Unsowing The Mustered Seed

UNSOWING THE MUSTARD SEED

Writing about leadership and politics in Uganda at large is one of the most interesting attempts any author can ever undertake. At a personal level, I won’t dwell much onto Uganda’s history because it has been given quite adequate attention by many historians and writers; in any case, I am not aged enough to have followed the entire sequence of historical events. This is why this book focuses on Museveni’s government, his deeds and the general political, social-economic environment since 1986 to date.

 

Choosing a title Uganda’s Komanyoko Politics:

Unsowing the Mustard Seed is not by chance, but rather by experience. As an open-minded author, who also doubles as an activist and politician, I will have done a disservice if I don’t share with you what is believed to be the history of the word “Komanyoko”.

Historically, and factually the word Komanyoko isn’t a Luganda word. In fact, it is a misspelt, mispronounced and misused word of Swahili origin. The indigenous Swahili phrase from which “Komanyoko” is derived is “Kuma ya mama yako, ” literally means “your mother’s private parts.” It is believed that this abusive phrase was used by Kenyan truck-drivers to insult Ugandans whenever a disagreement arose. Because the Baganda couldn’t easily and perfectly pronounce the phrase, “Kuma ya mama yako, ” they simplified and

summarised it into “Komanyoko. ” I may be wrong, but 14 | P a g e

my prediction is that he who summarized the phrase didn’t understand how vulgar and insulting such a statement was. Therefore, Baganda in my view being one of the most cultural, civilized and disciplined tribes in Uganda couldn’t have borrowed such a statement into their language had they known its real meaning. It is a pity that such a derogatory word has since been borrowed and incorporated into most Ugandan Bantu languages despite its vulgar meaning, and so is Uganda’s politics which is characterized by abusive statements, lies, greed, compromise, malice and blackmail.

Militant as he dressed, young as he was, brilliant and patriotic to many as he seemed, educated as believed before the bald spread across his entire head standing at the main entrance of Parliament of Uganda on January 26, 1986, President Museveni said that “Africa’s biggest

problem are leaders who overstay in power. He added

that, what is happening today is not a mere change

of guards but a fundamental change.” To his believers, and indeed to many Ugandans, Museveni’s NRA protracted violent struggle that led to the loss of close to one million Ugandans in greater Luwero Triangle and Uganda at large was as a result of evident injustices, unconstitutionalism, excess abuse of power, state inspired killings of innocent people, lawlessness, tribalism and nepotism, government intolerance towards those with different political opinions, vote rigging and abuse of human rights by previous leaders and governments. One wonders whether what is mentioned has changed, more of the same or even worse. I have no doubt that as you finish reading this book you will find an answer to this question.

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When you read, Sowing the Mustard Seed, you will realize that President Museveni was ready to do anything as long as it would lead him into power and, henceforth consolidate it no matter the cost, which among others included and still includes bloodshed. In fact many believe that Mr. Museveni would go an extra mile to practice sorcery should this be the only way that would help him keep in power. This is why it is rumoured that a one Merida was Mr. Museveni’s witchdoctor during the NRA struggle, a reason why, to date, a song titled Merida is one of the most sung motivational and inspirational songs in any military training schools. Its chorus partly goes: Mama Merida Eehh… Merida weh…. Merida Mzuri Sana…

All this is evidence of his obsession with violence as a means of capturing power, just as he states in his dissertation, “Fanon’s Theory on Violence: Its Verification in Liberated Mozambique.”

Following my passion of digging deeper into Museveni’s theory of violence and belief in guns as a means to justify the end, I was glad to meet one of his friends (names withheld) who had this to say, “…you see Museveni’s

violence hasn’t just started, if there is any man I have

seen or met whose passion for guns is unimaginable,

it’s Museveni!” It is rumoured that a young Museveni, while on his visit to Cuba to meet Fidel Castro in the mid 60’s or thereabout, he [Museveni] admired Castro’s military dressing code, and the mustache which would later be a signature NRA beard, but most importantly a revolver pistol placed around Castro’s waist. As the visit came to an end, Museveni couldn’t swallow his love for Castro’s pistol.

He asked for it to be offered to him as a gift, something Castro did without hesitation. In any case, what was a pistol to Fidel! It is this pistol, Museveni’s first gun that he would subsequently use in Mozambique as a FRELIMO

trainee.

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THE KOMANYOKO POLITICS

There is no doubt that I have done my best to define this word Komanyoko in my introduction. As such, this specific chapter aims at digging deeper into how vulgar Uganda’s politics is. While appearing on one of the local media houses, Hon. Norbert Mao described Uganda’s politics as Komanyoko Politics. To me, this was interesting and I had to dig deeper to find out why Hon.

Mao had termed our politics so. Komanyoko politics means politics of malice, fights, insults, greed, revenge, lies, and blackmail among others. At one point Dr. Apollo Milton Obote (RIP) called Museveni and his guerrillas, bandits. He added that he would find those bandits in the Luwero jungles, capture them, finish all of them and leave their skeletons there as he returns to Kampala to continue with his presidency. Interestingly though, the hunter would soon be the hunted as we all know that the then bandits captured Kampala and took charge while Obote ran to exile. The Baganda say that enyonyi enkulu y’eyigiriza ento okubuuka (it is the old bird which teaches the young ones how to fly). Therefore, in our political and governance case, Museveni and other young birds learned their flying “skills” from Obote and other past leaders. Because Museveni is Obote‟s political student, he has equally mastered the art of malice, fights, insults, greed, revenge, lies, and blackmail among others. In fact, Museveni is worse than Obote, if Obote was bad anyway.

Museveni accused Obote of being tribalistic for appointing majority Langi in the UPC government but he 17 | P a g e

who was against such tribalistic tendencies appointed his dear wife Janet Kataha first as Minister in charge of Karamoja and then Minister of Education and Sports; his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba at some point as Commander Special Forces Command, Presidential Advisor on Security, and recently Commander Land Forces and most likely we may see him as either Chief of Defense Forces, Minister or even a Presidential Candidate. As you may be aware his brother Rtd Gen.

Salim Saleh, is more-or-less Uganda’s de facto President.

We now wonder who is fooling who!

 

We all remember that Museveni has always called Amin an idiot and swine, forgetting that Amin left remarkable and visible achievements that would later be destroyed by Museveni himself. Years ago, he said that some people would not understand unless you tell them to go and eat their mother’s something something…; he has always termed the opposition as parasites, calls oppositions’ ideas rubbish and nonsensical; and of recent, he calls murderers pigs/swine. Do we remember when he said, “If you want trouble, pock your finger into the anus of a leopard”? The angry Museveni uttered this while responding to Christopher Aine’s attack onto NRM

supporters in Ntungamo at the peak of 2015-16 general elections. One wonders who the anus is and who the finger is! Like I have earlier stated in this chapter, young birds get their flying skills from the old ones, a reason why we can’t blame the vulgar language in Uganda’s politics onto the opposition leaders.

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