Many writers and talkers have claimed that in choosing to reinstate his name, Tibuhabura, which translates as the one who is never advised, Yoweri Museveni sought to remind the world that he had neither friends nor took advice from anyone.
But this contention is theoretically and practically impossible. The British poet, John Donne was right when he noted that “no man is an island entire of himself/ Every man is a piece of the continent.”
While John Donne meant to argue for our collective humanity as humankind, this is true about individual persons. Indeed, African tradition is replete with sobering reflections on friendship and teammates.
Every person has their trusted friends. Even the meanest of them all has a friend with whom they confide in each other. This friend can call them out privately and confidently. They could be colleagues, or friends in different fields – but agree over their collective existence and mission.
They could be of equal rank or different ranks. In their friendship, even in diametric difference of opinion, one understands that the other means no harm, nor are they selfishly setting them up. Even Sobbi had trusted friends.
Surely when running a thing as gigantic as a country, one needs their trusted friends to constantly check their guts. Not just trusted employable hands such as Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka, journalist and family friend Andrew Mwenda or his in-laws in Edwin Karugire and Odrek Rwabwogo who he endlessly deploys.
Neither do I mean folks in CMI, CID, senior UPDF officers and others in this category. But close buddies. Nfa nfe. Museveni’s co-president, and brother, Gen Salim Saleh would fit this role.
But I am not sure Saleh is the only close friend with whom they ‘whisper together’ on even personal matters. Besides, Salim Saleh appears to have a peculiar set of passions – specifically negotiating deals – than actually running the country or intimating about life and death, and long-term interests. Maybe I underestimate the fellow. But again, he cannot be the only one.
DID THE BAHIMA EVER REALLY MEET?
There is a meeting that is claimed to have sat sometime in the early 1990s where folks in Museveni Bahima subclan met and deliberated about how to run Uganda for the next 100 years – or was it more? Having even seen the minutes and the names of the attendees, I had believed that meeting actually took place.
But over the years, I have become sceptical this meeting actually never happened. Because, for a dream like that to be realised, it has to follow a clear-cut plan: (a) ought to be rooted in the regime’s ability to reproduce itself, especially through successive presidents – and not around one mortal individual; (b) strong footing in the economy – and here I mean the economy, not just disposable cash. (We could add a third factor, not to be rooted in ethnic identity but, rather, a set of interests.
This could be explored another day). Indeed, the closest nearest example is Tanzania’s CCM or Iran’s Khomeini institution or China’s Communist Party. Because neither of this is happening ever since this alleged meeting took place, it is possible they neither met or if they did (which appears more likely), neither of them understood the assignment they had set up for themselves.
The other possibility is that comrade brother Yoweri Museveni reneged on this agenda. But presently, they seem stuck, anxious and disjointed.
Because after these years, the Bahima or even the bigger unit, Bairu, do not have a president in waiting – a man or woman fully established, articulate, and exposed to the world. Instead, all hopes – present and future – seem to be buttressed in a single individual. Are there plans to smuggle a successor onto the country? Or have they staked their futures in PLU’s standby generator?
Again, they do not even have a toe in the economy. If the Museveni crowd and associates are not scrambling around for government tenders and deals, they are fighting for jobs in the public service. If they are not fighting for ordinary people markets, they are chasing Baganda off their land.
How is this stable – for a 100-year project?! I cannot stop to wonder how, after 40 years in power, Museveni’s clan isn’t established and monopolizing real money: manufacturing, banking, telecommunication, resale chains, transport and distribution, agro-business, power or resource extraction. How did they agree to hand all these things to foreigners when they had a 100-year project?
Why Museveni’s friends now?
Dear reader, I am looking for Museveni’s friends not to make them feel bad about the raw deal they received from their supposed benefactor. Neither is it my intention to remind them about the uncertainty that is likely to befall them if their man suddenly disappears. But, rather, I am looking for Museveni’s friends to remind them about the fluidity of revolutionary moments.
I want to notify them that sadly, ironically, their own, selfish interests are closely tied with our collective survival and stability. And yes, despite not being one of them, I am reminding them that they still have a chance to change course.
I am working with the assumption that among these bosom friends of Yoweri Museveni, their benefactor Yoweri Museveni is the oldest – and currently most vulnerable – of all of them.
He is the target of all bodily stresses and political schemes and wrangling. To this end (unfortunately), I am reminding them about the urgent need to secure their interests: plead with this man to give you – and country – a chance when he still can.
In writing to Museveni last week, I noted that there is power in certainty. Comrade Yoweri Museveni still has the chance to spend his last days as a statesman seated on the side watching the news, growling at the TV screen, or simply sipping his bushera – okuhuuta – and enjoying the sight of his long-horned cattle.
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University. The Observer