Alan Tacca
‘‘Kakooza implies that the ruling NRM is the dustbin for tainted politicians.
”
During almost 40 years in power, Uganda’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party has been variously charmed by Cuban communist authoritarianism, Western liberal ideas, capitalism, and so on. We are now officially a neutral country, with President Museveni chairing NAM (the Non-Aligned Movement). But we also sometimes flirt with nasty countries that grind around the axis of 21st Century fascism.
The ideological vagrancy of the NRM has enabled it at different times to describe itself as broad-based, multi-ideological, revolutionary, non-party and anti-pluralist; and then pluralist, although apparently dying to kill all Opposition parties.
Forget that confusion. The ideological position of the NRM is now clearer than ever before. Its perennial corruption has eventually solidified into an accepted pillar of Uganda as a vampire state. The other two (already accepted) pillars are militarism and patronage.
Events around the dubious “service award” to former House leader of Opposition Mathias Mpuuga (et al), and his pathetic attempt to turn his delusion of innocence into sanctified reality, as well as so many other shenanigans involving high people; not to mention the sanctions slapped on some of these people by Britain and the USA; these things have accelerated the process of consolidating corruption, leading the big vampires to rally around each other.
Former Kabula MP James Kakooza, a talkative NRM diehard and ex-minister, and now a legislator in the East African Assembly, was quoted by the government-owned June 25 Bukedde thus: “Mpuuga has two options; to join the (ruling) NRM, or to see the end of his political career.”
Kakooza explains that, “Ugandans are tired of corruption, and if you do not clear your name on this issue, the people/voters may never trust you again.” (Translation.)
Are you amazed by Kakooza’s reasoning?
I am. And I am not. Unwittingly – some would say witlessly – Kakooza implies that the ruling NRM is the dustbin for tainted politicians.
He further implies that the NRM does not care whether the people/voters are tired of corrupt leaders; that the NRM does not need public trust.
Presumably, an NRM that is propped up by militarism and patronage can muscle and bribe its way over any election obstacles.
This reasoning is reinforced by Parliament Speaker Anita Among and Rakai Woman MP Juliet Kinyamatama.
The two NRM ladies used a public function to extol and embolden the embattled Lwengo Woman MP, Cissy Namujju, who has been remanded on corruption charges, assuring the Lwengo constituents that Namujju would be freed, and that she deserved to be their MP ‘forever’, because she shared with them whatever she was accused of grabbing from public resources.
In principle, this tallies with the satisfaction President Museveni expressed regarding the powerful thieves IGG Beti Kamya was idle-chatting about, mbu their lifestyles should be audited.
The President warned the IGG not to frighten off our thieves, as long as they invested their loot in the country.
Indeed, at the aforementioned function, Speaker Among delivered a cash envelope (reportedly containing about Shs50 million), clearly announcing that it was from ‘the father and the son’ to console the people of Lwengo over their jailed MP.
Who is the father, if not the President? Who is the son, if not the son of the President?
Unless these stories are media-tech fabrications, a seal of approval has in effect been stamped on NRM’s doctrine: Steal and share. Plunder and invest.
What is left is regulating how stolen money and other national resources should be shared or invested, after which the doctrine would be ready for incorporation in the NRM manifesto for the 2026 election charade.
Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
[email protected]
