The president, according to Article 98 of the Uganda Constitution, is the Fountain of Honour sitting at the apex of Uganda’s citizenry. President Yoweri Museveni, therefore, carries the integrity of the country upon his broad revolutionary shoulders wherever he goes.
While he was abroad last week, Museveni, the fountain of honour, made some dishonourable remarks about his citizens’ preference for the soft life.
Museveni told his South African hosts, “We at the equator, we have two rainy seasons; that is why these Ugandans are lazy because life is very easy for them. You don’t have to work very hard. Even a fool can survive in Uganda.”
In August 2011, Museveni blindsided us when during a state visit to Rwanda, he said in his quintessential rough-and-tumble candor, “You know Uganda has so many thieves. I don’t know whether Rwanda has as many thieves as Uganda.”
Just like that, Museveni laid bare our dirty linen for people in ‘outside countries’ as he deftly excused himself from the abundant pilfering mushrooming on his watch. Museveni’s denigration of Ugandans is nothing new – like opposition doyen
Kizza Besigye, Museveni is frustrated with Ugandans.
When he is not infantilizing us by calling us his ‘bazzukulu,’ he is admonishing us over laziness and enjoying the sleep his liberation ushered in. We could assume that in his busy waking moments (because when you are Museveni, sleep is for the weak) Fountain of Honor Museveni ponders how he ended up burdened with fools for citizens.
Maybe he considers himself sun-kissed for since 1986, he has had an uninterrupted run as president. Today, he sits like a conqueror high up on the list of Africa’s longest-serving big men. Surely, Museveni ought to credit the fools he has led for nearly 40 years for his unbeaten run.
We fools should similarly take up our rightful spaces in the foolishness that runs amok in the governance of this country. We must not leave the burden of foolishness to the whims of the ruling class. While his comments might make many Ugandans froth at the mouth, Museveni is not lying.
The amount of ineptitude, gross corruption, human rights abuses, and blame shifting that dominates our news headlines is staggering.
Keeping up with news events in Uganda is an exercise either in tenacious optimism or blunt-force despair. We stumble like doddering drunks in high heels dodging potholes and floods, from one scandal to another. We barely have time to exhale before the next big scandal demands we put away our hope.
After nearly 18 months in detention, the opposition’s National Unity Platform (NUP) parliamentarians Muhammad Ssegirinya and Allan Ssewanyana, ‘miraculously’ obtained bail despite previous failed attempts. On February 13, they walked out of jail and into stony silence.
As we are fools, we can ask – where are Muhammad Ssegirinya and Allan Ssewanyana today at this very moment? Why so quiet, so unseen? In the meantime, the army would like us to dig deeper into our foolishness, suspend logic, and believe their dark fairy tale that NUP is so diabolical, so kitted out, that it is flat ironing the chests of young men to frame the regime for torture.
Yes, keeping up with Ugandan news is an extreme sport only fools can handle. What is Fountain Museveni telling us when he reduces us to fools? He who has the bird’s eye view of Uganda knows best and like Besigye, he is tired of the fools around and beneath him.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, goes the adage; thus spare a thought for a fountain beset with fools. Dear fools and useful idiots, Museveni is saying that if you do not wake up from your slumber of the liberated, he has no choice but to do that honourable thing – remain as the fountain of honour guiding fools.
The fault is with us. Let us accept our foolishness and commit to doing better for Uganda deserves high-value citizens. We can start by spitting out the miserable apology from the minister of Iron Sheets in the Office of the Prime Minister.
Caught with her hand in the cookie jar of iron sheets meant for Karamoja sub-region, the honourable minister has apologized as forlornly as she can. Were we not brimming with foolery, we would bare our teeth like rabid dogs at all those implicated in
the iron sheets scandal.
Instead, our foolishness has us listening to their shameless explanations; apparently, the iron sheets miraculously located them. Let us honour our foolishness and ask: will they who have dishonoured our Ugandans, resign and face prosecution?
Let us honour our fountain of honour and disabuse ourselves of our steadfast grip on foolishness. In honour of 1986, my fellow fools, rouse yourselves from the soft slumber of the liberated quislings.
Perhaps then, honour will gush forth from the fountain that leads us. Stop embarrassing the president; he too deserves to go abroad and say good things about the fools he has led since 1986.
The writer is a tayaad muzzukulu
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