BUYING UGANDA
This weekend was an embarrassing one for the two-faced Opposition.
They must be walloping in humiliation with the revelation by chief-buyer, that Opposition
members including their MPs are cheap in the political market.
The cheapness of our Opposition is a matter of
interpretation. It reveals the outcome of social transformation under the three
decades of NRM corrupted rule. Mr. Museveni has previously applied numerous
tactics, including doling out brown envelops, but most effectively, through
political appointments to extract from the midst of Opposition, their most
tenacious cadres. That is how he purged life out of DP in the early 90s and
sucked the living hell out of UPC recently.
Characteristically, when Museveni fails to woo opposition
characters, he jails them and even capitulates some from a productive economic
lifeline. The economic alienation makes this country so unequal in wealth
distribution, such that corruption became the natural means to equalize. Uganda
has transformed into an economy where corruption is a means of production for
many. Those privileged to own opportunities to steal public resources are at
the top of the food chain. Many of them ally with the regime solely to
safeguard their loot, while the NRM uses their “success” stories to entice
members of Opposition.
Without any competitive buyer, the monopoly holder naturally
sets the market price of goods. Where the supply of “good conscience” becomes
too much, the price naturally falls. It has fallen to a low point where a mere lavishing
of his targets with praises such as “good or better member” of Opposition can
win him such an Opposition leader, cheaply.
The confusion over who pays better is even worse among the
youths who should be flashing out this absurdity. The 2016 general elections
brought out the worse among the youths – the Poor NRM Youths vs the jobless brotherhoods.
They oscillated between Amama Mbabazi’s camp and Museveni camp, looking for who
pays higher. Politics to them is for eating; wellness of society is reflected
as an aggregate of economically well off members in this money nexus.
In contextualizing Mr. Museveni’s mockery of Opposition, one
needs to understand Museveni’s innate contempt for multiparty democracy and
rule of law. The Opposition has
demonstrated little understanding of the exploits of a Multiparty Political
dispensation in that sense. Some expect Mr. Museveni to “allow” them to operate.
Museveni’s mission is clear – finish the Opposition by 2021. The revelation of
cheapness of Opposition therefore is a blow to opposition credibility and
further to undermined multiparty politics.
On its part, the Opposition unconsciously or consciously
plays to the tunes of the Piper. The Opposition obeys every draconian law; lack
ongoing agenda to engage electorates until the time of elections; exhibits too
much in-house treachery – betrayal and snitching that goes unpunished; lack
ideological identity or policy preferences distinct from that of the ruling
regime; and consistently fails to demonstrate the ability to offer an alternative
government.
As such, the Opposition is confusing to the electorates and
youths because the only difference between NRM and the so-called Opposition appears
to be the briskness of their leaders. Opposition is not about hatred, envy,
ignorance and the drive to remove a regime. It entails a systematic organizing
to form an alternative government in the waiting and to produce alternative
policy framework to push society forward. In that sense, the Ugandan Opposition
is atypical, unconscious, and unprincipled.
Not only Opposition politicians are on sale in Uganda. The
whole country is. From traditional leaders, church leaders, youth, women and
worse of all, the NRM carpetbaggers. Even with their numerical strength, the NRM
secretariat still buys their MPs to pass egregious laws towards the life-presidency
or mortgaging Uganda. If the regime buys conscience from Opposition, it pays heftily
for loyalty from within. The cheapness
of the Opposition is not distinctive; rather, it is a continuum of Museveni’s
corrupted rule.
END
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