It is several weeks since South Sudan descended into war, and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni decided that his country would not simply stand by and watch what was happening across its northern border.

He deployed a contingent of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, ostensibly to facilitate the evacuation of thousands of Ugandans caught up in the violence. That was the reason the government gave in the beginning.

Despite a minority of voices grumbling about Museveni’s love of fighting and of poking his nose into other people’s wars, Ugandans generally applauded the decision or chose not to argue with a fait accompli.

In one of his songs, Congolese musician Koffi Olomide talks about how lies travel by lift while the truth must climb the stairs, but that they always end up at the same destination.

In this case too, the truth did finally show up, exposing the yarn spun earlier by the government. Ugandan soldiers, it emerged, were fighting alongside South Sudan’s government forces and dying and being maimed together.

Members of Parliament, especially opposition politicians, reacted with predictable sharpness. They said Museveni and the government had lied to them about the deployment, which they saw as adding insult to injury given that it had happened without approval by parliament.

The MPs not only began demanding further details about the deployment and its financial and other implications, but also stoked up alarm about how Museveni was “causing problems for Uganda.”

Soon enough, a mighty chorus had built up on the airwaves and in print media: If Riek Machar and his group won the war, Uganda and Ugandans would be in trouble. He would team up with Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, the chorus went, and send Kony back into Uganda.

Ugandans who have been doing odd jobs and jua kali business in Juba, the South Sudanese capital and elsewhere, would no longer be welcome. It all sounded rather ominous.

The question, though, is whether Riek Machar and company will, or can win. I don’t know the answer. However, the consensus in the region against unconstitutional changes of government suggests regional governments won’t let him.

Indeed, it could be the very reason why Museveni, who cares little for legal niceties, rushed his troops in. but it could also be personal.

Kampala’s grapevine has it that in the past, Machar had helped the Lord’s Resistance Army, and that, thanks to his role in causing splits and fights within the SPLA/M in the past, Museveni has never really trusted or warmed up to him. If there is any truth in these claims, Machar and his allies are in for quite a fight.

It would also explain why once the opposition started getting noisy, Museveni quickly sought and secured parliament’s support, courtesy of the ruling party’s numerical dominance.

Although they continue to protest, opposition MPs and critics within the NRM are now not able to do anything to reverse the deployment. And in continuing to protest, one gets the feeling they have not invested time and energy in getting to the bottom of why Museveni has found common cause with Salva Kiir’s government.

Love him or hate him, Museveni is no fool. There are several indications that, while many Ugandans would rather have their soldiers at home than fighting other people’s wars, few would want to pick a fight with Museveni over it.

After all, like it or not, large numbers see the UPDF as his army and keep voting for him at elections because they say he is “the only one” who can manage it.

Claiming that the UPDF had gone into South Sudan to evacuate Ugandans might have been a half-truth. However, newspapers did show photos of men, women and children disembarking from military planes, earning Museveni credit.

It is also true that, before the war, South Sudan was Uganda’s largest market for locally produced goods and also for those imported from elsewhere and re-exported to Juba.

Ugandans and Uganda-based foreigners have been making fortunes there. When Museveni claims his army is there to help stabilise the place so business can resume, his words are music to their ears.

Meanwhile, opposition politicians who continue to protest risk being seen as anti-business and unsympathetic towards the thousands of Ugandans who have been earning their bread and school fees for their children up north.

If you ask me for whom those people will be voting for at the next elections, I doubt it will be those opposed to the UPDF’s deployment in South Sudan.

But perhaps the biggest benefit for Museveni is that by rushing into the fight, he has asserted his credentials, as he did in Somalia, as both a preacher and practitioner of the gospel of “African solutions to Africa’s problems.”

For that reason no one can accuse him of being all talk and no action. Nonetheless, should the rebel forces switch tactics and opt for a protracted guerrilla war, Museveni may be in for a long nightmare.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: [email protected]