Did NRM want lessons from Prof Nsibambi?

If the dead could turn before they were laid in their graves! Why, because we exploit pre-burial formalities as a festival to show off our hypocrisy.
Where the departed moved in elevated circumstances before they were removed from the register of the living, splendid processions solemnly carry the body from high place to high place, as if the coffin was a variant of the ancient tabernacle on the journey to the Promised Land.
In the case of the late Prof Apolo Nsibambi, the elaborate journey took a full week.

As a scholar and political thinker, he was not quite in the league of Ali Mazrui, a far more engaging mind. But after the departure of Mazrui and many others who had made Makerere a distinguished centre of vigorous intellectual activity, thanks to Idi Amin’s unpredictable conduct in the 1970s, Apolo Nsibambi et al, and, later, the likes of Mahmood Mamdani, came into the limelight.

Most of the departments at Makerere suffered from this brain drain. But the majority of academicians, especially in fields close to the natural sciences, do their work quietly, sharing their knowledge with their students and their peers, occasionally stretching themselves to grace the pages of specialist journals. The effect of the departures was, therefore, not immediately felt by the general public.

Scholars in the fields that deal with the history, politics, culture and social condition of nations share and exchange ideas with the ‘general’ public – the educated classes – more readily.
At Mazrui’s public lectures, not only would Makerere’s main hall be completely packed, but the windows too.
This, of course, is partly because most of their ideas can usually be couched in ordinary language.

When an academic like Mamdani strains to sound ‘technical’, as he often does, he is complicating and spoiling communication without necessarily improving the (scholarship) content.
A geneticist cracking DNA mysteries is less likely to find generally accessible language.
From that Amin-wounded Makerere background, hardly improved by the Obote II administration, Prof Nsibambi had a stint of chequered service in Buganda’s Mengo establishment that ended rather unceremoniously before joining President Museveni’s government.
His long exposure on Museveni’s political stage probably drew more public attention to Nsibambi than any of his earlier roles. And, at his parting, most of the praise-singing is related to his work under Museveni.

Did I say, work?
I should have referred to his work methods. His trademark punctuality, his general time consciousness and office work order; his faith in the value of institutions, or cooperative organisational effort; his avoidance of corruption; his modesty and cultured humility. As the chorus has been singing, he was a very decent man.
Farewell then. Thank you very much.

But did President Museveni and his ruling NRM learn anything from Nsibambi? Did they actually want to learn anything?
You would think that as Museveni’s longest-serving prime minister (12 years), Nsibambi would have left the NRM administration trying to build greater integrity, reflecting his principles, if those principles are as admirable as all the NRM leaders have been eulogising.
Instead, you have a regime whose institutions – like Parliament, Bank of Uganda, the Judiciary, or the police – have become definitions of shabby conduct, strategic inefficiency, programmed corruption and cynical arrogance.

The expression that government is controlled by Mafiosi-like figures no longer shocks anyone.
Nsibambi’s family and friends are right to celebrate his illustrious life. But it is pure hypocrisy for NRM leaders to glorify a person whose dedicated service to the regime was more or less in vain.

Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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