Hon. Nsibambi and Kampala’s underground political network

I should tell you dear reader, I greeted the news of Hon. Yusuf Nsibambi joining NRM with satisfaction.

I’m not being cynical. It is good for country at two levels: (a) we become more honest as a country, and (b) the timing of his decision ought to help us focus on the urgent but often forgotten conversation of transition.

Is everyone else in electoral politics NRM but pretending to act opposition? Will acknowledging the persistence of the Movement System – ending the pretense of multipartyism – help stop the jailings and kidnaps, since we’ll all be NRM?

I will start this story from the beginning. While, I believe many activists and [electoral] politicians – by far the majority – after a period in the struggle, finally lose their oomph, get exhausted (or more rightly, their shelflives reach their breaking point) and thereby decide to join the oppressor, there are hundreds of politicians and activists simply using the badge of opposition to scheme their way into [Museveni’s] things.

I’m not saying Hon. Nsibambi is one of these opportunistic fellas, but that his decision to finally, officially crossover to Museveni’s side is instructive. (Just as those men and women who crossed before him).

Had Hon. Nsibambi lived this opportunistic, double life – camouflaging as opposition (which I do not believe is the case), he has finally become more honest with the country. He has come around and displayed his true identity.

But we cannot be entirely sure about whether he is not simply “performing friendship” with NRM – and opposition remains his true identity. Whatever the case, to this end, the country does not require of him any radical positions against the status quo.

After Nsibambi, and those who crossed before him, the country has to beware that many more “comrades in the struggle” are sheep in wolves skin. They are wearing opposition jackets but under them are yellow T-shirts.

Some have Museveni tattoos on their covered skins. These are even more dangerous – because they have misled many genuine souls ending in their arrests. Soon, soon indeed, we’ll see many removing their green, red, and blue jackets revealing their yellow T-shirts, vests and tattoos.

This revelation often comes as a requirement from the boss to shed off the camouflage for more direct deployment. Not that they were spies, but their cast required of them to be counted among opposition.

POLITICS LIKE A SEXUAL NETWORK

Discussing the recently concluded election with folks active in electoral politics, one is entertained to lengthy tales about Kampala’s political network. Like the way sexual networks have come to be known in anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns, with the idea that while intercourse is with one individual, one finds themselves sleeping with many others through their current partner.

In this case, the contention is who is quietly, privately, behind closed doors activists and opposition politicians, but are in bed with Yoweri Museveni through his network: the network includes more fondly, Gen. Salim Saleh, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Minister Janet Kataha, and later spreads out to Speaker Anita Among and so on.

“Did you know,” the narrator begins, “opposition politician X’s campaign money came from Gen. Salim Saleh directly? They visit his hotel veiled like Muslim women.”

Another narrator tells you, “Those NUP boys X and Y are actually Gen. Muhoozi’s boys – through whom he influences so and so and channels money to so and so?”

They continue: “That DP woman is a girlfriend of Gen. Saleh’s close associate, so and so. That candidate had all his campaign funds from the office of the speaker. That activist, can say all they want because they are Janat Museveni’s people,” and they challenge, “Where have you been, Yusuf, not to know these things?”

Have you not heard the one about Bobi Wine? Anha, that one, he is hiding in Gen. Salim Saleh’s house. Yes, that is why they cannot arrest him. Nandala Mafabi? “That one has been promised a ministerial position.

He fell in things. Where do you think he got his campaign funds from? Gen. Saleh. I’m telling you.” “You see that other man, Anita Among bought him new wheels for his campaigns. This city?!”

How about Luzzi? Munyagwa? How about activist so and so? Those get their money directly from Muhoozi. Dear reader, while these stories sound like fiction, despite being told by arguably serious people, they reveal a peculiar ugly realty: That activists and electoral opposition politicians are not what they claim to be.

That we should be suspicious about all of them. Indeed, we have become. These stories become even more undeniable when news of Nobert Mao, and Twaha Kagabo crossing over emerge. Then Hon. Joyce Ssebugwawo, then Hon. Nsibambi. We are now waiting with bated breath: who next?

IT IS NRM VS NRM-OPPOSITION

With parties splitting over this political-sexual network, and hitherto opposition folks taking positions in the NRM, and opposition fellas endlessly fighting each other, one is forced to believe all these wild tales at once.

Indeed, Museveni was right about having finished off the opposition – as what remains seem like actors on a big stage. What then happens to the young people rotting in jails for their support of these “opposition” politicians?

What is the fate of stoic opposition individuals (Dr Besigye, Hajj Lutale) who are in jail and counting on the work of “comrades” outside? How about those maimed or killed in the name of opposition politics?

How then we will see a transition claimed to emerge from competitive politics when the incumbent actually has no competitors – but actors? Nsibambi and others become even more instructive in this context, that the [electoral] opposition is not only unreliable but rather has all been co-opted.

The wananchi understand that they have one enemy in different clothes: the NRM itself, and NRM-Opposition.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.