The high handedness with which the state has handled Kyadondo East MP, Hon. Robert S. Kyagulanyi and Mityana Municipality MP, Francis Zaake moved Uganda to a new level of tyranny.
MP. Zaake is hooked up on life support, in a medical vegetative state (Editor: President Museveni in a statement on Sunday said Zaake had escaped from hospital and is being searched for by police). Only the grace of his Makers save Zaake’s life!
Museveni needs to be reminded that Uganda has matured through many decades of state violence and rough tides. In the heart of each and every Uganda there is a craving for peace and good governance. This is primarily why Ugandans have not picked up arms to fight against Museveni’s autocracy. People have respected Dr. Besigye for not opting for the armed insurrection despite provocation from a rogue state.
There was a time when politics in Uganda was known to be a very dirty game. Many people rightfully feared to indulge in politics because it was the fastest route to dying, being killed.
These conditions should have gone with the many bloody contestations for good governance. Instead, we are now back to the dirt where one is tortured and killed for participating in an election.
National stability is not defined solely in the interest of Mr. Museveni. The agenda of annihilating Ugandans considered a threat to their stale ideology is a sign that violence, rather than conviction, has become the ideology.
Certainly, this tyranny is not a profitable manner for a progressive society to harness its intellectual wealth. In a country of nearly 40 million, you cannot have one singular dominant thinker such that 39,999,999 people who feed and protect that one person are treated as infinite fools.
When we return our politics to the regressive era of 1970s, we end up with more desire for violence. Violence begets violence.
This is why Museveni should handle Hon. Kyagulanyi and his colleagues very carefully because the youthful population, which is the majority in Uganda has a propensity for violence. The reaction from this section of the population that the youthful Hon. Kyagulanyi commands may be more than what the nation is ready to handle.
In 32 years, the dictatorship has suppressed two generations of Ugandans and subverted their indulgence in seeking for fair governance through rigged elections.
There was the generation that became of age by 1986 when Museveni took over power. That generation was dispensed as post 1970s hangover and Oboteists. They paid the price for the ills of the 70s and early 80s through retrenchment, HIV/AIDS and Siasa/hate politics. Now in their 60s and 70s, this generation looks back hopelessly at their predicaments.
Then emerged our generation of the 90s and 2000s, bred and groomed within the NRM dominance, violence, genocide, corruption, nepotism and more hate politics. We were sidelined by bush-war historicals, their children and grandchildren.
The generation of Hon. Kyagulanyi, that Museveni cynically calls his grandchildren, is the embodiment of the failures of NRM ideology. If chronic repression deforms a society, then the Bobi Wine generation is the socially deformed generation. This group is not very trusting, and rightfully so. They are industriousness, consummate consumers, and innovative. This is the social media generation who understand WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Mobile money. They are idea oriented, largely unemployed but very tenacious, vicious.
It is this latter group that are restless for accountability from Museveni. Museveni should not think that he can hide behind armed guards, armoured vehicles, torture or killing to avoid that moment of accountability. Each time Ugandans go to an election, they go there with one thing in mind – accountability.
Museveni has reacted very angrily at Hon. Kyagulanyi for leading a troop of disenchanted citizens to defeat NRM in Arua polls. By harming Kyagulanyi and torturing Hon. Zaake to near death, Museveni is returning the politics of Uganda to the dirt we emerged from.
