By Mwaka Lutukumoi
“Ojuk kwe ceto ki cet I ot pa maro,” goes an Acholi adage meaning, “He who doesn’t listen will go with faeces to his mother in-laws home!
I pen this as your once ardent supporter but beginning to develop goose pimples. After you hurriedly set up your presidential campaign structure by appointing members across political parties, it brought you into direct confrontations with your allies and foes. Many would look at this as an attempt to destroy [party] institutions for your own benefit- ‘raba daba’ style.
Your popularity is no doubt at its highest! This is not because you’re the best leader in Uganda, but because you have put your life on the line in the cause of liberating Ugandans. You are admirable.
Your surge into leadership had melted down even the most popular Opposition leaders who suffered and were very popular before you. This is an opportunity for you to bring all change- seeking forces together to uproot the Museveni regime. But it seems you have become a victim of your own shadow and have become complacent with pride; we need the humility you exhibited from the onset.
This is still the best chance for you, the youth, Buganda, and Uganda to have a youthful visionary leader, but there are many frogs spoiling the water! Your action of creating a hurried structure has widened division in Opposition and cast a dark cloud on Ugandans.
Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) did not believe in you and your approach. They clandestinely resurrected Dr Besigye who had almost given it to you. But the arrogance being exhibited unprecedentedly by especially Baganda supporters around you, makes many think Dr Besigye, even President Museveni, is more sober!
Your ardent and true supporters were the Democratic Party bloc, it gave you a platform. They had no presidential candidate but you. Most of them like Nobert Mao and Dr Abed Bwanika have badly been blackmailed by both NRM and your haters. Remember, DP has been in existence from 1954. It can nominate a candidate and contest. This will now leave you at crossroads with Ugandans thus denting your prospects.
Remember, popularity is not static but dynamic! Look at how popular Dr Besigye was in 2001? It went down but he has gained it back. Don’t be taken up by events.
For FDC, it is obvious they will have a candidate. Dr Besigye is back. It’s was only DP bloc that would ally with FDC, but with insults and the blackmail especially after Mao requested you in a well-articulated press release, that you must be strategic and make people power a bigger vehicle to unite all change seeking forces together, but not your selected few for your own presidential campaigns and ambition, you, through your handlers, must have taken it in bad faith.
You must note, Uganda is a developing democracy and in need of not only change of guard, but change that will bring back institutions killed by corruption, greed or untamed appetite for power.
Ugandans are watching. Show leadership. Start honest negotiations and build trust before you wane and Dr Besigye, DP or Alliance for National Transformation of Gen Muntu provide a choice. In politics, a day is enough to change things.
Uganda is a tribally and ethnically divided country; never bury your head in the sand like ostriches. The NRM widened this with nepotism, tribalism and impunity; look at the Army leadership, Police, parastatals.
Remember, regional support counts. To have Acholi trust Opposition you may need a Mao, Okumu, Odonga, Prof Latigo. In Westville, you may need a Kasanio, Fungaroo, Atiko, etc. In Lango, you may need a Gutumoi, Cecilia Ogwal, Odur, etc; the West, you may need a Dr Besigye, a Gen Muntu, a Winnie Kizza, etc. In the east you may need Mafabi, Alaso, Musumba, Asuman, Katuntu, etc.
Why do I say this, people in these regions listen to these leaders. You need people who will be with you at all times. You need civil society, religious and cultural institutions and among others. You don’t have to be in a hurry, but systematic. I see all your coordinators are mostly those running for offices. Who will be with you?
The writer is a U.S-based scholar
