Mr Mbabazi, even cold tea is still tea but you…
Dear Amama Mbabazi,
I went to bed the other day and had a strange dream. In the dream, you, a man I have never met in real life, were my buddy. Then the call of nature hit and you urged me to become an MPee. I did.
As I hit a jet that left enough vapour to leave the gush from Owen Falls Dam of 1962 in shame, you urged me to hurry and finish up.
And then I woke up. The bed was wet. You were not there, my wife was. Do you know how embarrassing that was? I mean, how the heck do you, of all people, creep into my dream like some Stephen King character and cause me such embarrassment? I have thought about this for three straight days. My wife was understanding, but I’m not about to let this just pass. You have to pay.
I’m going to call you out to do what you have been avoiding for long: take responsibility. And by responsibility, the nation doesn’t mean you should run to court to legalise someone’s contested election victory after you only managed to do better than Olara Otunnu by voting for yourself, which the former UPC chief failed to do.
Mr Mbabazi, the country is going through a very painful period. Real men and women are doing their all to define the future of this country using the Constitution. I find it very disturbing that you have to sit on your head and suck your thumb pretending you are not aware of what is going on. Mark you, they say he who is wet doesn’t fear the rain. You are politically wet, Mbabazi. Hiding won’t dry your suave suede. At this rate, Anite might claim you were one of those who were reminded of cowering under their beds when the revolutionaries were parceling their dreams using bullets in the jungle. Oh, she won’t be that far from the truth going by the way you only want to make me wet my bed while avoiding the rain despite being drenched to your brows.
They say even the hottest tea can go cold, but it is also a fact that cold tea will still taste as good once heated again. But you, Mr Mbabazi, you just went cold and stale and now you are being upstaged by even Anite. I’m sure you watched the news as the thing from Koboko was carried on a litter like a noble from the Joseon era Korea. She was thumbing it so hard one would think she wasn’t only instrumental in the drafting of the 1995 Constitution, but also one of the historical figures who signed the Independence paperwork alongside the Queen of England.
Mr Mbabazi, looking at Anite, don’t you feel your pride pricked like a man and say “this isn’t how the country should be going”? Even if you don’t, just know no one has ever belched from sucking their thumb. You helped create this mess we are in and your conscience is drenched, you must wear it on your lapel. That is called responsibility.
At this rate, Mr Mbabazi, we are tempted to take some drastic measures to at least get you out of that nonchalant usualness.
There was this time police stopped you from going to Mbale and held you under “preventive arrest”. That should have put you on the political activism pedestal, but nothing came of it. Maybe they served you cold tea that day and instead of getting up and playing the game, you chose to invade my dream instead.
It is such a blimey irony that as Anite goes about like her thumbs are on libido, you are sucking yours in unabashed bliss. Meanwhile, your erstwhile boss, the visionary son of Kaguta, has upped his game. He now walks with the agility of a hunter; a spring in his steps. He has to prove that he is far from the Uncle Bob of Zim fame who moonwalked on his knee.
Mr Mbabazi, had you still been relevant in that misruling party, you would have done what Anite, Abiriga, Magyezi and Lumumba combined have failed to do: advise the old man to abandon that jeep he uses to inspect guard-of-honour during military parade and revert to his youthful days when he did the inspection on foot.
What I am saying here is that only someone like you would have had the forethought to tell the old man that he is young enough to not just spring from his car to a seat or the bullet-proof rostrum, but also run the entire show on foot.
Put another way, Mr Mbabazi, if you can’t be useful to the Opposition—the 2016 election served this cold reminder—at least you should be useless to the misruling party in some way. Unless you became apolitical overnight, it is not enough for a man to be stale on either side of the political divide.
Now, for urging me to wet my bed, I’m inclined to remind you that people are doing all sorts of things to live. You see, even fish will struggle to live if picked from the fresh water and dumped into muddy bucket, that is why the Kyabazinga walks on subjects and Mbonye is licked—they want to live on for better or worse. But for you, you choose to only enforce my bed wetting and suck at your thumb…
You are the fish in a muddy bucket. Wiggle, Mr Mbabazi. Wiggle.
