The rain which fell on Wednesday gave us Subsistence farmers a sigh of relief! At least for now, my 20 cabbage plants, 20 tomato plants and seven coffee plants can breath. Yes, because I am not doing this in Lubigi or Kinawataka wetlands! For your information, I have an ataano ku kikumi (50×100) plot on which I sleep and also do my farming of sorts!
So, since yesterday I was a happy man until someone forwarded a message on my phone suggesting that former LoP Mathias Mpuuga had said that drunkards and smokers cannot remove President Museveni from power.
I immediately rushed to our usual pork joint (though I don’t eat it) to catch a small chat with fellow subsistence farmers about this statement.
But what I am sure of is the fact that none of us is interested in that politics anyway. However, what caught our attention is the choice of words by our politicians when dealing with challenging situations!
The alleged words attributed to Mpuuga trying to ‘demean’ drunkards and smokers reminded me of the words of President Museveni when he faced a revolt from among his ministers and NRA comrades. This was at the time of amending the constitution to lift the presidential term limits. A group called Parliamentary Advocacy Forum (PAFO) comprised of members like Miria Matembe, Adolph Mwesigye, Augustine Ruzindana, Emmanuel Dombo, Sarah Kiyingi, Eriya Kategaya among others came out to give a divergent view on this proposed amendment suggesting that it was meant to benefit Museveni who badly needed a third term.
President Museveni in responding to the ‘rebel’ group termed it as ‘Malwa Group’! ‘Malwa’ is a local brew enjoyed mostly in slums and remote joints. It’s cheap, sweet and above all, brings people together to discuss issues affecting them. Some men also go here to improve on their bedroom diet as they meet ‘speaking projects’ in such interactions!
The ‘Malwa’ group accepted Museveni’s label and kept on with its rhetoric but with little success and majority of its members later returned to the NRM fold!
Gen. Museveni’s choice of words and reactions to situations is what brought me here today.
In 2010 during a closed-door NRM NEC meeting at Entebbe, delegates confronted Chairman Museveni with a big question. They wondered why he was hobnobbing with FDC strong lady Beatrice Anywar (now minister) to the extent of giving her a secret password to access him whenever she wanted unlike the NRM people who struggle with writing letters or calling State House switchboard to fix appointment with him most of which however, never happen. Museveni (according to those who attended it), first smiled before responding in a mixture of both Kabaka’s language and that of the Queen.
“Members, bino ebya Anywar, leave those ones to me. Eno mukisenge temukubayo nnyo ttooki. Bino byaffe” (members, leave Anywar issues to me. Don’t peep into our bedroom issues so much). When he said this, the delegates who were bitter in asking him immediately burst into rib-breaking laughter!
From that statement, they confirmed that for all intent and purpose, they could count Anywar in (NRM) than out of the bus, and indeed as time went by, Anywar officially joined and is right now in Kyankwanzi speaking ‘NRM Oyee, Museveni Abeewo’ slogans!
Similarly, in 2011, when youths became a big issue and Museveni couldn’t keep telling them the ‘Twalwana (we fought Amin) story anymore’, he was advised that identifying with them and their challenges would work for him in campaigns. During this period, many youths had resorted to music and most of them including Eddie Kenzo whose Stamina song was doing rounds were indeed struggling in their career!
Museveni immediately took to the music studios to record a Dancehall hit called Mpenkoni. And oh yes, it worked for him rendering Kizza Besigye, Abed Bwanika etc useless again in those campaigns.
In 2016, Museveni again saw nothing much to keep him appealing to the youths. He thus collected all artists including ‘drunkards and smokers’ in Kampala to coin for him a campaign song Tubonga Naawe. Most of these would appear on his rallies heavily loaded with ‘bottled airtime’ but pulled crowds for him. Eventually, he carried the day beating Besigye again and Amama Mbabazi! Remember, in all these efforts, Bobi Wine didn’t feature and he kept singing his songs about the social injustices sometimes appearing in videos while puffing!
Two years later, ‘puff daddy’ (Bobi Wine) would terribly trounce NRM, FDC etc to win the Kyaddondo East MP by-election before appearing on the ballot as a presidential candidate in 2021!
All along however, Bobi’s group comprised of all sorts of people many of whom were drunkards never mind smokers but put up a spirited fight! These would go an extra mile and formed a strong force of ‘soldiers’ on social media platforms and attacked whoever went against their principal to date!
Museveni with his carrot and stick approach, ended up caging some of them but also engaging many of them with sweets! Eventually, the likes of (toxic) ‘General’ Full Figure, Catherine Kusasira and Buchaman came to be appointed Presidential Advisors! These continue to market Museveni among fellow ghetto youth including drunkards and smokers! On the other hand, some of them like Kusasira are now planning to stand for Member of Parliament to join where Rt. Hon. Mathias Mpuuga also earns his bread as an MP. But whether he (Mpuuga) said it intentionally or it was a slip of the tongue, Gen. Museveni must be laughing his heart out as the feud between Mpuuga and Bobi keeps escalating and has now extended to debating the character of NUP supporters something Museveni always avoids knowing that majority Ugandans and booze are inseparable! That’s why he has prioritized availability of maximum security to bars even as many of them play Bobi Wine’s music and not his Mpenkoni song! He has neither left the drunkards on the mercy of terrorists nor setting police to arrest and or close those bars. He instead, attacks drunkards tactfully through heavy taxation of the drinks they take to become drunk and the following day he returns to the same group to appeal for reelection which they indeed gladly do! That’s how even his ‘Malwa’ group members ended up returning to him and some are still serving in powerful NRM and government positions! Therefore, the more the NUP battle escalates the better for Museveni to fish out more drunkards and smokers to work for him as 2026 knocks on the door and yet he will continue to tax their favorite substances!
Meanwhile, he has thrown to them PDM money and Emyooga targeting whoever cares to register in a group never mind his or her character! Let me rush back to mulch my garden. See you Saturday!
The writer is a Subsistence Farmer from Wakiso
