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Old man Museveni, take a look at my life, you can see I’m a lot like you were

Monday September 24 2018
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It is all too easy to read generation gap into the Museveni-Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine) standoff that seems to have shaken the overstaying ruler of Uganda to the core. But the young will fight the good fight of the old. PHOTOS | FILE

By JENERALI ULIMWENGU

It is all too easy to read generation gap into the Museveni-Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine) standoff that seems to have shaken the overstaying ruler of Uganda to the core.

But there is much more than the intergenerational arguments between the Young Turks and the Old Guard who refuse to quit even when they know they are no longer wanted – because their usefulness is spent, if they ever had it in the first place.

There is an age difference, to be sure, but that is not so important. We have recently witnessed remarkable things done by people who are much older than Yoweri, such as Mahathir Mohammed making a remarkable comeback at the impossible age of 93.

We also have seen the extraordinary popularity of a Jeremy Corbyn or a Berny Sanders. These two drew their strength from the energetic support of young people, literally their grandchildren.

Of course, when all things are equal in any contest, give it to the young one. That is to say, if two contestants have the same qualities in their abilities, decency and trustworthiness, choose the younger of the two. But if the younger one is a crook, a swindler or a rapist, then for heavens’ sake choose the oldster.

So, I think Museveni could have gone on till his mid-90s without being challenged by someone whose only claim to fame is youth. I think what has got him into trouble is that he has been found to be a fake and a power glutton.

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He came to power 32 years ago proclaiming revolutionary ideals and castigating African rulers who overstayed their welcome and promised to give Uganda back to Ugandans. In those three-plus decades he has morphed into a tyrant who seems to believe that his family is more important than the rest of the people of Uganda.

Be bribed; or be terrorised

He has managed to bribe his way out up to now, shamelessly buying legislators to make this or that change to the Constitution. Alternatively, for those like Kizza Besigye who refused to be bought, Museveni unleashed terror, making the good old doctor perhaps the most arrested politician in the world. And this is a former comrade-in-arms in the bush war and his personal physician to boot. Ingratitude, thy name is politician.

Now Besigye may have run his course, fought the good fight and taken as much onto his head as a man may be able to absorb.

The point he tried to make, that is that Uganda is not the property of one man and his family and that Museveni must go, was not heeded. Now it is the turn of another generation of Besigyes to tell Museveni where he gets off.

Acts of violence

Cometh the hour cometh the man? Who knows? Bobi Wine is not your conventional politician, but he makes his message easy to get as it is mostly expressed in music. There is nothing to move crowds of unemployed and frustrated youth more easily than music, and Bobi Wine has been dishing it out in shovelfuls.

Museveni is running scared, and has tried to pin charges of treason and accused him of committing “acts of violence,” which has to be kind of funny if you know Museveni’s history.

Violence is what Museveni did in the 1980s in Luwero, and it carried him to State House six years later. Maybe someone else is having similar ideas.

The old warriors, the Besigyes et al, may be a bit jaded by a struggle that has yielded little but personal suffering, may be justified for wanting to take it a little easier and enjoy a late-life respite.

But the young will fight the good fight of the old. It is the same country, it is the same cause, it is the same quest for freedom.

It will not die. Museveni was credited with bringing a semblance of stability to Uganda. But, honestly, even he must know now that he has overstayed. This world has known momentary heroes, who have failed to read the clock.

It may be tricky for someone who has held onto power illegitimately for so long to now say they are quitting, but surely the former revolutionary will be able to come up with a strategy to organise a credible transition that may still save his legacy. It is not about generations; it is about propriety.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]

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