Writer: Asuman Bisiika. PHOTO/FILE
Sometimes I pass myself off as a speech writer. Those good flowery speeches you hear big people delivering are written by small men and women (like me). Yet I am not inciting the masses to take away the shine of the big men who deliver those good speeches. Those in this business say that a good speech is made of 80 percent the delivery and 20 percent the writer.
Forgive my immodesty, but I was a mercenary import on the team that wrote President Museveni’s speech on the 50th Independence Anniversary in 2012. The original group was composed of professors, who did a good job. My little contribution was to speechify the professors’ statistical glut (complete with statistical instruments like graphs). Because it carries the duality of writing and delivering, a speech doesn’t represent the inner orientation of the person delivering it. Neither does a speech represent the writer’s inner feeling. A speech is about the moment; yes, capturing the moment.
That’s why we hear the phrase “walk the talk”. In Kinyarwanda, this is captured very well in the adage: invugo ni njiro (words are actions). In a March 2015 interview, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew was “evidently an inspiration. A great man, driven by great principles, who achieved great things with a small country. Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore and the lives of his people. This is also what we are doing in Rwanda”.
Mr Museveni has also been quoted showering very flowery adjectives on Lee Kuan Yew. Indeed, Lee Kwan Yew’s Singapore story is inspiring. I remember Mr Museveni challenging Ugandan leaders to read Lee Kwan Yews book. And I must confess I read it on account of Mr Museveni’s recommendation. Yet in the spirit of invugo ni njiro, Mr Museveni seems to lack a Lee Kuan Yew quintessence.
The speech (written speech, for your information) he delivered on the Courts Martial vis-a-avis Courts of Judicature has aroused our curiosity. And as you may know, inter_national media reviews during Yews tenure in office were negative. But there was a conspicuous and consciousness aura about Yews clarity on what was supposed to be done. That is why when he died, the same international media that castigated some of his actions, made raving reviews praising him for transforming his country from a backwater port to a world business hub. So, whereas we may accept Mr Museveni’s negatives as normal, where is his MUGA (Make Uganda Great Again) vision? When all the chips fall in place, it is not the diction of speech deliveries and their momentousness that matter; it is the actions that do.
And the actions that leave a legacy. For a leader to do what Yew did, one has to have self-belief and knowing that leadership is about the led; not the leader. This though, needs purposeful clarity of vision: and fidelity to the people (patriotism). A leader’s vision or high sense of fidelity must recognise and accommodate the needs of the people.
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Christmas is always associated with happiness. Yet we recognise that some Ugandans will spend this Christmas under the restrictions of prison. It is the way of the world that a few die or suffer for the many to live. It was true then, as it is today and ever shall it be! Socrates, dismissing his accusers with the deserving contempt, declined an offer of a non-death sentence. Jesus Christ didn’t even want to enter any plea; for his death, as assumed today, was ordained from the beginning. The story of Abraham’s sacrificial ram ran its full course with the bloody business at Calvary.
Mr Bisiika is the executive editor of the East
African Flagpost. [email protected]
