Mary Karooro Okurut
Karooro Okurut
Transition of any kind is not easy. Take the transition from childhood to
adulthood, when a cocktail of emotions and changes take place. A boyâs voice
all of a sudden breaks into a boom. Many a boy gets confused as he talks and
sounds like a cross between a croaking frog and a bull excited in ways I
wonât mention here.
As the girl develops into womanhood, she sees blood from an invisible wound in
her body that keeps flowing for several days. She goes into a panic.
Then the woman goes into menopause, where the periods cease and she enters
another era of her life where sanitary pads and tampons are thrown out of the
budget. Confusion and uncertainty set in as she comes to terms with her new
state of being. There will be that feeling of insecurity: is she still
beautiful and desirable?
All this is transition, and if one is to cope successfully with it, one needs
to be fully prepared either through having read about or having been told about
it. Political transition is not an easy journey anywhere in the world, and
ought to be taken on with care. In Uganda, more caution has to be exercised
because we have on our hands a hitherto fragmented and brutalised society in
that the majority of the country is just beginning to heal and come together.
Some of the turbulence we have today may be because we did not give the country
an interim period after the previous brutal dictatorships.
We went straight into too much freedom of speech which has been abused often.
if you give a starving person too much food youâll probably do him more harm
than good, whereas a little at a time will save him.
Likewise, because transitions are messy and need to be approached with caution,
the majority of Ugandans are saying if we are transiting from the Movement to
multipartyism, we cannot, in the same breath, afford to lose the national
leadership. That would be biting off more than we can chew.
We still need President Yoweri Museveni to steer the country through the
transition. But then you have a section of our people (mercifully, they are
few), going out on deliberate, diligent and sustained excuse campaigns.
These are people who are very sure of their defeat, but are not willing to face
the truth. The giving out of sh5m facilitation to Movement Members of
Parliament to carry out certain tasks brought out the cry of foulplay: âthe
MPs have been bribed to vote for a third term for President Museveni.â
Soon after that word went round that the Speaker, Hon. Edward Ssekandi, and his
deputy, Rebecca Kadaga, had also received the so-called kisanja cash.
The interpretation volunteered by our opposition was that Parliament had been
thoroughly compromised and the third term bid would go through hands down.
Then there is the excuse they have been singing all through about the army: if
President Museveni does not involve the army, we shall beat him. None of those
in the opposition cared to mention that for nearly two decades, yet some of
them were part of the Movement machinery.
If the Movement had been using the army to get votes, these people should have
stopped the practice while still in the Movement, since they claim to be right.
They have excelled in creating a rich, deep and huge excuse data bank from
which they draw a bit every other day to explain away their failures.
Their strategy is simple: repeat the message in the media every day and some
people will believe it. They forget that in Parliament, the Movement has
practically taken over and is holding sway comfortably.
This has been demonstrated in several fora. All the committees that determine
key policies and decisions were taken over by Movement cadres. This was months
before the kisanja cash came up. Besides, it is an undeniable fact that every
voter knows that apart from criticising the President and the Movement these
people have no solid and sound agenda to sell to the people of Uganda.
That is why President Museveni challenged his opponents to state their vision
for Uganda since they want to lead the country. Instead the opposition turned
around and said President Museveni had declared that he is the only one with a
vision for the country. This makes me wonder whether the opposition has no
better agenda than attacking the Movement and President Museveniâs every move
and success.
The writer is the Woman MP for Bushenyi District
Published on: Sunday, 28th November, 2004
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 Copyright The New Vision, 2000-2004. All rights reserved.
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