Stop the ridicule, try to understand Mao

A typical Ugandan will say “you have jealousy on me.” That Uglish can be as annoying as watching Nabbanja’s antics, but for once I embrace it. Forgive the fact that I’ve decided to use it while discussing one of the finest orators this country regrets having.

Mao was his name. And Mao is also what is left of that orator. There was the Mao in the past. And there is this one in the present. The latter, those “jealousy of Mao” say, recently joined the UPDF in DR Congo jungles on a tour of sorts.

While there, a Congolese man who saw him spending too much time on his smartphone while sat in one place whispered to him, “Zela zela mokomboso azanga mokila.”

Mao did not understand what the man was saying since he spoke in Lingala. Days later he returned to Kampala and that is when those “jealousy of Mao” went irate.

It all started with the self-confessed Tweeting General waxing lyrical about Mao and as you know, the chaps in NUP and FDC only want their corners to be praised. They got red with envy where naturally one is supposed to get green.

They started showing their “jealousy on Mao” and attacked him left, right and centre.

It was only after one said Mao had lost his political zeal that the son of Gulu recalled the Congolese words. He asked around if there were some Lingala speakers who could interpret what the Congolese had said and a one Ibra Asu Bisiika was summoned.

“Zela zela mokomboso azanga mokila,” Ibra Asu Bisiika translated, was just a wise saying that “because of waiting for too long, the gorilla lost its tail.”

And this is the thing with politics, especially when the Mathematician applying it is a Tweeting General whose one-plus-one is not necessarily equal to two but can be 11 – when the mathematical figures are Mao’s conscience.

So the problem is the Congolese. How do you tell a man that he is a gorilla who has waited for so long sitting on its tail until he lost it?

As the FDC and NUP guys who are “jealousy of Mao” continued to rain insults on him, translator Ibra Asu Bisiika consoled Mao.

“Mwana bitinda akufaka nzala te,” he said and gave the English interpretation thus: “An obedient child will never starve.”

Yes, the obedient child will be asked what colours the blue and red walls are and he will say both a yellow. But they are blue and red, the Tweeting General will say. And the obedient child will reply, “No, Mwenda and Nkuntu told me those are yellow in disguise.”

Like Mao himself told those “jealousy of him,” this is how the meal card is secured.

What we need is to try and understand Mao and stop being “jealousy of him.” The Constitution might give NUP and

FDC vagabonds the right to call Mao names, but it also gives Mao the right to belong, and especially to eat.

Those “jealousy of Mao” ought to understand that in Africa, it can be fatal to respond to a voice at the cemetery. You have to be certain who is speaking before you respond otherwise you can become a holding chamber for spirits.

And, in a country riddled with political cemeteries it pays to put aside “jealousy on Mao” unless your own guardian spirits are strong enough to contain all sorts of reveries.

Only mourners raise their voices at a cemetery. Especially political cemetery.