On Mao’s marriage of convenience with NRM

Like in Soyinka’s play, The Lion and the Jewel, when Lakunle was stunned that Sidi (the titular Jewel) was getting married to Baroka (the titular Lion) instead of him, on news of Norbert Mao’s Democratic Party ‘cooperation agreement’ with President Museveni’s NRM party took many of Uganda’s Opposition politicians and supporters by surprise.

As expected of Ugandans and politics, this news overshadowed everything, including the President’s address to the nation on security,  high fuel and commodity prices. Besides, as usual, no one in their right mind was expecting any immediate government solutions or intervention. Even the trending debate of Arts versus Science was forgotten.

Opposition politicians took to social media to express their feelings in the form of captions to the pictures. NUP spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi posted: ‘The “cohabiting” has ended, here is the “wedding”. Kizza Besigye just bade Mao farewell: ‘Hmmm! Kale, bye.’ The Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago ‘felt heartbroken’ and grieved as though Mao had died: ‘Kitalo nyo!! Born 1954 and ….’ We’re yet to hear from Bobi Wine.

By lunchtime the following day, as Ugandans were still digesting this news, breaking news came in: the President had appointed Norbert Mao as the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. Exiled Ugandan writer, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, called Mao’s appointment as a consummation of the marriage. In other words, like Sidi who went ahead to marry aged Baroka after being tricked into losing her virginity to him, Mao’s political sellout had now been sealed.

But then, perhaps like Sidi who got married to Baroka out of shame of losing her virginity, Mao also decided to sell out officially to spite the Opposition who have for long taunted him as a mole.

In his Sunday Monitor column on September, 5, 2020, humorist Philip Matogo’s article was pointedly titled: ‘Is DP NRM’s Trojan horse?’ He concluded that Mao was probably ‘searching for a safe place to hide in a burning house.’

On May 19, 2010, a decade before Matogo wrote his article, Semujju Nganda, FDC’s spokesperson, wrote in The Observer asserting: ‘Mao is Museveni’s Trojan horse.’

In his characteristic eloquence and colourful language, Mao denied all “allegations” of being in cahoots with Museveni. In his defence and offense, he coined terms like ‘meal card politics’ to refer to politics of opportunism. He also started the ‘fruits fights’, likening DP members who had joined NUP to ‘watermelon’ (green/DP outside but red/NUP inside). Likewise, they called him ‘pumpkin’ (green/DP outside and yellow/NRM inside).

One can easily guess the tricks and go-betweens that Museveni used in wooing Mao, like Baroka with Sidi. ‘I bumped into a closed door meeting between Mao and Salim Saleh in Gulu during lockdown,’ said Andrew Irumba, a Ugandan journalist, while appearing on Baba TV recently.

Sidi knew that in wooing her, however, Sadiku (Baroka’s first wife and go-between) was lying and Baroka wanted her as a wife just for fame ‘as the only man that possessed “the jewel of Ilujinle”.’ Mao too, well known for his wit and intellect, must be aware that Museveni probably just wants to use him politically and later dump him like others before.

In a way, Museveni has already used him to divide and weaken the Opposition. On February 23, Edris Kiggundu wrote an article on the Nile Post titled, ‘Mao’s tweets rattle political feathers but analysts ask; what is he calculating?’

Kiggundu added: ‘Some say that Mao turned to social media, specifically Twitter, because he was disappointed by the political turn of events. Then he unleashed his missiles, as an act of trying to revive his wavering political fortunes’.

Time will tell whether the ‘cooperation agreement’ is Mao’s attempt at achieving his long-time ambition as he once said in DP’s weekly press conference in 2019: “…anyone who knows me knows that Mao will run for president and become president or die trying….’ Or, he fell in Museveni’s trap with enticement of a ministerial job that the Opposition can’t offer him and promise of succession due to Museveni’s old age, just like Sidi fell in Baroka’s trap that he was old and impotent, only for him to rape and marry her with bride price which Lakunle couldn’t do.

Hassan Higenyi

Freelance writer, editor and book reviewer,  [email protected]