The Nile Post recently had the headline, ‘Otafiire swallows NGO Bureau’. The story, however, was less dietary than that.
This is what the actual story read as, in part: “In a significant move aimed at rationalising government operations, Internal Affairs minister Kahinda Otafiire has signed Statutory Instrument 2024 No. 73, officially dissolving the NGO Bureau as a semi-autonomous entity. This decision marks a shift in the management of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Uganda, bringing the bureau back under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”
It was a classic anti-climax. Only, there is nothing classic about anti-climaxes. By their very nature, they are disappointing. While classics, well, they are the opposite of that. I mean, come on! How is it that the Internal Affairs minister is on a diet? Did we miss a new austerity law that was passed or what?
The minister could eat the NGO Bureau for breakfast. So swallowing it would be a lot easier. He could just pick it up and then throw it into his mouth if his mouth is not performing any other singular task which requires eating.
So, the minister has the means by which to swallow. Indeed, if he had chosen to swallow, he would be seen as a true leader. That’s because the men of power today do not swallow, they eat. And they have eaten up the economy, while the country suffers from indigestion.
Oh yes, those who are seen as “eating” are about as popular as a punch in the face. Eating, by the way, is Ugandan slang for one no longer having to tighten one’s belt anymore. It also goes by the words, “you have arrived!”
The problem is that those who are said to have arrived seem to be dead on arrival. That’s because they are instantly seen as part of the problem and are thus dead to the world.
The minister, on the other hand, is not eating. He is allegedly swallowing. So this could easily make him a hero. He is the first minister who is not eating. The man is like Thomas Sankara.
Remember him? He was the one who, when serving as president of Burkina Faso, reinforced his populist image by ordering the sale of luxury vehicles and properties owned by the government in order to reduce costs.
To Sankara, government expenditure should not be a feeding frenzy for careerists. Now, there was a man who was not eating. He was swallowing up his government’s frivolity and taking names.
This is what I thought the minister was doing, too. But then it turns out he was only nibbling. To be sure, the minister’s “swallowing” was a shift in management and not a shift in perception. So the government will not suddenly become free of “eaters”. It will go on eating. If you look at it critically, government is not designed for swallowing. That’s because many of its employees carry their stomachs with them, while leaving God and country at home.
I am not saying that there is a lack of patriotism. I am just saying we have way more eaters than swallowers.
And it would have been nice to see the minister in the minority, that way his NRM government could claim at least one outcome that they did not rig in their favour.
It would be revolutionary to have a revolutionary being part of the minority in the era of Mzee. They always seem to be in the majority. Even in the bush, their war was called a peoples’ war, which implies that the people were behind them. Although UPM got almost zero votes, its offshoot the NRM would never lose the vote again.
Still, the minister must be given points for good table manners. Swallowing at the table is uncivilised. Take your time, savour the meal and strike up a conversation.
