By Sam Evidence Orikunda
In my neighborhood in the village of Kanyankwanzi, there’s an old man called Murera, light skinned and with a wrinkled face, Murera is always smart with his head always covered with a round black hat. You wouldn’t fail to meet Mzee Murera in one of the short cuts from school. Perhaps he would be coming from feeding his cows or giving them water (Okweshera) His healthy looking cattle always took most of his time and all the cows were healthy looking. With his house set up near my home Murera had two wives and a number of children.
During my primary when going home while tired after walking long distance and sometimes on an empty stomach we used to fear passing by him especially when we would sight where he is from far because of being so inquisitive. Murera would ask you where you’re coming from, what you’re going to do, who has sent you, who are your parents, what you have studied, what you ate for supper and a number of Questions so we felt uneasy with him.
Coming from one of the smallest clan in our area The Abungura which we believed that most people from that clan cause misfortunes we avoided him so much. In fact a morning started by meeting Mzee Murera was seen as something that has given you a bad omen for the whole day.
This is different from the famous Munini K Mulela I met on the media and whom I always read about and has been a long time member of the Forum for Democratic Change which he has resigned from today after sighting a number of issues which he has narrated today in his resignation but yet a friendly letter to the a one Tingasiga.
A number of other learned members of the FDC are about to leave the party after a number of issues that have exposed the party leaders especially the founder Dr Kiiza Besigye.
In the last Presidential election Besigye and his team surprisingly campaigned for Mugisha Muntu’s opponent whom they said was better than General Mugisha Muntu but most political analyst saw this a trick to have Besigye get back the direction of FDC under the shadow of Patrick Amuriat Oboi. Now with the honourable Kyagulanyi coming up and taking up the attention of the youth who are very many and who also take most parts during campaigns and voting, FDC seems to have completely lost the following that it had before, no wonder most of its candidates have lost recently and many are about to lose
Intellectuals, educated people who first think before making any political decisions cannot keep following the Forum for Democratic Change, because when you’re opposing FDC you must make sure that you’re different from it. Both your campaigns and way of changing leadership must be absolutely but when changing leadership in Parliament start being based on hatred and favours that one has with the people in the authority then you realize there’s something absolutely wrong.
Remember all this is happening after Mugisha Muntu being dropped and with party not having any structures on the ground. This means if FDC dies it will have died like a young man who has died without having a child and according to our culture a number of cultural norms are supposed to be performed or else the ghost will come back to demand a wife and might finish all of you left in the family.
In his resignation letter to the FDC letter Dr Muniini Murela writes
“I supported the dual strategy approach. Unfortunately, the inability to reconcile these differing strategies has created heightened infighting and a very toxic internal environment that has made it very difficult to find a common path towards our main purpose and objectives. With the two tendencies at war, and with no room for me in the “defiance only strategy”, I have hit a dead end in FDC.
After nine months of soul-searching and reviewing my long journey in Uganda’s struggle for genuine democracy, I find that the party and I are too far apart to repair the rift. I have, therefore, made a choice to resign from the Forum for Democratic Change. However, I remain as committed as ever to the greater struggle that is my obligation to pursue to the end of my days. It is a struggle that recognises that our agenda must not be to capture power for its sake. It has to be purposed on effecting a sustainable, transformative change of the political culture and a reset of the mindset in a country that has been corrupted to its core.”
The learned doctor will be followed by a number of people who can no longer identify them with the dying Political party.
Ends.
