Immediately after the ousting of Dr Milton Obote by Idi Amin Dada, Radio Uganda regularly played a popular Tanzanian Morogoro Jazz band melody of the lyric “Oh, Pole Dada”.
To the ears of the Kiswahili-famished Ugandan programmers, and possibly to the average Uganda public, this reference to “Pole Dada” seemed to be a curtain-raiser of applause for the new epoch of the celebrity of Idi Amin. Only keen listeners knew that the song was not actually about the heroics of Amin; rather, its true translation was, “Oh, sorry sister/young lady”.
The Idi Amin flourish was known for its consuming wrath. The slightest declaration against the existence of the regime could brook mayhem. The playing of false words in purported praise of the regime was one tested way of ingratiation for safe passage.
Throughout history, members of society have had to cultivate such devious techniques to ward off displeasures of those who hold the power of life and death over them. Any appearance before a stern emperor of the realm had to be composed to a meek demeanor.
Insults from the scions of power had to be absorbed in great fortitude with pleasant bows and kowtowing even if one was inwardly seething with pent-up rage. One only hoped that the day of reckoning would soon arrive so that their notorious over-lords could be made pre-history.
Apart from this kind of temperament in the general population, there have also been other groups in society with a different knack. These specialize in the art of currying favors and soliciting for positions, not for improvement of the social conditions in their midst, but for a cut for themselves amongst their rulers so that they may escape the misery of their communities.
Like a supple serpent, they are adept at weaving around corridors of power. Feigning to be the most ardent and faithful spokespersons of the rulers, they methodically worm their way to a stool of trust from where they exhibit the highest intolerance towards the slightest attention to the plight of others and of society. In politics, we categorize these as opportunists, careerists and vagrants.
This group is best typified in the animal world by flies, scavengers and vultures. These have no inherent capacity to kill a single prey on their own volition. They derive their livelihood only by teeming and feasting on the remains of a hunt by other predators.
To their credit, however, these creatures may well be serving nature’s ways. There is frugal distribution of resources in the food chain by some beasts specializing in chewing off flesh from the carcasses; flies and vultures partake what has not been gobbled up; others crunch bones or scoop out available bone-marrow while the likes of microscopic organisms attend to final degradation, decomposition and disposal of the rest of the residues.
But, unlike in nature, the opportunists and careerists in society are not owed a direct word of honor for their conduct. They do not provide any solutions to social circumstances. Their parasitic lifestyle only prolongs society’s travails, loading the population with too much dead-weight and baggage.
At such juncture, society becomes restless from political decay. Broader sections in the population then step forward and produce different creeds and political views about addressing the social plight. Only in this sense can the opportunists be said to cause calibrating of politics and sounding the reveille for fresh social principles.
During serious outbreaks of social debates and confrontations, the opportunists, who normally lack the stature of political convictions, become weakened. They retire to the back seats preferring, as usual, to wait for winning sides to facilitate their frothing upwards in the future when the situation ripens.
This context demands that those who pronounce themselves to be political leaders in Uganda ought now to be seen in the frontline beaming and bristling with ideas about alternatives they embrace for the country to move out of the obtaining gridlock by the current opportunists. But no parts of such critical political questions are recognized as remotely existing at all.
Instead, we are frequently lured that the main question in Uganda today is the holding of “free and fair elections” based on some perceived “constitutional reforms”. The nexus is shifted from the arena of politics and its organization purely to the constitution and the letters of law.
Besides, no one hints at how the acclaimed legal reforms are to be brought into life. If the NRM leaders are presumed to be the mainstay and beneficiaries of the present-day setup, why are they bombarded with reform demands? What motive can they have to accede to change the law as to deprive themselves of power?
The very politicians incessantly complaining of the inadequacy of the law turn out every time to contest for positions applying the same allegedly flawed laws.
Others are delightfully declaring candidatures of themselves in elections which have not yet been programmed. The country is thus at a loss, whether the opportunists are only amongst those wallowing in power within the NRM or those clamoring for power by the different groups serving to mask other brands of arrant opportunists.
The country has had enough of those demanding for positions over our society. We need sincere discourse from different voices how our country can break out of the hold of the opportunists from meddling with its affairs.
The author is the publicity secretary of NRM historical leaders’ forum.