Bobi Wine, Museveni, King Solomon and the story of women fighting over a child 

The legendary King Solomon of Israel firmly entrenched himself in history for three really powerful W’s: women, wealth and wisdom – maybe not necessarily in that order. In terms of women, the son of David had 1,000 official women; comprising 700 wives and 300 concubines.

History has never told how King Solomon managed to balance his marital obligations to 1,000 women in a year that has only 365 days, because that would mean ministering to three women a day, which even in those days was quite something! Maybe that’s why it should be scant wonder that Solomon died at just about 60. Pretty early, no?
In terms of wealth, King Solomon ushered Israel into the golden age. Literally. First, because there was no war throughout the 40 years he reigned. 

While his father David spent his 40 years in power making war and stabilising the young kingdom, Solomon spent his 40 years making love. Second, it was a golden age because there was so much gold in Israel that silver could only be found on the rubbish heap.

But the greatest legacy of Solomon, the writer of Proverbs and Song of Solomon, is perhaps his wisdom. 

And his greatest case is that of two women embroiled in a fierce, passionate maternity dispute over two children: “the dead child is hers, the living one is mine.” The King paused a short while, then called for a sword. 

He then announced that, for fairness, he was going to slice the living child into two, so each woman could take half. One woman was enthralled and happily accepted to have the child divided between them.

 The other was horrified and, weeping, begged the king to let her opponent take the child, alive. The king stayed the sword, leant back, sipped a glass of red wine, licked his lips gratefully and, after a few minutes, directed that the child be given to the weeping woman. “For it is she that is the mother of the child,” he said.

I am writing this from a cute little perch up in a Kampala hotel as below me the City of Kampala, which went up in smoke over the needless arrest of presidential hopeful Bobi Wine, otherwise known as Robert Kyagulanyi, tries to drench the embers and sweep up the rubble.

Journalists have big ears; it’s one of the benefits of attending journalism school. A couple of days before the riots broke out I had listened in sheer horror to a briefing of security personnel as a senior officer directed on how the riots – which they clearly were expecting – were to be handled.

“Once you receive the order from high command, just shoot, jump over the bodies and move forward.” The officer said it so casually, and the audience received it so warmly, I shuddered. 

I, however, took more notice the following morning when, during breakfast, I overhead a senior officer tipping off a civilian colleague: “If you see a crowd gathered anywhere, whatever you do, get away as fast as you can.” The inference was simple: the armed forces are clearly under instructions to shoot and kill, to subdue protesters.

It was, therefore, no surprise when I saw the bloody manner in which the armed forces have handled the riots. By Friday morning, the dead were being counted by the dozen and hundreds were injured, many of them with bullet wounds. 

I checked out the reactions of the two leading contenders in the presidential race.

 On being violently arrested and humiliated, Bobi Wine didn’t fight back. He issued a harsh directive to his supporters: strictly no violence, ours is a non-violent struggle! He preferred to lose his freedom but save the nation undue bloodshed.

 On his part, President Museveni congratulated the armed forces on having meted out a fitting response to the riots. He clearly has no problem with people being killed, as long as he keeps in power. And then I remembered King Solomon’s decision on who of the two women was the true mother of the living child.

Mr Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda    
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