Abwooli Rujumba Omurungi W’Abasambu, the rock of the Ugandan opposition, FDC strongman Dr. Kiiza Besigye Kifeefe has been quoted in an interview saying that Junta head President Yoweri Museveni can only chose when to retire from grazing his cattle and not from the peoples’ state houses of Entebbe and Kampala!
Rujumba, the man actually said that the Sabagabe, as Toronto-based Ugandan pediatric Dr. Muniini K. Mulera prefers to fondly call him, can only have the choice of quitting his mastered art of dung- management and not the evil art of mercilessly plundering Africa’s Pearl in the very same way Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez and his crew were able to loot and mop from the face of the earth the prosperous Aztec civilization.
The good brave doctor was responding to some reckless statements made by the dictator on WBS, a local television station, that he was fit and strong, whatever his age, with the charisma of a youth to preside over this country till the constitutionally set age- ceiling of 75 even after his wondrous thieving escapades that have lasted close to a quarter a century.
What amused me however was not Dr. Besigye’s well-wrapped and spot on reply to the reckless statements of his former commander and patient but the pace at which time, that incorruptible relater of truth, can so swiftly locomote.
Before you were born, my dear brother, there came a time when the geurillero and his No Resistance Junta/Movement (NRJ/M) was generally loved and accepted by the unsuspecting peoples of Uganda. During those glorious days of the movement, the son of Kaguta was virtually above public scrutiny.
He was a darling; a timely savior who enjoyed cult status throughout the country. Thus his words were sometimes obeyed like law, his courtiers respected like gods who took on the role of emissaries to the Supreme deity that was him. Thus it was an unpardonable sin to be seen or heard incarcerating the patriot, as he then was, at any public fora lest you be rubbished as one of those hopelessly defeated UPC ‘failures’.
It follows then that before the myth of infallibility was finally burst, any sharp critic of the junta was considered an ungrateful misfit in society who would be christened all kinds of names overnight. We the children of the day were taught by society to gaze with nothing but scorn at the houses of UPC aristocrats for we ran the fear of being roasted alive on barbeque as they were crowned cannibals!
Society also tutored not to ever be ungrateful like those unthankful men. Generally in my native Bunyoro, Dr. Obote’s confidantes like Ausi Rwakaikara, Muhamood Kazimbiraine, Amos Bendebule, Mugasa, Amisi Gahwerra and the ilk would be taunted to the tunes of NRM liberation songs that did nothing but tell of how their regime failed hopelessly with no single achievement and of how they were the perpetrators of the very same failure.
One such ballad of which I was a clever husker was that one that had lines like: Rwakasisi we akajaribu akasindwa, Tom Rubaya………… akasindwa and it was at this stage of the song that we chipped in those ‘failures’ in our own locality like Rwakaikara and Mugenyi which lines were imprinted into our heads by our indoctrinated parents.
On the other hand, the guerillas were labeled all sorts of names ranging from Simbas (lions of liberation) to heroes that fought the bush war that was ‘heavy and encouraging’. Thus we all aspired to be not like the failures that were the Rwakasisi’s, but the heroes like Comrade Kato, Salim Saleh not forgetting our own Matayo Kyaligonza.
Rujumba, when I look back to those days and project fast forward to Dr. Besigye expressing his sentiments freely without being condemned as a disgruntled failure, I shudder and raise my hands high in supplication of how time, that incorruptible relater of truth, can speedily marathon.
It was never contemplated that one day, chief hero Gen. Museveni would eloquently be told of his deceitful tendencies!
Never was it contemplated that the cadre thieves of my taxpaying father’s money could be spot lit from Temangalo!
And never was it contemplated that a day would dawn when it was the turn of the liberation lions to wear the garments of ‘failures’. When they would turn into the new misfits of our old society!
Rujumba, at the NRM sycophants swapping roles overnight with the good UPC aristocrats and assuming the dreaded title of ‘failures’ in our huge and observant society not only reveals how tired, rotten, inefficient and corrupt the No Resistance Movement has become, but also tells tales of the victorious conquests of the jaws of time, that all-powerful vampire!
KYOMUHENDO- ATEENYI
