Behind the mushrooming short-lived youth groups

Politics is the art and management of a society. "Majority of the greatest men the world has ever seen are those who educated themselves outside the lecture room" Pan Africanist Marcus Garvey, 1923.

There is a growing trend in Uganda which must be tamed as soon as possible lest Uganda's next generation will crumble before it reaches the finishing line. Youth groups are being formed every day by politicians and civil servants who harbor political ambitions to permeate patronage and thus kick subordinates and superiors out of the way. After hitting the target, the youth are then dumped and with no back up positioning, these youth become too desperate to do anything so as to survive.

Towards elections, many vibrant factional youth groups sprung up disguising as mobilization groups but essentially being orchestrated by big figures within the political circles from behind the scenes. These Youth Groups use all sorts of avenues to court attention and such avenues include social media, press conferences, demonstrations and activities that would have been a reserve of the Government.

Leading Youth Groups as of 2016 include, Youth for National Salvation (YONASA), the Jobless Brotherhood, NRM Aggrieved Youth, NRM Poor Youth, National Crime Preventers' Forum, NRM Ideology, Youth Go Green Uganda, Uganda's Next Generation, Power 10 (P10), Sauti Ya Vijana, Pro M7 Poor Youth, etc.

Reflecting on fathers of the ruling NRM party, particularly President Museveni and his core youth group, they had a well-structured organization of liberation activism unlike nowadays. Their unalterable position was that they were only prepared to shed blood for the sake of principles and for the sake of the organization and never for the sake of an individual. This teaches us to distance ourselves from the search for privileges & petty which many of us and our leaders fall prey to. Let's be innovative, objectively-focused and goal-oriented.

 In 1971, President Museveni went ahead to make a tactical compromise and tasted a little bit of the Monkey's meat when his carried food got finished as he tried to procure liberation fire-arms in the steep mountains of Zaire. Do today's youth have that heartedly focus and sacrifice?

Why these Youth Groups are formed

Patronage; These Youth groups may vary in organizational structure, vibrancy and membership but the uniting factor is Patronage as each politician wants to claim to have a big following, for instance, the initiators of Crime Prevention would boast of eleven million members who are loyal to NRM but President Museveni got less than six million votes. What went wrong?

Hand Outs & Quack Promises; Politics is a two way. Man eateth where he worketh. Value for money is a priority in return. With skyrocketing levels of unemployment, politicians will use all sorts of avenues to hoodwink them on appointments. Youth are too vulnerable and have thus resorted to mere financial handouts from those politicians and politically oriented civil servants who want to dupe superior authorities that they have a big following. An unemployed youth living in Kampala will do anything to survive even if it means carrying pigs to Parliament or demonstrating on streets.

Scheming & Relevancy; Scheming is the center of any political competition. Many Youth who have been rejected by voters in recognized electoral systems are the ones mainly behind the creation of these minority pressure youth groups so as to keep relevant and get appointments, for instance, some members who  lost during the NRM Youth League and Youth Council elections.

Undoubtedly, after tactfully hitting the hidden targets and agendas, the schemers always abandon such Youth groups to rot. Its' important to note that politicians or schemers would invest in their money to have these youth groups sprung up because it becomes costly to fund and maintain these groups if at all they are still intact.

Youth being unpredictable, demographic groups are hard to appease for long and will thus trade off their services and loyalty so as to survive and reach the next level. Along the way, some are compromised and bought off and thus cross over as others act as spies.

Consequently, Schemers who start up these Youth Groups end up painting a bad image to the Government. For instance, many youth were used as Police constables during elections with hopes of being recruited into the policing related activities afterwards but were later dumped with some not even paid. And some of these Youth are seen backing defiance demonstrations.

It is also a bad lesson for our youthful generation as we are tempted to grow up with such unpatriotic mentalities of divide and rule, hegemony, patronage, selfishness, chauvinism and parochialism. Youth in the end, become too disillusioned with Government and no longer view it as helpful but rather as oppressors and exploiters.

Youth, in our increasingly jobless state let's follow political developments closely if you are politically ambitious - not just because of career seeking, but also involve ourselves into a political cell of nationalist-minded young people and oppose being used by the hypocrisy and intrigued political atmospheres.

I believe the solution is in our hands as youth, not upon the government, parents, or any other stakeholder.

Youth, biologically cannot achieve much without a proper ideology.  Finally, at Corruption Free Generation Uganda, our slogan is, ‘…it starts with me & you'                                      

The writer is the director of programmes at the corruption free generation Uganda