We Get the Leaders We Deserve

It couldn’t get any more dysfunctional—the NRM primary, that is. The fracases were not about outrage on the pervasive poverty, mistreatment of the Kabaka, Karamojong women begging on Kampala streets, the deplorable state of public hospitals, the gagging on free speech, the sectarian law that proscribes speeches against One Crazy Dude, the lake-like potholes even on the streets of the capital city of Kampala, nor were they about any of the myriads of ills that bedevil the republic of Uganda. These were scrambling for the gravy train. In other domains you make your money then you go into politics or sponsor some weasel to whom you are the puppet master. In Uganda you go into politics then, Brakabrakabara!—the money faucet opens up as if by magic. That is the reason behind the ruckus in the NRM household. The underlings saw it from the Oga (Nigerian for Big Man) himself. He has clung to power like a tick on one of his cows. They witnessed him in sheer panic at the onset of the Dr. Beisgye’s phenomenon. They saw the skulduggery and the concocted criminal lawsuits against the brave man—the first man in Uganda to break away from a ruling party on principle.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/-/691150/997166/-/crp3ye/-/index.html
(A man walks passed Nakawa Ntinda stretcher pothole which has turned into a Map of Africa. PHOTO BY JOSEPH KIGGUNDU. )

So, what else is new? Go into any of the UG chat rooms or cyber forums, and you see a reflection of the state of the nation. We talk passed each other like ships in the night, bent on our point-of-views however ridiculous and illogical, while oblivious to the concerns of others, or even hostile for no apparent reason other than tribe or political affiliation.

What else is new? Look at the yet-to-bear-fruit nascent oil industry. A permanent secretary (effectively just an accounting officer with no elective mandate) does his shady deals under the nose of his substantial minister—all supposedly because he had access to the Oga. What is the result? Heritage Oil skipped town with half a billion $s in tax revenue—banoti banoti that could have done a whole lot of good, like prenatal care that could have turned up a genius instead of the half-wit who kneels in front of a vote-hungry politician instead of the other way around. Meanwhile the dirty white boys (some charcoal dark ones in Uganda too) of Heritage are now lounging in the Riviera, sipping Dom Pérignon or buying blood-diamond for their pale-assed missuses.  http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1005152/-/co9fkaz/-/index.html

So, in the final analysis, a river cannot rise above its source. Or as they say in statistical analysis: the result of a sampling study is no better than the sample it is based on.

Who are we? Where are we coming from and where are we going? If we cannot answer these questions with any degree of conviction and relative certainty, then we deserve any hoodlum who comes along and dazzles us that he is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread.