Stella Nyanzi, Tamale Mirundi and fire of words

From the fragmented and veiled reports in our newspapers and radio broadcasts, it seems that the controversial Makerere University research fellow, Dr Stella Nyanzi, gave social media junkies the rather unusual treat of a roasted African first lady dressed with gutter mayonnaise.
Strictly, the lady is Uganda’s minister of Education and Sports, but because she also happens to be the wife of President Museveni, her stature as a minister is propped up by the implied raw power of the presidency in a country where ministers are now widely despised and resented, especially among the intelligentsia.
The loss of respect was not accidental. With so many overpaid ministers (about 80) in a small economy characterised by low productivity and unemployment, and with the same fellows generally dishonest, corrupt and incompetent, you would not expect the more enlightened citizens to respect or love them.
Deeper down, although some of the ministers are young and relatively new in high office, the 80 as a block are perceived to be part of this NRM thing which hangs over them like a plague that refuses to go away.
Against this backdrop, it is very difficult for the minister of Education to avoid putting her foot wrong.
Not only have 31 years near power damaged her link with the mass of our people in their day to day struggles, but the critics of the regime are also constantly on the watch, ready to pounce should she make a mistake, especially if that mistake renders her in the image of the mocking French royal who recommended cake to the common folk if they did not have bread.
When Ms Museveni talked against transporting little school-children on boda boda motorbikes and sending them to school without properly packed lunch, after her government had failed to deliver the sanitary pads the President had promised older children because the government did not have the money, Dr Nyanzi tapped into the simmering resentment and unleashed her invective over social media platforms.
The language she used was in parts sexually explicit, the attack on the regime and on the minister (or First Lady) savage and sometimes personal. In short, Stella Nyanzi vintage. So we have a rough idea.
Naturally, a couple of government ministers have condemned Dr Nyanzi for the assault, and Makerere’s Appointments Board (in a panic?) directed Vice Chancellor Prof Ddumba to suspend her. Ddumba has obliged.
Unfortunately, Ms Museveni faces attack after many years during which the spokespersons and defenders of President Museveni’s rule and the First Family have been associated with relentless savagery when dealing with the regime’s rivals and critics.
From the days when Mr John Nagenda’s horns were still very long, to the head-bending cruelty of Mr Tamale Mirundi, the detached observer had reason to assume that the extreme and personal humiliation of Opposition politicians was one of the tasks State House wanted its media functionaries to deliver.
Not once – absolutely never – did President Museveni or the First Lady ever come out in public to express regret or return some humanity to the victims of the functionaries who proudly referred to themselves as the President’s dogs. It is much easier to catch Mr Museveni bashing his ministers.
Written or spoken, words have been used, not primarily in the statesman’s informative, critical, corrective or partisan frame. They were used to ‘injure’. Words were transformed into fires of such ferocity that the goal was not to enlighten or to defeat, but to annihilate.
When Dr Stella Nyanzi boldly enters, hitting hard above the shoulders and also below the naval, the shock is palpable. But the fact that sympathy for the First Lady has been scanty and heavily qualified is instructive.
There seems to be a generalised position that the citizens can ignore the insult to the First Lady since the attack on the minister of Education and Sports is in the package!
At Makerere, the Academic Staff Association (Muasa) wants the Appointments Board to revisit Nyanzi’s suspension.
With a touch of humility, the tenants of State House could learn something from the signals generated by the fire of a loose-tongued academic.

Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator. [email protected].