Why a good Ugandan MP is likely to end up ‘stealing’

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak says the Bible. Many MPs both in the opposition and the NRM, join Parliament with the Mawanda-like intention of making a difference. But Uganda’s politics which is largely devoid of serious issues and more about the individual is complicated. A person should have very deep pockets. That is unless they come on the back of a wave or a protest, like the one that swept large parts of Buganda in the 2021 election.

In that election most people with the blessing of the popular Afro-Reggae musician, turned politician; the ultra-popular, charismatic, opposition, youthful NUP leader Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu, aka Bobi Wine, became MPs. Bobi Wine simply instructed the voters to ‘just tick the umbrella,’ which is the NUP party symbol. In many places when these MPs went on victory parades, the people who voted for them could not reorganise them. 

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Otherwise, the normal journey of a person wishing to become an MP is about four years of hard, expensive, back-breaking work. They must visit all corners of the constituency as many times as possible, meeting religious leaders who may offer them a platform to address the congregation as they make a financial contribution to the building project.

Then the elders and opinion leaders whose medical bills and school dues for the grandchildren MP-to-be, may have to shoulder. They will have to go down to the slums and backstreets to buy local brew for the drunkards who then sing their names at funerals or as they stagger on their way home.

Also to take care of, are the security operatives in the area who turn a blind eye and allow one to carry out early campaigns. Then there are election officials i.e the people who usually stand around as agents. One may have to know and facilitate them even if they are for their potential rival. These are the ones who betray their own candidate by signing false declaration forms if the opponent takes good care of them.

It pays for one to know the trouble causers and thugs who may be paid to disrupt rallies, visit violence and tear the posters of the opponent. Meanwhile, one attends as many funerals, wedding and graduation parties with a financial contribution in exchange for an opportunity to ‘greet the people.’ By the time the election window is opened and one puts up their posters, their face is recognisable.

Then they fight to make it to the House and recover their deposit, which may have come from personal savings, loans or selling personal assets. That is why it is a do or die; a no-go area for the faint hearted. That is why a tout who can hardly articulate basic issues, will beat a PhD holder who speaks good English and has so many lofty ideas but does not conform to these election dynamics.

How we arrived here? The post-independence period had most of the state intact. Most people went to schools and hospitals for free. The agro-based economy earned many a good income from the export through cooperatives. Those who worked in other trades and the public service had subsidised housing, transport and sustained the rural population by consuming their produce or employing them on their shambas.

With time the independent state started collapsing because of the problem of tribalism and nepotism. Since different nationalities make up Uganda, the one who holds power uses the country’s resources to advance ‘his people.’ Gives them all the juicy jobs and opportunities. Then he allows them to steal as much as possible and fatten their proverbial cows as they gain economic power. This relegates most of the country into hopelessness.

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They sell their land and there goes their opportunity to earn and feed themselves.
Even the donors who came in to prop up social services like hospitals and schools or to build infrastructure are running out of money to donate to what one scholar called ‘these parochial corrupt enterprises, masquerading as national governments.’

What remains are the politicians whom the people look at as the link to the government. They have become the state. They are the hunter and gatherer of old who took the risk and went in into the jungle to fend for people they left in the homestead. They are expected to sort out education, health and all other social problems of people who voted for them. The voters feel entitled because they are the ones who put the MP in the juicy job in Parliament. The MPs job is now to go in there and grab as much as possible to recoup his deposit.

Secondly, he must get much, much more to answer the needs of the people in the absence of the state. Thirdly they must make a lot more to improve their own status and that of their families. This involves a good house probably two wives -one to keep an ear on the ground in the constituency and one in the city where the children go to costly international schools. Then they must build a war chest for the next election to beat off any potential rivals who want to snatch their seat.

Now this cannot come from their salaries, per diem and other allowances. The challenge is that unlike the politician of old today, most join politics as ‘paupers.’ If you look at many of the prominent politicians from, say Buganda in the 60s and 80s, many were both lawyers or accountants, engineers, doctors and farmers or importers and traders as well.

They had another income stream. These days a man with nothing may borrow and do their groundwork for four years and get to Parliament. Then it is pay-back time when they become an honourable.

That is how the devil comes and tempts your good MP to steal in order to remain in the political arena.

Twitter: @nsengoba