P.L.O Lumumba, the Kenyan Professor once said “Africans are led by their stomachs not their heads (brains), fear is a function of lack of knowledge. To dispel fear you need to reduce your ignorance”. Who does not know that taxation without accountability is tyranny?
It is good that the president has deployed and re-deployed his district representatives (Resident District Commissioners) who may this time act as his doves as in Genesis 8:11 as at the time of Noah, for the peoples’ representatives (Members of Parliament) have either been fearful, dishonest, unreliable to openly brief the president and or government as a whole what the true feelings of their voters on the ground are and that is why government herself is endearing the “peoples’ power” storm whose advocates/front runners as simply taking advantage of. Those who are spearheading this movement have been availed with significant power dynamics cost free by parliament, executive and to some extent the judiciary which is playing in their (opposition) favor.
Haven’t our spy networks attempted to collaborate this current storm to our own background of 1980-81? The youth of that time supported then candidate Y.K Museveni and Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) in the general elections of 1980 as bait because they had foreknowledge that the population and international community just like today could not co-operate with the then on-coming Obote II government. They equally knew UPM would perform miserably in the same elections because they had been de-campaigned as thugs and bandits but in the minds of UPM supporters there was a Luweero Triangle or any other location in Buganda region that would be the most salient option not for ballot boxes but bullet boxes. The post-election environment provided the urge that then candidate (Museveni) could initially do what was necessary, then do what was possible and soon thereafter did the impossible as stated by England’s Queen Victoria to her troops “ we are not interested in possibilities of defeat because they do not exist”. Dr.
Milton Obote and eventually his General Tito Okello Lutwa’s fully budget facilitated military out-fit was outwitted and toppled by a rag-tag National Resistance Army (NRA) led by Museveni on 26th January 1986.
For us who are watchful and observant, there is a sharp, similar political arousal in the usually passive Buganda area (majority with a minority mentality) which arousal was heightened by Ssabasajja the Kabaka of Buganda, Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II’s statement to his subjects at his jubilee (25th enthronement anniversary), supported by celebrity factor of musician Bobi Wine and also Ugandans must recall that this people power campaign was sparked off by the mobile money tax that was voted and passed by parliament. There is also youth unemployment and the rampant poverty factor.
Lastly, there is a general moral dilemma among some of the leaders (messengers of the people) who have failed to do their duty of giving feedbacks as it was mentioned earlier concerning the dove that brought back the message of end of the flood of Noah’s age.
Nabendeh Wamoto S.P (0776-658433)
Email: simonwamoto@yahoo.co.uk