Of Joseph Serwadda’s prayers and Uganda’s political demons

Last Sunday, I endorsed Mr Joseph Serwadda’s repeated call that we sacrifice three working days for mass national prayers.
Guess what; immediately he read my article, he fled.
Unfortunately, instead of hiding, he ran into an open pagan camp in the full glare of Impact FM/Dream TV, exactly the camp where I catch so many other Ugandan Pentecostal preachers in their Jesus-coated camouflages.
At his June 17 Sunday morning talk-show, Mr Serwadda said I should not waste time on his proposal, because it would not happen.

His followers must be disappointed.
Actually, we both agree that the three days will probably never be granted, but our explanations are completely different.
I think it won’t happen, because Uganda’s decision-makers are not completely irrational. An occasional breakfast prayer is enough disruption of normal work.

For his part, Mr Serwadda argued that the three days would not be granted because Uganda is under a curse; that most of our political leaders (below the President and the Prime Minister!) believe in witchcraft.
Serwadda referred to a witchdoctor who challenged any of the elected Mukono area politicians to deny that they had consulted him, and to a former vice president who had scandalously visited a traditional shrine.
But where is the logic?
If Elijah and the fire of the gods is an instructive legend, then Uganda’s pagan gods did not help the former vice president. So their prophets should be rejected or even executed, if we were as murderous as Elijah.
However, the same pagan gods apparently proved themselves in the case of Mukono’s politicians.
So, should we reject (or even execute) the prophets of the Christian God in Mukono?

What if all G/gods are myths?
Elijah was a very cunning fellow. He lured Baal’s prophets into a contest he himself had designed. Then he arranged that they try their antics in broad daylight (morning and afternoon), while he started his proceedings at the ‘hour of the evening sacrifice’ and therefore completed his ‘miracle’ in the dark. Moreover, with the spectators probably exhausted.
Any conjuror, witchdoctor, Pentecostal miracle worker or other con-artist would choose Elijah’s advantages.

From enlightened experience, Africa’s gods and spirits can be rejected, not because they are evil, but because they are ineffective.
Some were supposedly beneficent, or good. To Christians, worshipping them is evil, not because they are ineffective, but because their God is a jealous deity, intolerant of rivals.
Mr Serwadda and his ilk restore the pagan gods and demons to their (supposed) full power so that the preachers have enemies in the spirit world to fight, justifying their enterprise.

For almost 30 minutes, Mr Serwadda swung and kicked incoherently at every shadow in pagan camp: Uganda was full of demons … Even corruption was because of a demon… Political power, including in advanced Western countries, was controlled by dark forces of the occult …The freemasons… Illuminati … Even the Lions club and Rotary Club... There was demon worship everywhere…
Wow! The extravagant imagination resembled our red tabloids, making the freakish fringe look mainstream.

I can confidently call Mr Serwadda’s bluff. If demons exist, and the Victory Church apostle and his ‘anointed’ colleagues can indeed expel demons, whether instantly or over three days, and they are honest people with courage, then they know that the most troublesome demon is the demon President Museveni identified 32 years ago, a nomadic demon that haunts one African state house after another, gluing their tenants to their seats. This is the mother of Uganda’s current demons. Exorcise it.