By Dr. David Nyekorach- Matsanga
I have written this article to retaliate my position about the current happenings in Uganda where those who want to use violence to capture state power are increasingly becoming more dangerous than the same machinery that they claim oppressed them.
1. VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
I want to inform all Ugandans and the world that I will never support any form of violence or violent regime in Uganda or anywhere in Africa .violent regime change brings more violence and make matters worse.
2. The events in Uganda
The recent events in my country where I was born about 60 years bring out a tale of young generation wanting power at all costs. An attack on the institution of Presidency is an attack on Ugandans.
First a Presidential motorcade is property of the people of Uganda and anyone throwing stones at it violently is attacking the institution of Presidency which is a symbol of Presidency and honor for Ugandans.
3. Gale blowing
There is a gale blowing up opposition in Africa. The gale is so strong that it’s soon graduating into a violent typhoon that will sweep opposition off their feet into an irredeemable oblivion unless they wake up from their Jonah-like slumber and smell the coffee.
4. Opposition in Uganda
The main problem of opposition in Africa is the “software”, the thinking part of it. That is why they are always under this misguided notion that “they are good because the government is bad” and that they “should be voted in because the government should be voted out”.
5. Violent elements
Those wanting to use violence in Uganda are just people who have failed to know that wider dialogue saves the country. If one is a Member of Parliament chosen to represent people and instead goes to Parliament and starts a fight on the floor of Parliament, then where is sanity? Where is wisdom? Such a behavior is not the new era.
6. Very simplistic of reasoning
A very simplistic way of thinking that defies every basic strand of wisdom, generally agreed principles and even best practices elsewhere.
I know these opposition parties have politburo but the intelligentsia manning these critical think tanks are not properly headhunted and correctly engaged; far from it, they are just a bunch of friends and sycophants brought along to get along.
This has turned them into zombies and eunuchs incapable of producing any sensible illuminating thoughts.”
7. Rudderless opposition
From Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe into Zambia all the way to Gabon, the rudderless opposition is still groping in the dark, completely unable to pick real issues affecting the average commoner in history her daily undertakings in this cut-throat battle of the mind and soul.
8. Engaging Sisyphean errand
Instead of adjusting to fit the environment, they are engaged in a Sisyphean errand of seeking to adjust the environment to fit their antiquated thinking.
Like a typical organization stuck in a strategic inertia, the opposition falsely believes solutions to yesterday’s problems are same solutions to today’s problems: Completely unaware of the basic rule of the thumb in strategic management that today’s solutions could be tomorrow’s problems.
Hence the need to evolve quickly with the changing times by anticipating both systematic and unsystematic risks. Not violent routes like what Bob Wine and company want to bring to Uganda.
9. Curiously opposition has bad mindset
Curiously, the opposition mindset still stuck in early 90s’ when the overriding narrative was expanding democratic space vide (re)introduction of multipartyism, strengthening of trade unions and civil societies, civic education, expansion of democratic space, roads, building of more schools etc.
Then, the problems were institutional in nature and about capacity building. Not many had gone to school in Africa, and internet was alien unlike today when it’s a basic ritual for all and sundry.
In critically dissecting these chronic pestilences ailing the opposition in paternalistic contagious manner, it’s critical to examine the following;
10. Opposition Messaging in Africa
This is where opposition scores absolute zero. Recent election victories in USA, South America and many parts of Africa clearly show whereas the ruling parties are recording exponential growth in elective seats; the ground below the feet of opposition is shrinking alarmingly.
Unbeknown to opposition hacks still stuck in the regurgitated “rigging” narrative to justify their poor performance is that the citizenry is growing tired with the message of fear, doom and gloom always hawked by the opposition in town.
11. What Africa hopes for is better future
People want hope of a better future: Hope for a better funded re-engineered education system founded on the benefits of ICT, where a class 8 parent would not pay an extra coin in some collage to make his son/daughter computer literate.
Hope for more investors to rejig the dwindling jobs and interest free loans to access capital to spur business start-ups of what youths are passionate about.
Today’s youths are not so keen about formal employment; they believe in the power of their inventions, passion, and creativity and just want an enabling environment and support to nourish their skills and knowledge.
Hope for better medical facilities that will treat the new devastating diseases that threaten our national existence like cancer etc. Hope for a combating a inflation and the ever rising cost of living to enable youths save and acquire other material things of interest.
12. Look at Zambian opposition
Take the case of Zambia, where according to recent Global Hunger Index report is the third hungriest nation of earth; why would opposition invest all its energies packaging their message on the complex nuanced topic of corruption instead of going directly to explain how they will ameliorate the situation and rescue Zambians from the pangs of hunger and the vagaries of poverty?
If Hichilema Hikeinde, the five time presidential loser in Zambia still clings on the platitudinous narrative like a tick sticking on the skin of a dead cow, reality should hit him that the song long lost its tune; it’s now boring.
