When marijuana and God share one country

What you need to know:

  • Talking ponderously, deliberately, as people who think very deeply about weighty things sometimes do, the ‘bishop’ had talked about President Museveni’s long stay in office.
  • He caressed, massaged, turned from side to side this great discovery that all Mr Museveni’s rivals had somehow become neutralised and fallen away.
  • Ordinary mortals had looked at the long history of political manipulation, big-time bribery and patronage, anti-Opposition legislation and militarised obstructions, lumpen kibooko squads, serial constitutional violations and election rigging, and they had began to fear that maybe – maybe – Uganda was in the hands of the Devil rather than God.
  • To the complex challenges of our psycho-socio-politico-economic existence, our preachers are providing solutions similar to effects of hard drugs.

Last Sunday, I wrote something about one ‘apostle’ and one ‘bishop’ who had been at a morning radio talk show on a Pentecostal mouthpiece, Impact FM, the previous Sunday.

Talking ponderously, deliberately, as people who think very deeply about weighty things sometimes do, the ‘bishop’ had talked about President Museveni’s long stay in office.
He caressed, massaged, turned from side to side this great discovery that all Mr Museveni’s rivals had somehow become neutralised and fallen away.

After the deepest reflection, through so many pauses, the ‘bishop’ declared that it was God who was working out this thing for President Museveni. And with total conviction, the ‘apostle’ had agreed.
Clearly, the two men understood what their God wanted. Who am I to dispute?

Ordinary mortals had looked at the long history of political manipulation, big-time bribery and patronage, anti-Opposition legislation and militarised obstructions, lumpen kibooko squads, serial constitutional violations and election rigging, and they had began to fear that maybe – maybe – Uganda was in the hands of the Devil rather than God.
Now they are assured that all these things are part of God’s scheme to keep Mr Museveni in power.

Presumably, there is no mischief in God’s scheme; like keeping Mr Museveni in power so that he may be humiliated like all our past presidents when being removed. Let a different God forbid; because that would be monstrously ungodly!
The men of God also talked about the ugly disunity among our Pentecostal preachers.

Now, if we must swallow God, we must not swallow Him by half. A God who is so dedicated and so thorough that He will not leave one stone unturned in His bid to keep one ruler in power; such a God would surely not fail when it comes to uniting Uganda’s Pentecostals under one leadership, if he so desired.

I am a prophet. And I have been charged to proclaim that as God is the wisest and the Lord of all things, He has withheld from the Pentecostals the gift of unity because of their transgressions.
The Pentecostals have committed the sin of arrogance, parading themselves as holier than all the other people of God.
Their preachers have also told lies and invoked the name of God in vain, masquerading with miraculous powers that they do not have.

They have built temples and turned them into dens of noise, personality cult worship and extortion. They have turned the World of God into a narcotic.
For these sins, the gift of unity, which is preceded by the gift of humility, has been withheld from them; so says the Lord.

Intriguingly, the talk show men cited a recent global survey that rated Uganda as one of the biggest victims of (narcotic) drug abuse. And, in passing, the ‘apostle’ divulged that (in his earlier years) he too had used drugs.
The surprising thing is that the men of God were puzzled how a nation that prayed so much was also home to such widespread drug abuse.

A behavioural interpretation would probably find the pattern completely consistent.
A country that drinks a lot of gin should not be surprised if it also drinks a lot of whisky.
To the complex challenges of our psycho-socio-politico-economic existence, our preachers are providing solutions similar to effects of hard drugs.

Eight or ten years ago, I wrote an article in this column; it was titled: “Go slow on God. Act fast on drugs”.
Did those who govern this country take heed? The chicken are coming home to roost.

Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.