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Museveni is the Messiah, he won’t follow the rules

Wednesday July 26 2017
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Lifting age limit: Museveni actually sees himself as a messiah, so his mission in this world cannot be abridged by the laws of ordinary men and women. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGAH | NMG

By Charles Onyango-Obbo

In 2011, while I was still with Nation Media Group, I asked a then young cartoonist and illustrator John Nyaga to do “something small” for me.

And thus was drawn what Uganda’s President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni may look like when he is 90, the point at which I told him I thought he should retire from office. Nyaga did a brilliant job of it, although the drawing was unsettling. The safari hat was new, of course, but there was something spooky about it.

For those who have read Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, there was something Miss Havisham-ish about it.

Most people I showed the illustration felt uneasy, and also told me it was “impossible” that Museveni would try to rule for 48 years, or cling to office until he was 90.

There are many Ugandans who are livid at the ongoing moves to amend the Constitution and remove the 75-year age limit for president.

Museveni, who’s been in power for 31 years now, is 73 and will be two years over the limit in the 2021 election.

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While I think this is a disaster, there is also a part of me that is happy that I read this right. In 1998, two years after the first universal suffrage election of the Museveni era, and four after the new Constitution, I wrote an op-ed in Uganda’s Monitor newspaper arguing that Kaguta would not leave office in 2006. Also, that the Constitution would be amended to delete the presidential term limit.

You’d think at least Museveni’s supporters would have been outraged. They weren’t. Both his supporters and his enemies thought that, at best, I was playing Devil’s Advocate, and at worst, that I was high on my own product.

And that precisely is what explains Museveni’s political fortunes. His supporters cling to an image of him as a fundamentally progressive leader, who is not a political glutton. And his enemies, on the other hand, hate him so much, they see evil deeds that he actually didn’t commit.

So why will Museveni seek to rule Uganda, if he has his way, until his hand can no longer hold the cup?

There are many reasons, but to pick two, one needs to look to his foes, most of whom think that Museveni, after the reformist early years, has stayed in power to enrich himself.

Wrong. While some in his family and inner circle have enriched themselves, Museveni is no Mobutu. In fact, his dollar sense is known to be quite deficient.

This is important, because people who think he’s in it for the money, assume there is a point where he will “have amassed enough” and leave because, then, protecting his wealth will be more important than staying in power. But he’s not in it for the money, and therefore he cannot have enough in the ordinary sense of the word.

Second, if you’ve read Museveni’s books, the common thread is that he subtly attributes his exploits, and admittedly they are many, to a rare form of exceptionalism.

So while he doesn’t say it directly, Museveni actually sees himself as a messiah, so his mission in this world cannot be abridged by the laws of ordinary men and women.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is publisher of data visualiser Africapaedia and Rogue Chiefs. Twitter@cobbo3

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