NRM power: A contract between mutual sinners

Perhaps because President Museveni has been busy, composing and editing the silences in his conversation with Rwanda’s Gen Paul Kagame, then going places to see other big men in the region, plus enjoying a ride on a modern train in Kenya, before returning to inspect his barracks; because of these distractions, the bad and the ugly in his regime have been showing off their worst habits.

Indeed, you could think the President’s silence was partly on purpose, to put you at your level. When you watch these citizens who are designated as your leaders dancing freely in their excesses, you slowly internalise how despised you are, unless you are complete idiots.
Of course we may be idiots; because, as the President keeps reminding us, we elected many of these primates; he just shoved them a bit higher. And the unelected are generally approved by an elected Parliament. So, he despises citizens who already despise themselves.
Just think. Can this Kayunga lady who has been yapping in the trail of Ronald Ssebulime’s blood see any Ugandan who deserves respect except the President?

Think again. Hearing his emboldened voice, do you think this glorious Bush War hero who reportedly slapped a policewoman understands how obscene it is to slap a woman in our times, especially in a public place?
Impunity and a cynical sense of entitlement have become ‘correct’ ideological elements under NRM rule. Shut your nose, if you want; but, for the NRM, moral shabbiness has worked. It has removed quality of performance as a reference for determining who will keep or lose a political position.

Hosted by Top Radio last weekend, a government minister, Ms Persis Namuganza, told a few stories from Kyankwanzi, where the NRM Members of Parliament had met.
Before President Museveni arrived, the participants had ‘debated’ and endorsed the earlier party executive committee resolution to present Mr Museveni as the 2021 NRM presidential candidate without a contest in the primaries.
Now, almost in jest, a participant wondered: What if the President arrived and rejected the decision, preferring an open contest to prove his popularity?
Laughter!
Namuganza wants us to believe that Mr Museveni is distanced from any ugly machinations designed to keep him in power; that he thrives on the devotion of the party members.

Okay, let us buy it. Thanks to Namuganza, we can now firmly say that Mr Museveni has grown into the intuitive essence of the NRM.
All debates are superfluous; they are mere formalities. Except for a handful of ‘rebels’ (who were indeed kept out of Kyankwanzi), NRM party members at all levels ‘intuitively’ acknowledge Mr Museveni as the only possible soul of their party. And Mr Museveni cannot question their intuition!
In the second part of Namuganza’s narrative, after Mr Museveni accepted the role, he begged the members (who of course included ministers) to serve the people. He wondered why they did not serve (or consider) the people.
But if they had not served the people well, then he, as chief, had failed the people.

Yet these leaders had (unreservedly) endorsed him.
Being an honourable man, he reciprocates by fully endorsing them (or their ways) as a team.
Just as their debate on his sole candidature was superfluous, his complaint about their lack of commitment to the people was lip service.
A perfect match: He is the only ruler they can trust to remain indifferent to their transgressions. They are the only team he can depend on to endorse him regardless of the decay of his rule.