Can Museveni copy Akii Bua?

Foot track racing too closely reminds me of cave hominids and wild animals pursuing each other in the open savannah. 

I find watching a skater gliding to etch 3-D figures of Ravel’s Bolero over an ice-sheet or clay specialists crisscrossing a tennis court more rewarding than blinking as brutes like Usain Bolt tear themselves from the track over nine seconds, their skill and sheer physical prowess notwithstanding. A marathon is more boredom.

However, there is a type of race that intrigues me; the hurdles. Thinking about it, doing the job properly requires a lot of brain-and-muscle co-ordination.

Even if you are an otherwise very fast runner, to be champion, the natural hesitation before each hurdle must be squeezed to hundredths of a second. In effect, hesitation must very nearly cease to exist. Timing and leap-flying over the hurdles must become virtually ‘instinctive’.

The number and height of the hurdles is the same for all the runners. The distance between the hurdles is also the same. But the height and natural strides of the competitors are different.

However, to adjust the number, height and distance between the hurdles in the lane of the reigning champion to suit his peculiarities would be the equivalent of changing goal-posts to suit an already otherwise advantaged team.

No truly great champion – a champion with a sense of honour – ever wants the hurdles adjusted to suit him (or her) to the disadvantage of the other competitors.

Uganda had such a dignified champion in the name of the late John Akii Bua. Long live his legacy.

What Uganda has never been blessed with since independence is a ruler who runs his races with the dignity of a true champion.

Pardon us, President Museveni, if we tend to put Milton Obote and Idi Amin aside, or perhaps (in the end) forgive them. 

We do not even mention Yusuf Lule, Godfrey Binaisa or any of the others who had brief stints at State House. 

Why; because Mr Museveni has steered the country for two-thirds of the entire journey. And they should have been the best years, since he had the advantage of a hind view of that famous ‘our dark history’.

He has been around for so long, which forces all of us to become Museveni watchers.

Unfortunately, the ruling National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) natural instincts are to tinker with the hurdles. They tinker to lighten their task, and to hamper or block the advance of their rivals.

There are even times when NRM goons suddenly throw in surprise hurdles for some of the runners in the middle of the race. 

Their legs get broken, and they do not look there. To look is to appear ‘weak’.

Following Amama Mbabazi’s 2016 entry into the presidential contest and a subsequent petition, the Supreme Court made strong recommendations to address the hurdles. NRM does not look there. To look is to appear ‘weak’.

Heading to 2026 and listening to the voices in Mr Museveni’s camp, it is extremely difficult to tell whether you are listening to a lawyer like Hajati Namyalo of ‘Kyambogo’ fame or a less gloriously learned Salim Uhuru with ‘pilau’ credentials.

This is a pathetic nation. President Museveni will learn nothing from Akii Bua. 

When the 2026 farce is over, and perhaps the 2031 farce, the race track may look so weird that it can only be understood by students of Haiti’s Papa Doc and Baby Doc’s dynasty; or of the science of inheritance in North Korea.

That is how a nation cuts off and eats its head without dying.

Mr Alan Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
[email protected]