The Musevenian Kamya

Museveni came to power on the disaffections with Obote and the Northern hegemony—some real some imaginary. Other than the unnecessary losses of lives in the exercise, I have no tears for the Obote governments, nor that of his immediate successors. I owe them no favors.

The early Musvenian rhetorics—10-point program, sowing the mustard seed, building machines that build machines, the problem of Africa is leaders who overstay their shelf-lives, etc, etc—appealed to emotions. But emotions are often contaminated and lead down perilous paths to disappointments. A keen observer would have, however, soon detected the dualistic essence and anomalies and not been fooled. Other than the losers, all were out for a euphoric ride like children with candies, only to wake up shackled and gagged.


BK












WB

Fast forward to 2006. After Winnie Banyima abandoned us, her fans, Beti Kamya was the new heart-breaker gal on the block—brilliant and with the chic hairdo to boot! Check out the stylish headscarf of WB! BK like WB appealed to my intellect and emotions. Give me beautiful, fearless and brilliant women or give me death! I could not wait to read BK’s incisive articles. Then came the catfights with her party, FDC. I am a lover, and irrational cackling frightens the jibbers out of me! However couched, it was all about her ego. As we know, ego must get what ego wants, no matter what. It spoilt it all for me.

Ego is a mental construct. It has no inherent intrinsic existence. It is a deluded sense of self-grasping. It is the single source of a lot of miseries because it plays with our minds that it is a real solid phenomenon. Untamed, we all have it in various degrees, but it seems more prevalent and pronounced in the political classes because theirs plays out in the public arena. In the political realm ego sometimes projects as cleverness—the so-called political astuteness—when it is just plain old lying, cheating and back-stabbing.

Now, the question is: if Museveni is all about his ego at its grossest, and Kamya has displayed gross ego-centric behaviors with FDC, what is the difference between the two? The mantra of both is: my way or the high road—a chorus of confirmed egomaniacs. If both had tanks and guns to back their wishes and fantasies, the difference would be the same.