Indicating a “road map” to a
farcical election, in my last blog, “Does Museveni vacate like Zenawi or Qaddafi?”
I said, “One would be sweetly surprised if Museveni is to lose this “election.”
Too bad; no sweet surprise. Only the usual predictably boring result of
affirming a “presidential monarch” as one columnist on The Daily Monitor
described Mr. Museveni, a “revolutionary leader who would never retire” unless
nature catches up on him. Or another “revolution” sweep him to the dustbin of
history like his predecessors and former colleagues in the vicinity.
Despite abundant merciless precedents that
relegated powerful autocrats like Hail Selassie of Ethiopia and Qaddafi of
Libya to oblivion, strongmen like Museveni are convinced that those are
phenomenon that only happen to the Qaddafi’s of this world.
In their grand
delusion, they are so convinced that they are the bastion of peace, stability,
development, etc. And that the country would go down the drain without their
presence in the pinnacle. In the heavily patronage system they created, and in
the deception they so embedded among their subjects, they conflate mass
servility with critical support. Even the so-called educated subjects under
their rule forget that the reason a country goes to the dogs when one dictator
falls is because that dictator has been an obstacle for so long to the
establishment of civic institutions which ensure peaceful and civilized
transfer of power. Meanwhile, the Musevenis of this world along with their
acolytes use the tragic Post-Qaddafi scenario in Libya as a scarecrow on their
subjects.
Yet, at the back of their mind, they are
keenly aware that doesn’t work for too long. They spend nightmarish sleepless
nights over the fact that the population that seems to be mesmerized can rise
up overnight and crush them, as if it had never been cowed for decades. Hosni
Mubarak of Egypt who was overthrown in the wake of claiming 90 plus percent
victory is a “good” reminder. Currently, there is also the case of massive
Oromo uprising in Ethiopia that’s rocking the establishment in no time after it
claimed 100 percent victory in a progressively worsening sham election. Thus,
the machinery of deception and repression strongmen in Sub-Sahara Africa
preside over, never rests. As evidenced through the banning of text messages in
Ethiopia during the 2005 bogus election, Uganda too, took a leaf and banned
social media in this day and age of 2016.
Interestingly, before the banning of
social media on the eve of election, a hard working friend of mine with
business acumen, and who seems to have found his niche as a migrant in Uganda
shared this post.
I asked him “propaganda by whom?” And also “who is behind this
poster?” Unless, one is blind, it was obvious that poster against social media
emanated from Mr. Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM). Since my
friend did not seem to learn a damn thing from the backlash the Asian community
get every time there is a political turmoil in Uganda exacerbated by the
corrupt and patronage system of Museveni’s regime; and since he doesn’t have
the capacity to read Amy Chua’s “World on Fire” wherein she expounded how “spectacular
wealth in the hands of resented ethnic groups—market-dominant minorities,”
generate ill feelings in pseudo democracies, I was greatly concerned for him to
be seen as defending unjust system as if he is benefiting from it.
Thankfully, my friend is not totally
moron. Last time I checked, he has removed that poster from his Facebook page. The bottom
line, though, is this. Museveni after expressing his confidence to The New
Vision that “Ugandans are not gullible,” and that they are capable of seeing
through lies, banned social media as purveyor of “lies.” Why the need to
protect Ugandans like children, if one is confident of their sense of
discernment?
Twitter:
@Hussainkiflu
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