As Museveni pets the ‘Mafia’, Bobi Wine gathers the ‘aliens’
Although he thoroughly despises State House officials and delights in not reporting there for work, Tamale Mirundi is President Museveni’s advisor on the media. So, he probably knows more about the goings-on in the corridors of power than people like Catherine Kusasira, Buchaman or Full Figure.
Mirundi swears that he will never work in the current government because it is rotten (being a paid presidential advisor notwithstanding), but he vows to support Museveni’s hold onto power for at least another 10 years; a puzzling position.
Is there something very ugly or repulsive about Museveni as Uganda’s chief executive officer, and something gloriously beautiful or irresistible about his holding power?
I sometimes tune into Mirundi’s Wednesday morning talk-show on Impact FM, “Mirundi mulalu oba mulamu?” Translated: “Is Mirundi mad or sane?”
As Mirundi rants and rattles before his adoring host, Gyagenda Ssemakula, it may be hard to shed the suspicion raised by the name of the show. But the enduring listener can still learn a thing or two, especially about the endemic corruption draining the republic.
If Mirundi says this week that President Museveni has dismantled and finished Uganda’s ‘mafia’, you can be almost certain he will come back the following week to report another multi-billion mafia scheme, and Museveni still helpless.
All the allusions suggest the gangsters are somehow connected to Mr Museveni. The cycle of their defeat and recovery, which must have been repeated hundreds of times, is a type of theatre.
The President reportedly often interacts with them, spitting all the fury a president can spit. They even discuss and agree the terms on which they would be defeated, and how they plan to become better men. But they never go away.
They never get arrested. Their horrendous crimes never qualify to go to the courts. Mirundi, a friend, a supporter, and an employee/advisor of Museveni, is the lone heroic figure openly at war with them!
Other propagandists argue that insiders of the regime are thieves because they come from a population of thieves. But even a soft-headed public finally wakes up and marvels at how long it had been taken for a ride.
Governments are supposed to rise above any criminality or lawlessness that individuals in society may want to enjoy. That is why governments run police departments, courts and prisons, while mob justice is forbidden. A government must show the will, courage and competence to confront serious crime.
In his early days, Museveni rightly noted that the socio-economic challenges of a peasant in any part of Uganda were the same. Ethno-tribal identity was largely irrelevant. All right; but 35 years of corruption have created a multi-ethnic, non-tribal criminal upper economic class that seeks to perpetuate its privilege, making Uganda’s glaring inequality more frightening.
Enter Bobi Wine. He taps into the hearts of those who are left behind or are completely excluded; the multi-ethnic, non-tribal entity called ‘aliens’.
Covid-19 masks are hiding the faces of ‘Team Museveni’, so we cannot see their terror as the Bobi Wine machine picks more support.
But if the ‘aliens’ follow Bobi Wine on the campaign trail in spite of the threat from Covid-19 and tear-gas, it is because Mr Museveni refused to accept when his time was up, and now refuses to see why even some of his loudest supporters are finding his administration untenable.
They support him, not because his performance is satisfactory, but because he has power. The invoices for marketing such a candidate can be high, making the ‘aliens’ even poorer!
Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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