How Museveni can ensure 100% Ugandans listen to his speeches
As it stands, President Museveni is the most brilliant person to have lived in Uganda. You might differ on the spectrum of the adjective but brilliant it remains on this page.
He says the proof that Ugandans are very rich is in the fact that we import a lot of curtains and carpets. And I say the proof that he is too brilliant for the average us is in the fact that he has manipulated everything to his advantage and managed to stay in power for as long as some of us can remember.
Ugandans born in 1981, when Museveni and his rag-tag rebels were scheming to attack Kabamba barracks, have exited the youth bracket. Those born in 1986, have given up on seeing another president of the republic before they exit the youth bracket. Anyway, there is nothing like youth, it all depends on what party colour you identify with. And if you can go to some priest in the village and produce a baptism register, your age can easily be revised.
However, you can’t be too brilliant by a half, as Museveni himself tried to dig in over the New Year when he directed UCC to direct all television and radio stations to broadcast his address live. Times have changed and Museveni keeps changing with it to survive.
But as he rings his brain for ideas, he needs to consult his ‘12,600 advisors’ (this has nothing to do with Franco Luambo Makiadi’s song) and if they all can’t give any better idea than that of ordering UCC to direct media houses to broadcast, here are pro bono ideas. We even offer to add playing cards lessons as extras to go with the advice.
The NRM is getting into some giddy political times of selling their immortal leader to the people. These are not times when writing column inches in the daily will convince the peasants to sit through two hours of the old man speaking in every local dialect on the land.
Instead, there is need to set up a brigade of youngsters who will take over the publicity stunts. There was this time Museveni’s publicist tweeted a picture of some great road network picked from the Internet and boldly asserted it was in Uganda. It raised dust in his face.
But the new Yes-Yes Brigade (YYB) will not see any dust. The YYB will be so good that if they say Museveni has dreadlocks, the wanainchi will believe it. They just say River Nile is in Mbarara and the nation believes.
It might take time to make this work, but not so long. A year or so is enough. When the fruits are ripe, Museveni won’t need Mutabazi—even if the two are ‘Mu-Mu’—to direct the media houses. Instead, the YYB youth would cover the ground and tell every breathing thing that if they tune in to watch or listen, packets of salt, matchboxes and sugar will drop from their sets.
Now again, this sounds like some madness, but what is impossible to Gen Museveni? He said the oil in Uganda is his and you must have seen or heard NRM guys defend this as being correct, so what can’t he do? The other day, some walking poverty of beings hit High Court with placards denouncing the case against Speaker Rebecca Kadaga.
Do you think such people won’t believe salt can jump out of their TVs? Now imagine convincing one from each village to pass on the gospel…
Meanwhile, make no mistake and take no chances. The YYB will also be in charge of distributing public address systems and projectors for screening of the Dear Leader’s speeches to mass audiences. Every Gombolola will have a projector. Buses will be sent to pick wanainchi and assemble them to the ground.
Those who don’t want to board the buses will be reminded that such tendencies amount to criminality that would lead us to more complicated paths.
And nobody sleeps into his speech. Everyone must stay awake and if the eyelid is too heavy, plug them open with toothpicks. Magyezi has a lot of work today and Kadaga has enough bicycles to distribute every after a Bill has been passed. Like one that criminalises ignoring Museveni’s speech or sleeping when he is speaking unless you are a minister.
We said no taking chances and the YYB would mean every word. They would even supply hospitals with radios and TVs. Just to ensure that some Aine isn’t faking death in the mortuary and then emerge besides Gen Saleh at a presser long after Museveni’s speech, mortuaries will also be supplied with public address systems with serious warnings that corpses that refuse to listen would be denied formalin so they can rot away.
This is the true meaning of Kisanja Hakuna Mchezo (there is no play/joke in life presidency).