13. Uganda case of Besigye and Bob Wine
In Uganda, Besigye and Bob Wine both don’t agree on what message is to go out to people. They are caught in personal fights with President Museveni rather than waging a vicious fight against the afflictions of Ugandans.
This contest has gotten so personal and subjective that both opposition leaders are totally blind to every good work the President Museveni has done for Uganda. , Both can’t promise to improve on it by doing better but they say Museveni must go.
Lost to Besigye and Bob Wine is that when Museveni came in 1986, then Uganda was largely rural; today many tarmacked roads, malls, schools, shops have cropped up in every village. Towns have emerged; universities have increased and churning more graduates into the society.
14. Give credit where it is due
Whereas in the 80s there was only Makerere university, today Uganda boasts of more than 20 universities that have attracted many students from Africa, it has also become a shopping destination for many nations thereby creating jobs and keeping life the economy. Good opposition leaders should think of how to add value than saying they remove or uproot the entire NRM system. Impossible!!
15. South African opposition
South African main opposition is a colonial relic; apartheid sympathizers whose only segment audience is the far-right descendants of Dutch immigrants.
That’s why D.A has always missed the ball and kicks its leg in all elections. Any increase in their performance has always been related by scholars and academic researches into increase in the white population in South Africa.
Malema is even worse given that he does know that the world is a global place and talks of violent attacks on the whites and yet they have lived in South Africa before he was born.
16. Zimbabwe MDC Alliance
Zimbabwe’s MDC-T didn’t find any kind words from a political consultant, Alex Magaisa, a scholar whose findings painted the main opposition party as day “dreamers live on illusions” They lost an election and are busy calling for violent regime change.
Kenyan case juxtaposes to that of Uganda, where opposition message completely misses the train on the old theory of reforms.
17. Opposition double speak
This is another malignant tumor that has eaten the very soul of opposition greatly exposing their hypocrisy, duplicity, rascality and perfidy. Take their favorite topic of corruption: In Kenya whereas opposition wailers cries atop their voices of the very greed and avarice, they themselves are the worst crooks you could ever find anywhere.
The counties in Kenya managed by opposition are dens of unarmed robbers; you will never hear opposition cry about the vice or calling hawk-eyed anti-corruption sleuths to arrest the criminals on their tracks.
The wheel is reinvented, the rules rewritten: It is now a case of one man’s robber is another man’s saint. The definition of corruption is brutally diluted, twisted and re-calibrated to fit a narrative, a very subjective argument that has no basis in fact, law or logic.
18. Opposition funding from dark forces
Despite government and donor funding, membership contributions among others; opposition books of accounts have never been open for public scrutiny as they demand from the government in the spirit of openness and transparency.
Never has wisdom ever hit them to at least practice what they preach. In Zimbabwe, the late Morgan was even using MDC-T money to chase women allover Africa instead of using the available resources to fund parliamentary candidates and party activities.
19. Shouts about nepotism
Opposition shouts about nepotism, cronyism and tribalism. They even accuse the government of dotting every public office with people from the same tribe. Take a minute; look through the opposition ranks and nominations you will collapse. Actually, it gets to a point where party high organ meetings look like a family gets together.
20. Shouting about dictatorship
Catch them shouting about dictatorship, autocracy and bad governance then take a look at the parties and ask which rules guide their activities; do they have clear-cut programs, processes and outlined procedures of they are founded on adhoc ism, thuggery and fiats from party leaders.
21. No laws followed in opposition parties
There are no laws; it’s the jungle instincts which see their militia rough up candidates and members of the public with reckless abandon like the Nazi Cossacks that pushed Hitler’s agenda.
If German seminarian Martin Luther King was a member of opposition in Africa, he would today be hanging his 99 hard-hitting questions on the door of every opposition party from Johannesburg to Khartoum; from Dar-es-Salaam to Abuja.
22. Opposition must be a government in waiting
One thing opposition must appreciate is that they are a government in waiting and should constantly behave as such by showcasing admirable conducts, charming policies and sense of character. The institutional reforms they lung about should start with the party. Otherwise, too much lip service with no genuine renaissance only turns them into a bunch of clever crooks out to hoodwink the voter.
23. No ideology in opposition
Let them opposition in Uganda examine and Africa lack of a solid ideology, leaking culture of corporate governance, role of citizens , over reliance on the west and civil society and the false notion of tribal census mentality politic. The Uganda one is a tribal mentality where too much tribalism has dented our nation’s image.
24. Questions unanswered by many Ugandans?
Lastly violence by opposition in Uganda or Africa does not bring peace at all. It brings more confusion to Uganda. If Bob Wine claims to be fighting for freedom for Ugandans violently what makes him a better person to lead Uganda and what makes him different from those he claims have mistreated him?
Dr. David Matsanga
Political Consultant/Lobbyist
Pan African Forum Ltd.
27.08.2018 Monday London
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