Age limit: How many are willing to die with Kadaga?

In his song, Two Hearts, Phil Collins sang that “if you don’t have faith in what you believe in, it’s getting you nowhere.”
I recall many years ago in our Christian Religious Education class, Mr Evan teaching us the difference between faith and belief.

He gave an example of a stunt man who used to walk on a tight rope across a section of the famous dangerous Niagara Falls, on the border between USA and Canada.
One day, a spectator who was so impressed approached the stunt man and told him that he (spectator) believed that the stunt man could raise his game by pushing a wheelbarrow as he walked the rope.
The stunt man said he was willing to do so only if the spectator would sit in the wheelbarrow.

The spectator was having none of it. He feared that he could easily lose his life if the wheelbarrow fell in the water. He just didn’t have faith in the dexterity of the stunt man to trust him with his life!
Uganda is seemingly at a boiling point. Many people are apprehensive with the attempt to amend the Constitution to remove the age limit of 75 years for one to stand as president.
The Baganda from whom I originate, say, “Kyewayagaliza embazzi, kibuyaga assudde”.) You wish to fell a tree with a rigid trunk, then from nowhere the wind blows it to the ground.
Many thought that Article 102(b) was the gale that would finally fell the tree.

Now many are disappointed that the tree is likely to remain standing, (no pun intended) seeing that the journey to amend the Constitution has begun in earnest.
If you thought that President Museveni is not interested in standing for presidency in 2021, the show of force in Parliament last week should disabuse you of that notion. And when Museveni is on the ballot, he will be announced winner irrespective of what happens in the ‘election.’
Thus many frustrated people are venting their anger.

They say the Speaker, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, should never have allowed the motion for an MP to take leave and prepare the Bill to lift the age limit. They offer that she should have resigned ‘to protect her legacy’ rather than soil her name as an accomplice in this act.
The question of belief and faith comes up here.

If Kadaga left her job or angered the NRM to the extent that they pushed her out with a motion of censure (like a fly on the wall claims was in the offing if she had not been compliant), how many would physically stand with her?
How many of us opposed to amending Article 102(b) are willing to leave or risk our jobs in government, the NGO, corporate, business world, etc, and join Kadaga when she stands up to Museveni ‘for the sake of saving Uganda?’
How many of us are willing to risk our lives, the wellbeing of our families and our investments to be part of a legacy for a better Uganda?
Museveni has drawn the line.

He will not leave power because of ‘heavy bombardment’ on social media (the preferred alternative of the middle class.) Neither, like he has put it on record, is he going to accept the result of an election which does not go his way.
He won’t go ‘merely’ because of a constitutional provision yet he has the numbers to amend it.

He will stay, violently staking his claim with the help of what he calls his army.
The game of politics is about numbers. Kadaga, Kizza Besigye, Norbert Mao, Robert Kyagulanyi (Bobi Wine) are individuals, who like William Shakespeare’s Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, have one life. They have families that hold them dearly. They eat, sleep, hunger, feel pain and can die.
Now if you think the solution is politicians standing up against Museveni’s dictatorial tendencies, it will get you nowhere if you are seated at your desk behind the computer because you fear for your life and that of your family.
From 1981, Museveni, who was not born with ‘numbers’, was empowered by people like Besigye and Mugisha Muntu. He mobilised them to take a risk and leave their jobs and families to fight a sitting government. Museveni did not sit and urge politicians to work for their legacies by fighting for the country.
From then on, the big numbers in Parliament of the ruling UPC were inconsequential.

Numbers energise leaders and threaten dictators.
If only 100,000 people who believe that leaders like Kadaga should stand up to Museveni, peacefully marched on Parliament in solidarity, Article 102(b) would probably not be amended.
If you believe leaders should rise up, be faithful to the cause by leaving your comfort zone and joining them. Anything less than that will remain empty noise that like Phil Collins said, will get you nowhere.

Nicholas Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues. [email protected]
Twitter:@nsengoba