Let’s put first things first 

There is a story, some say mythical, about the official visit of erstwhile Russian president Boris Yeltsin to the United States in 1995. 

This visit, riding on the coat-tails of a post-Cold War new world order, took place five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Always bubbling with life and bubbly over with the effects of the proverbial night before, Yeltsin got out of the plane to meet then US president, Bill Clinton, and asked Clinton: “Do you think OJ did it?”

He was referring to the polarising OJ Simpson murder trial, where OJ Simpson (Orenthal James Simpson, in full) was tried and acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her lover Ron Goldman.

The question “did OJ do it?” could be recast under the general inquiry: who did it? To be sure, somebody did it. 

We come to this conclusion observing President Museveni’s rule, the country’s weak institutions and economically vulnerable Opposition parties. 

Taken together, these issues seem to presage conflict out of political succession, economic stagnation and other bugbears. 

Yet neither the Opposition nor the government will accept responsibility for a country that has slowly run aground. 

I believe that it takes two to tango and thus the entire political class shares the blame. 

Why? Well, there are three dimensions to politics: how to get power, how to keep it and how to use it. 

In Uganda, politicians recognise only two dimensions: how to get power and how to keep it. Sure, how it is used determines how it is retained. 

However, this dimension, in a hierarchy of politic interests, is at bottom as it lends its activity to the superfluity of being a third wheel. 

This derogation in how power is used translates to poor governance and all its fixings, as it were. 

I concede that the Interparty Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) recognises the importance of good governance, but this recognition seemingly comes after its promotion of inclusive democracy (read how to get power). 

At the risk of sounding pro-status quo, I will say that a sound electoralist strategy for social change should be secondary to worker self-management of production.

It should not matter who holds the reins of state power. What the political class should have a prime eye on is social and worker (waged and unwaged) ownership and democratic control of the means of production. 

Then, with money in the hands of the voter, good governance will reflect a bottom-up management approach predicated on the economic interests of Ugandans, as their shared vision is funnelled up towards government to protect and preserve these interests. 

Of course, the Opposition would see this as political heresy in view of the fact that it would imply that national progress is government-centred. 

In that we are no longer looking at how we can change government. But instead, we are looking at how we can better government so that change is incidental and not intentional. 

While this might be partly true, we must appreciate that remedying our political affairs will be                                             meaningless without us focusing on how power is used in the interest of those outside the official political firmament. 

We are too poor to be clamouring for political power over good governance. Ignoring this fact is why our politicians are in whodunit mode, blaming each other, as they leave the business of governance to go out of business, politically speaking. 

Ugandans deserve more than the changes of guard they keep experiencing. 

They need better goods and services and somebody to guard this change.

Mr Philip Matogo is a professional copywriter  
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