Kategaya, Ssali Are Museveni’s Best Friends
May 25, 2003
SIR — One tree, however huge, does not make a forest! I am deeply disappointed by the character the NRM is taking on. In the New vision of May 19, President Museveni is said to have told off Bidandi Ssali as a mere spoke in the wheel and that he could leave the Movement if he wanted.
SIR — One tree, however huge, does not make a forest! I am deeply disappointed by the character the NRM is taking on. In the New vision of May 19, President Museveni is said to have told off Bidandi Ssali as a mere spoke in the wheel and that he could leave the Movement if he wanted. Ironically, Bidandi Ssali is now going to head the interim national executive committee of the NRM! What a spoke! there was never such hostility during the early years of the Movement! It seems things have begun falling apart. To begin with, the lie that everybody, by law, belonged to the Movement, is now being exposed. Where is Bidandi Ssali supposed to go? secondly, and most important, when Museveni tells bidandi Ssali that Ssali is only a spoke, he is conceding that a wheel needs spokes. It is painfully obvious that Ssali is not the only dissenting ‘spoke’. If the President alienates all the ‘spokes’ how will the mighty wheel fare? Museveni is far better off having Eriya Kategaya and Bidandi Ssali in the NRM than most of the praise singers who call themselves NRM diehards. The two men are true statesmen and not opportunistic politicians. As Kategaya has said, if it is true that there is nobody to replace Museveni, that can only mean the Movement has failed. Why is Museveni being so legalistic? Why can’t he come out and tell Ugandans honestly and eloquently that he will vie for the third term or not, and end the farce? The two men are Museveni’s best friends because they are honest. It would be a pity if, after all the NRM has done for Uganda, under the leadership of President Museveni, everything was undone and we returned to chaos. Museveni should recognise that he has etched an enviable niche in the history of Uganda. He has done many things which Ugandan leaders before him failed to do.
He is best advised to value that status so that he can be remembered reverently. Look at Mobutu! After amassing personal wealth, greater than his country’s GDP, he is buried in a foreign land as if he had no home! Milton Obote, the first executive president of Uganda is a lonely old man still churning out idle rhetoric in exile. Wouldn’t he be better off playing with his grandchildren at home? Museveni deserves to retire with dignity like Julius Nyerere or Nelson Mandela and become an icon of good leadership and statesmanship that is so painfully lacking in Africa. His position is assured in the annals of African history if power does not go to his head. In Sowing the mustard seed, he says the restoration of constitutionalism was one of the reasons he and his colleagues struggled for so long. He should not discard that vision for transient glory.
J. Mbaroraburora
Jinja
He is best advised to value that status so that he can be remembered reverently. Look at Mobutu! After amassing personal wealth, greater than his country’s GDP, he is buried in a foreign land as if he had no home! Milton Obote, the first executive president of Uganda is a lonely old man still churning out idle rhetoric in exile. Wouldn’t he be better off playing with his grandchildren at home? Museveni deserves to retire with dignity like Julius Nyerere or Nelson Mandela and become an icon of good leadership and statesmanship that is so painfully lacking in Africa. His position is assured in the annals of African history if power does not go to his head. In Sowing the mustard seed, he says the restoration of constitutionalism was one of the reasons he and his colleagues struggled for so long. He should not discard that vision for transient glory.
J. Mbaroraburora
Jinja