Who wants a country chosen by God in our times?

What you need to know:

Many people living in functioning democracies and watching Uganda probably wonder how celebrating independence gets to be so centred around one figure, and how the fate of a 54-year-old (as an independent) nation remains so dependent on the desires of one man.

Virtually all the congratulatory messages that appeared in our newspapers on the 54th Independence anniversary, October 9, had a common feature; a picture of President Museveni smiling.
Mr Museveni was, therefore, perceived as the chief winner of freedom (from colonial control) at the present time in Uganda.
He was the citizen best placed to do anything and any way he wanted. He was the citizen who could cross the boundary between liberty and impunity without any State institution confronting him.
Indeed, all the State institutions would fall over each other in a scramble to show that it was the laws or various operators of the State that lagged behind President Museveni’s wisdom. It was them that had to catch up.

The smile in all those newspaper pictures could be saying that everything is fine; that I, Museveni, President of the Republic, am a happy man.
However, the smile could also be mockingly saying:
Do you see all those fellows out there? Thirty-five million Ugandans. They are not idiots; at least not all of them, but very soon I will have ruled them for 35 years, and none of them can quite figure out how to get where I got. Staying in this chair, to which I cling like an octopus with a hundred arms, has a kind of magic that inspires me. My very tenacity generates the energy by which I resist all those who scheme to cut my grip. I am very nearly invincible.

Many people living in functioning democracies and watching Uganda probably wonder how celebrating independence gets to be so centred around one figure, and how the fate of a 54-year-old (as an independent) nation remains so dependent on the desires of one man.
But does this central presence mark a ruler who is delivering national and regional stability, as well as socio-economic goods per president-hour with more success than 30 years ago?
Rather like some infections whose presence you establish by detecting the antibodies deployed against them, Uganda’s failing health as a State under President Museveni can be indicated by the weapons deployed to counter the fall.

All those heavy guns and savage security personnel seen everywhere are not necessarily symbols of deep assured stability, but a menace to ward off potential and imminent unrest.
There are also less obvious weapons being deployed. On the diplomatic level, silence can be a defensive weapon where the moral authority to speak has been eroded.
Uganda’s still unpunished sins in the DR Congo and that octopus syndrome at home have left Mr Museveni with silence as the least embarrassing option as the DR Congo threatens to disintegrate because of Joseph Kabila’s scheme to cling to power.
Burundi, too, invites from Mr Museveni mostly silence.
The two Sudans also present a three-big-headed dilemma in the face of which Mr Museveni’s best weapon now may be a stoic silence.

Charm and money can also be weapons; hence the expression, charm offensive.
The rather undignified and generally ineffective presidential cash handouts to dubious marginalised and disgruntled groups are attempts to counter the effects of failed economic policies, administrative incompetence and unbridled corruption.
With such a diseased country, I was astonished to hear about one White/Jewish(?) lady who had proclaimed (at a prayer breakfast Museveni attended) that Uganda was God’s second chosen country; second after Israel!
And, yes – you have guessed right – our religious opportunists are already jumping onto the idea to milk their congregations and possibly the taxpayer.

In any case, if warped heads can be corrected, a God who discriminates between nations – whether He chooses Israel, Uganda, ISIS or acts-of-God-pounded Haiti – cannot be a God of love working among the world’s diverse peoples in the 21 Century. His prophets are neo-pagan purveyors of inequality, envy, conflict and hatred.
Chosen? No, please! As the ‘Pearl of Africa’, we were cursed already.
President Museveni sometimes appears so desperate for short-term support that he will buy crap from any quarter that flatters him or his country. But after 54 years of our (or his) independence, I hope he does not buy this rubbish.

Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.