28.06.2010

By John Patrick Wambi

Finally, with utmost good faith, let me end my thoughts with a heartfelt piece of advice, a plea in fact, to the elders of the greater Western Uganda and Ankole in particular.  Because of my business, I have travelled extensively through every corner of Western Uganda.  The truth I see on the ground is that 90% of the people in Western Uganda are as poor as the typical IDP camp dweller in Acholi, Lango, and Teso or the blind jigger ridden Musoga peasant from Kayunga; the very centre of the incident that has so outraged me.  Most people however, think that Museveni has done massive favours for all your children; and they are, if you didn’t know, very, very bitter about it! 

That bitterness is however misplaced.  I know for sure that the only people “eating” like gluttons, the only people who are sucking our country dry of its wealth, who are contaminating decency, morality, and the dignity of our beloved nation, are those few powerful “mafia” men [and their immediate relatives] that VP once Bukenya alluded to.  The problem is that not everyone is as travelled as I am.  So they could be viciously indiscriminate in their revenge if or when it comes.  I hope it never comes to that but I fear it may. 

So I say to you my parents, brothers and sisters from Western Uganda, in the interest of your own self preservation, and my own self preservation, do not waste a minute.  Send a powerful delegation to Museveni NOW to ask him use these last few months to address this poisonous perception of injustice among many Ugandans from other parts of the country.  First and foremost, let the delegation lay bare before Museveni’s very eyes the real risks of the unprecedented violence that could be meted out against utterly innocent lives.  Let them also tell him to his face, as his own parents, brothers, and sisters, that all that could happen simply because in the minds of the oppressed and most aggrieved Ugandans, they are all viewed as one and the same. 

That they are all wrongly associated with his [Museveni’s] personal acts of nepotism, tribalism, and cronyism!  That they are all wrongly associated with his [Museveni’s] acts of ethnic favouritism of the corrupt.  That they are all wrongly associated with his [Museveni’s] personal vendetta campaign to decimate his political opponents. And finally, that they are all wrongly associated with his [Museveni’s] own political excesses, misjudgements, and indiscretions.  In other words, let the delegation tell Museveni their real and well founded fears of revenge attacks against them; the fears that none of the hundreds of advisers that he maintains at taxpayers money, our money, your own money, can dare tell him.

Let the delegation also ask him to immediately disband the present NRM infested Electoral Commission and organise a genuine, free and fair election without the involvement of the army in any way.  Let the delegation ask him too, to listen, for once, to the many calls for him to abandon his “Life Presidency” project immediately.  Finally, let the delegation ask Museveni to show some remorse for all the ills of his 24yr tenure of terror by genuinely apologising to the people of Uganda for all the nasty things he did to them.  Ugandans, and indeed most Africans, are a very forgiving people. 

Look at Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya.  Isn’t he living as a free statesman in retirement even after what he did to innocent Kenyans for over two decades?  We also, or I at least, wish no less for our very own Museveni.  But he must do the things that I have set out above in good faith first.  Without that, I don’t even want to imagine what will happen to our beloved country when he is finally pushed out by force; because that is exactly where it is heading if nothing changes now.  Ngoloire!

The writer describes himself as a concerned Ugandan from Kayunga who now lives in Jinja town