army (PRA). With more evidence of the PRA's existence, FDC now denies connections with it. But they repeatedly urge Ugandans to "banish fear" and prepare for "anything terrible" if Museveni declares his candidature. What uncouth logic!
I have listened to FDC's repeated warnings to Banyankore and Bahima. They do not differ from Lakwena's and Kony's pseudo-moralist threats of cleansing the Acholi.
I would not expect much from a party led by people like Mugisha Muntu and Salaam Musumba who, in a disorderly manner, trespassed the ministry of justice with a bag of coins. Musumba with a mob in FDC colours, also trespassed the International Women's Day celebrations in 2004. More disturbing, however, is the ease with which newcomers to this provocative and militaristic family like former DP member Ogenga Latigo, use the same language and divinations about Uganda's future.
Most Ugandans are mature enough to remind these new-convert "saviours" that the latter have a share in whatever weaknesses and errors they attribute to Museveni. Most Ugandans cannot be impressed by FDC's treacherous behaviour reminiscent, of divorcees.
Having all along been overzealous and complacent cadres of NRM, they cannot be qualitatively superior to NRM or Museveni, nor can they contribute anything to a perennially inconsequential opposition.
These self-righteous ladies and gentlemen have a share of responsibility in Uganda's political gagging, social militarisation, a short-sighted national constitution, bureaucratic parasitism and ideological suffocation.
I do challenge them to practice etiquette towards their elder, mentor, president, comrade and colleague: Museveni, and provide a social programme that can bring about a new dispensation. What has been published as their programme or "Manifesto" and that of their cousins, the Progressive Alliance Party (PAP) does not impress many.
The FDC is busy manufacturing and nourishing bogeys and fictions of "presidential monarchy", "Mafia gang", "life presidency", "Muhoozi hereditary succession", and many more. If FDC's allegation that the Ugandan state and Museveni has become synonymous be true, then no one should expect any civilised justice for Museveni but pure venomous revenge, the kind that befell the French king in 1789 or the Rwandese people in 1994.
Repeated regrets of why they fought Obote and arrogant assumptions of being the automatic organisers and leaders of the entire opposition do not help their ill-advised illusions. I fail to find a single grain of honesty, morality, principles or culture in several FDC leaders who boast of knowing Museveni "a lot because we have been with him for long". Such people are either consciously trying to blackmail Ugandans or unconsciously concealing treachery of their mentor, comrade and colleague.
Otherwise, what is their new invention? Theirs is an in-marriage rivalry for succession and inheritance which serious outsiders, the majority of Ugandans, are bound to ignore.
FDC is a self-sugared bait incapable of leading Uganda to modernity. Tumukunde's (or is it Pulkol's) PAP could stop where it has reached.
All other similar attempts are bound to fail because they are neither genuine nor well-founded. Above all, Uganda deserves a methodology and dispensation unimaginable by the intellectuals and strategists of FDC, PAP and all offshoots of NRM.
The writer is a freelance journalist
Published on: Wednesday, 10th August, 2005 |
