Prime
‘Sakwa-sation’ of our politics
Philip Matogo
What you need to know:
- I state that this particular locomotive of our politics might steer an end to Museveni’s rule. However, it will not cause change. It will only create an illusion of it.
On March 12, Monitor reported that more than 30 former Resident District Commissioners (RDCs), including the acquitted Eric Sakwa, had petitioned President Museveni to come to their rescue, saying they were abruptly dropped or reshuffled, and now face significant financial hardships in addition to “not fitting in their communities”.
These misfits want the President to give them a “resettlement package”, a veritable bailout. Accordingly, whenever I see the name Eric Sakwa, I am washed over by nostalgia. And my thoughts go back to the days of Ekimeeza on Radio One.
Each Saturday, Ekimeeza would provide a platform to well-known unknowns whose this-worldly rhetoric would be otherworldly in its comic relief.
“There is no electricity,” said Sakwa, who was a regular speaker on Ekimeeza. “So each time I get home, I am powerless!”
The audience found him funny, and earnest. This is a good combination to have when opposing a government whose actions are less than earnest and mostly laughable.
“We are swimming in corruption,” Sakwa would bemoan in fin au régime mode. “It’s like a swimming pool!”
Ergo, as pots called kettles black, the Opposition speakers (they dominated Ekimeeza), in denouncing the regime, ensured that Ekimeeza devolved into political vaudeville.
This is largely why the show was so successful: it provided spectacle instead of hard-won answers to pre-existing political questions.
Amid this Punch-and-Judy knockabout on Radio One, Sakwa and several other firebrands caught the public’s imagination. This imagination then expanded to accommodate government’s alacrity in choosing Sakwa from the chosen. To be sure, Sakwa would come to represent a caricature of Ugandan oppositionists.
By and large, Ugandan oppositionists are as comical as Sakwa and equally devoid of any conviction, unless their pockets are punctured by prickly economic circumstances. Theirs is a struggle to make ends meet. So if President Museveni may oblige them with a job, they are ready to switch from hero to zero to dance to his tune.
True, Ugandan politics is best enjoyed without a conscience. However, after all the compromise and self-compromise plays out, politicians who have been bought or leased, soon pass their use-by dates.
Then, after being insulated from the poverty that used to bite them before their appointments, they are unceremoniously dropped.
That’s when you see the likes of Sakwa crying foul. Sadly, though, they cannot go back to the Opposition nor can they interest government in their plight.
The public, meanwhile, has moved on. By this time, another Sakwa is plucked from the Opposition and the cycle continues.
This reality recalls The Prince and the Pauper, a classic novel by Mark Twain that tells the story of two boys who trade places and experience life in each other’s shoes.
Basically, then, the government plays puppet master determining who will eat as political activists are switched from pauper to prince and prince to pauper depending on how long the government has use for them. This is the real vicious cycle of our politics: those seemingly seeking change are changed by what they sought to change by government’s pocket change.
I know this two-track tendency in our politics is ruining our country. For no matter what side of the political aisle you are seated, you are either a Sakwa or Sakwa-in-waiting.
By citing this Sakwa-sation, if you may, of our politics, I am not surrendering to its extremities, which could lead to civil conflict by hiding our cleavages instead of bridging them.
Rather, I state that this particular locomotive of our politics might steer an end to Museveni’s rule. However, it will not cause change. It will only create an illusion of it.
Mr Philip Matogo is a professional copywriter
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