According to my dictionary, and probably yours, Rhythm and Blues is a form of popular music of African American origin that arose during the 1940s from blues, with the addition of driving rhythms taken from jazz. It was an immediate precursor of rock and roll. Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s.
Rhythm and Blues summons your inner dancing feet while blues music taps into your sadness. That’s why “the blues” has become an expression of a smile turned upside down. In Uganda, we want the rhythm but not the blues. That is how the National Unity Platform (NUP) comes in. Okay, it didn’t come in.
I dragged it in. That’s because it is about time somebody said something. So I am going to say something that you may call nothing. Yet if I can disagree with you on it being nothing, isn’t that something? So why is it any different for NUP? Every party has what former vice president Paul Muwanga described as the 'uncoordinated movement of troops.’ The solution to stopping such movement is not by focusing on its uncoordinatedness, but by making sure such movement has no troops.
That is why the NUP boss recently issued a 30-day ultimatum to Mpuuga and NUP’s other 'rebel MPs’. He knows rebellion is contagious. When it grows, it is only its arms and teeth which show. It has no legs, head, torso or backside. It doesn’t need them when armed to the teeth. This is not exactly a teething problem for NUP. In our context, rebels often take power. Milton Obote rebelled against colonial rule and came out on top.
Then, Idi Amin rebelled against Obote by riding on the muzzle of the gun to State House. After that, a bunch of rebels, who sewed themselves into the fabric of Julius Nyerere’s coattails, brought new clothes for the emperorship as they rebelled against Amin. Then they fell out, and Mzee went to the bush as a Bazukulu. Yes, he was also once young. He is not like the 87-year-old American actor Morgan Freeman, who was born at the age he is now. It is after Tito and Bazilio Okello rebelled against Obote that rebel Mzee was able to become the Mzee we see today.
You can see, power is a product of rebellion. So Bobi should celebrate these rebels, they represent the path to power. The only problem is that their paths to power may all lead to Bobi’s office, like its real name is Rome. It is a problem because they will find Bobi in Bobi’s office. If you want to occupy it, you have to wait for Bobi to tire of being Bobi. This is a good thing, too. That’s because, by Bobi not being tired of being Bobi, his office is automatically ring-fenced. Those standing outside the fence are thereby forced to form a queue.
When Ugandans see a queue, they know that whatever is being queued up for must be a good thing. This works in Bobi’s favour as his office looks good enough to be eaten. We are attracted to what we can eat. So Bobi should keep appearing like food by allowing NUP’s rebels to line up when making a meal of what they presume to be all the mistakes he makes.
Do you see a queue outside Mpuuga’s office? Queues belong to the powerful. That is why KB was once accused of jumping the queue to the presidency. If Bobi can keep the rebels in a queue, they will inadvertently make NUP appear powerful. By extension, Bobi as the party’s principal, will look not only bulletproof but Mpuuga-proof too. Appearances are reality in politics. People always believe in what they see and not always what they are told. So Bobi should issue an ultimatum to non-rebel NUP MPs too. He needs as much dissent as he can find to populate the queue outside his office. So far, they are too few people standing in line for NUP leadership. He must change that by coordinating their dissent or watch their dissent grow wings in the shape of arms.
Disclaimer: This is a parody column
