Stand up for the truth March 21, 2005 Dear Tingasiga:
Thanks to Mr Super Magoba, a Monitor letter-writer, we have been reminded that on May 12, 2001, Presidential Advisor John Nagenda wrote that he was certain that Yoweri K. Museveni would never seek to remain in power beyond 2006.
Nagenda wrote: “Anyone who knows Museveni’s strict adherence to the law can be sure that he will fulfill its every position. There will be no hanky panky to have the term extended, no lines of anxious pleaders begging on bended knee for the Great Leader to reconsider and stay on.”
HAS GREAT LITERARY SKILLS: Presidential Advisor John Nagenda
Of course some of us knew, and stated so, that Nagenda’s prediction was all a pile of bishansha or bireere [dry banana leaves], our upbringing preventing us from using less gentlemanly language to describe the fallacy of our favourite columnist’s statements.
In his letter to The Monitor last week, Magoba asked Nagenda to state his position on Ekisanja and whether he still thought that the President respected strict adherence to the law and rejected the “hanky panky” to extend terms to benefit him.
In a 646-word essay in New Vision this past weekend, Nagenda shied away from directly answering Magoba’s simple question. Instead he spoke in tongues, something completely out of character for the straight-shooting author of “One Man’s Week.”
But as any good Christian will tell you, speaking in tongues without interpretation only edifies the individual. And so I humbly offer an interpretation of Nagenda’s uncharacteristic obfuscation of the message he intended to convey.
I know that Nagenda, like many sincere supporters of the NRM, does not support the hanky panky to amend Article 105 (2) in order to enable Museveni to succeed himself next year. Like many, he feels betrayed by Museveni, a man whose word he took at face value.
To soothe his wounded faith in the boss, Nagenda has bought into the myth that the masses are the one’s driving the Kisanja fraud.
And so he has abdicated his duty as a respected and influential thinker and opinion leader in the land. After all what can one say when the masses are dancing before the king?
Yet I will not let him off the hook just like that. Surely Nagenda understands the nature of “the masses”, especially in societies where poverty places citizens at the mercy of manipulative rulers.
The apparent support that Museveni’s Kisanja project is enjoying among the masses does not impress one who has observed the same society for the last forty years.
During the 1960s, Mr Milton Obote’s “Meet the People Tours” routinely attracted throngs of ululating masses that would have lynched anyone who dared to challenge our beloved leader. Everywhere one looked there were men, women and children donning T-shirts and other garb in UPC party colors, displaying a young Milton Obote’s portrait.
In my native Kigezi, we were raised on songs of praise for the great leader of the UPC and Obote shirts and dresses were among our Sunday best. Even as late as January 1971, Obote’s popularity among the masses appeared to be soaring. Except in Buganda, of course.
On January 25, 1971, Warrant Officer II Sam Wilfred Aswa read out the 18 reasons why the men and officers of the Uganda army had overthrown the popular president’s government.
And so began the “temporary” rule of Maj. Gen. Idi Amin Dada who was welcomed with orgasmic celebrations in Buganda and a few other parts of the country.
By 1979, in spite of the murders, the brutality, the humiliation and the economic hardships, the masses all over the country had long accommodated themselves to their ruler, with Amin’s tours of his realm greeted with joyful festivities. Except in Lango and Acholi, of course.
Did the people of Rukungiri, Kigezi, now divorced from Obote, not “demand” that Amin become Life President of the Second Republic? Of course the whole thing was orchestrated by the president’s courtiers who hailed from Rukungiri, their agenda being less about Amin or Uganda than it was about their personal interests.
In what would become the first Kisanja campaign in Uganda, the masses from other parts of the country, even those whose sons and daughters had perished under the regime, quickly cast their lots with their Banyarukungiri brethren.
Not even the murder of Anglican Archbishop Janani Luwum in 1977 could stop the masses from dancing with apparent joy whenever Life President Al Hajji Field Marshal Dr Idi Amin Dada VC, DSO, MC, CBE visited his realm.
Had his love affair with the masses not been rudely interrupted by the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces in 1979, Amin would have probably died in office, leaving behind millions of uncontrollably grief-stricken masses. But with his overthrow in April 1979, the same masses welcomed the conquering Tanzanians and Ugandan exiles with open arms and legs.
Though things got a little confusing for the masses, what with the political elite struggling for power through three successive interim regimes in a period of 12 months, it was not long before Mr Obote was back in the saddle, enjoying the overflowing love and support of the same masses who had bid him good riddance ten years earlier. Except in Buganda and West Nile, of course.
Five years later, Obote was gone, his beloved masses once again freed from their obligation to dance and prostrate before him. A few months later, after the tongue-tied Gen. Tito Okello Lutwa had been taken out of his brief misery by Commander Museveni and his conquering army in January 1986, the Amin and Obote-loving masses were now ready to sing the songs of praise for their latest ruler. The NRA heroes were received with open arms and legs.
No doubt the Museveni years have brought better times for many communities. Except in Acholi, Lango and parts of Teso, of course, and more lately, in places like Rukungiri and Kinkizi where the whip and the gun have been used to persuade people to express their profound love for their ruler.
And so we return to the second Ekisanja campaign, this one originally broached by, among others, Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi and Professor Dr Mondo Kagonyera, two distinguished sons of Rukungiri District. The masses have embraced it, the way they embraced the reigns of Milton Obote and Life President Idi Amin Dada.
I guarantee you, Tingasiga, that the same masses will embrace the next ruler and vilify Mr Museveni should the latter be forced out of power the way his popular predecessors were.
The reason why Idi Amin and Obote II were removed from power, in spite of the purported “love and support” they enjoyed among sections of the masses, was because there were men and women willing to stand up for what they believed to be right and just, even when their actions clashed with the masses’ songs.
I would like to count Nagenda among the principled men and women of Uganda. I certainly admire his great intellect and literary skills, gifts that he should put to use to serve the same truth and principles for which he struggled in years gone by.
One place he should start is to answer Mr Magoba’s simple question. Do you, John Nagenda of Namutamba, support the amendment of Article 105 (2) to enable Museveni to go against that which he promised you and the masses in 2001?
If you do, say so and you will earn my respect for taking a clear position on this important national matter. If you do not support Ekisanja, then you, John Nagenda and some of your senior government colleagues whom I know are silent opponents of Ekisanja [for they have told me so], owe it to your country to state so clearly without any equivocation.
While I will never disclose the names of those cabinet ministers and other senior officials who have confided in me their revulsion at Museveni’s betrayal of their trust, I urge them to rise to the occasion and serve the truth and the rule of law, notwithstanding the loss of groceries that this will entail.
Once again one salutes Cuthbert Joseph Obwangor of Teso and Adoko Nekyon, cousin of Milton Obote, who resigned from the Obote I cabinet on principle.
One also recalls with admiration men like Prince John Barigye of Nkore, Wanume Kibedi, Edward Rugumayo, Emmanuel Wakhweya and Paulo Muwanga who had the courage to resign their exalted positions in Amin’s government.
Nagenda and his principled colleagues in the government need not fear to stand up for the truth and for the rule of law. After all they have a duty to defend the Constitution that was made by the masses through their representatives in the Constituent Assembly a mere ten years ago.
No hanky panky, remember?
Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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