{UAH} Todwong, Anite distort history for selfish ends
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6:28 PM |
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Drama begins with Northern Youth MP Evelyn Anite kneeling in Kyankwanzi and begging President Museveni to stand as sole candidate in the 2016 elections.
Then we have Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi swallowing his pride and vehemently denying ever nursing ambitions of standing against his boss.
To add to the drama, Rev Fr Simon Lokodo, the minister supposed to enforce morality, publicly displays his weakness towards Ugandan women and condemns them for enticing men and therefore unleashing boda boda cyclists to undress any woman who they feel is inappropriately dressed!
The drama continues as we see “the great leader” Museveni humbled by Anite’s plea and with all the humility accepting the challenge to continue offering himself as the only NRM bull. Threats are then issued against any members of the NRM party harbouring ambitions similar to those denied by Mbabazi, and the deal is sealed.
Now the challenge for the NRM pundits is to manage public expectations and perceptions, and that is where the narrative begins. The recently-recruited NRM cadres, or should I say new converts, go public to defend the indefensible since nobody would believe the old guard, many of whom are on record saying the exact opposite of what the new converts are saying.
On February 21, the minister without Portfolio, Richard Todwong, wrote in New Vision: “Ugandans support NRM because of what they witnessed in the past as compared to what is currently prevailing.”
Never mind the fact that Todwong was not part of the past and, therefore, he may be just reciting what he has been told, and he has conveniently believed it to remain on the safe side. Todwong goes on to make an argument that hurts many Ugandans that were part of the history he is referring to. Each time I hear our leaders, including the president, arguing for longevity in leadership, I shudder and pray for our country.
As a young university student at Makerere when Museveni took over government in 1986, many radical students did not believe in the NRM government taking government by force of arms, much as they were being liberated from anarchy.
But Ugandans were assured that they had got a fundamental change and that democracy and good governance would be restored. In one of Museveni’s heavily-quoted speeches, he said Africa’ s main problem was leaders that stayed too long. Today he is the longest serving Ugandan president.
The political commissar then, now Museveni’s arch-political rival, Col Kizza Besigye, was every other week at Makerere University’s main hall, persuading students to change their perception of Museveni.
Others in this campaign to soften the Ugandan elite so as to support the NRM cause included Col Amanya Mushega and Kahinda Otafiire. I recall Museveni making his maiden visit to Makerere, the reception was so unfavourable. Students booed him and a good number even walked away in protest.
Scepticism remained rife at the university until a plan was hatched to get university professors into cabinet and take students for politicisation and militarisation courses at Kyankwanzi.
Many university professors found themselves appointed ministers while graduate students got enlisted for government jobs after proving that they were now reformed cadres willing to serve the system. Many others joined the army. I was among the students taken to Kyankwanzi, with my colleague at many fronts, Ofwono Opondo.
At Kyankwanzi, we were taken through Uganda’s political economy and the challenges experienced by our country at the time. The blame was heaped on the British colonialists, imperialists and Uganda’s past leaders. Three months later, we were totally convinced that Museveni was the leader with a great vision for Uganda. No matter what some people said about him, I vowed he would never be like the leaders before him.
I feel ashamed today when the same people that have been sceptical all along confront me with the many ills of the government and the leader I so strongly supported.
Many years later, I met and married one of the bush war heroes, Jack Mishambi (RIP), who narrated the convincing reasons that took Museveni to the bush.
Top on the agenda was to remove bad leaders that clang onto power, to restore democracy, and ensure that Ugandans elected their leaders without coercion. Mishambi was a very strong advocate of the LC system, a big critic of corruption, and definitely a great supporter of Museveni, having been one of the bush political commissars and the first Special District Administrator for Jinja in 1986.
I was bought into the NRM and even strongly campaigned for it at previous elections. However, in the past few years, the distortions of our history have become too unbearable for my own conscience that I even wonder whether my late husband, if he was alive today, would believe what Todwong and Anite are saying.
For sure I know that many people Mishambi was with in the bush, including those still serving in government, are perplexed by such irresponsible talk that is not only dangerous for today’s youths but for our country’s future.
Just for Todwong and Anite’s information, my generation was born at the time when post-independence conflicts began in Uganda. We grew up under Idi Amin’s eight-year regime, then briefly experienced Prof Yusuf Kironde Lule, Godfrey Binaisa, Paul Muwanga, Milton Obote and Tito Okello’s regimes, all in a span of six years.
For 28 years now, we have had President Museveni, the only one known to my children and the two newly-converted MPs that have conveniently decided to distort and reverse our history.
Luweero bush war heroes and the many Ugandans that shed their blood to “liberate” our country, or those that were killed because they were suspected to support Museveni’s struggle for “liberation”, must be turning in their graves to see what opportunist youths are doing to our country.
My plea to all our youthful leaders who were too young to know what we went through, please do not rewrite our history and distort it because some of us lived it and we know the sacrifices that we have been forced to make so that you can enjoy the privileges you have.
Time is the best friend we have and it will tell when you are forced to face your lies.
The writer is a women rights activist and former EALA member.
Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the results.
Benjamin Franklin
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