Given what we are going through regarding manipulation by NRM and President Museveni not wishing to leave power, I stand out to advocate for a strategy that can see Buganda as a a region break away from Uganda's marriage for convenience which is proving a liability for the people in Buganda given that NRM leadership is at liberty to use what is at its disposal to see continued bad governance of the country as we look on. Many of us see avenues that can see Buganda which has existed for not less than 800 years regain its glory. The way Southern Sudan is doing it. This is not for selfish reasons, but when we get leaders who think that they are leading fools, then we are forced to do things as wise people would. A lot is going on during NRM time of administration which is unacceptable. Much as we still have so many people who are illiterate or semi literate we shall not be taken for a ride all the time. A man comes to be in office for 4 years and he now wants to be in office for 30 years! And even then he keeps dictating because he is at liberty to use the army and other arms of Government. He is at liberty to get whatever money he wants to do missions which are not a priority, we are looking on as the currency; Uganda Shilling depreciates. We know that the awarding of district status is a mandate of some authority, he is having his own yardstick to give any area that is asking for a district to have it! Surely, has Uganda sank so low? W deserve better. Merely because Museveni wants to remain in power is no passport to have policies which are to sink the country further.
However, I think no Muganda or person in Buganda worth his salt can wish Kabaka Mutebi to be President of a Federal Republic of Buganda. So, just keep him out of this proposal as proposed by myself.
William Kituuka Kiwanuka
SAVE KABAKA MUTEBI FROM PRESIDENT RONAL MUTEBI
Written by Tony Owana Thursday, 24 June 2010 14:03
Share
History is said to repeat itself, but there is no law that forces us to make history repeat itself, especially when such a repeat triggers off a well-known sequence.
At least that is the queasy feeling I got when I heard it repeated that Sabasajja Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, Kabaka of Buganda, should not hesitate to try for President of the Republic of Uganda.
Royal Republican
Over five years ago, a leading NRM light who wanted Kabaka Mutebi to steer clear of competitive politics bluntly advised that if he wanted political power, all positions right from LC I to state house were contestable.
Just last year, a top Mengo minister told viewers on Tony Owana's BAROMETER show at NBS television that there was nothing illegal about the Kabaka aspiring to the presidency of Uganda like any other citizen. Those who ignored Owek. Seggona Kalyamaggwa's poignant remark will pay in heavy coin in future…
Nearly fifty years ago, Baganda traditionalists who were genuinely convinced that the Kabaka had to be 'Citizen Number 1' even in a united Uganda, joined forces with clever opportunists to endorse Kabaka Edward Frederick Muteesa II of Buganda as President of Uganda. The late journalist Colin Legum cheekily but appropriately described President Muteesa as 'The Royal Republican', which however sent no warning into the minds of local praise-worshippers.
The contradiction was in a hereditary ruler taking charge of a constitutional republican democracy.
Primus Inter pares
In his own 'Desecration of My kingdom', Sir Edward Muteesa expressed his "first twinge of foreboding "when Obote rather than he presided over the flag-raising event that marked Uganda's independence in 1962.
He saw in it an unfair shift in prerogatives, correctly noting that it is his ancestors (rather than Obote's) whose activities had shaped modern Uganda. Sir Edward noted that in relation to the rest of Uganda, he and his subjects were to be considered 'primus inter pares'; first among equals.
A few years later, the late Dr. Naphtali Akena Adoko was to write in his 'The Uganda Crisis' that " No dead man has the right to rule the living, either directly through his own ghost or indirectly through heirs".
He was talking about kings in direct reference to President Muteesa who had just been ousted in a putsch. This was heralded by the UPC as 'The 1966 Revolution', while others called it a crisis.
Colonel Ronald?
Two weeks ago, a Luganda daily newspaper 'Kamunye' published a front-page image of 'Colonel Ronald Muwenda Mutebi' in battle fatigues, sending our millions of praise-worshippers into a frenzy.
Don't waste your time lecturing that the photo was computer-generated. The message that the Kabaka deserved to be a Colonel at the very lowest was more important.
So zealous were the praise-worshippers that they begged the Creator to turn the imagination into reality.
One youth told me with a straight face that the NRM/NRA had denied the king his true military rank for a very long time but that the 'unstoppable truth' was finally coming out!
Hoima sermon
And just a week ago, President Museveni again repeated his favourite exhortation to traditional rulers to steer clear of partisan politics lest they burn their fingers.
The most sensational scoop of the event, which was Omukama Solomon Iguru's coronation anniversary in Hoima, appeared in 'The Observer'. The bi-weekly quoted the President as (literally) swearing to behead Kabaka Ronald Mutebi for involving himself in anti-NRM politics.
'The Observer' is still apologising over this scoop, but anti-NRM activists are letting everybody know how 'Observer' editors were threatened with death and other sinister reprisals if they did not declare their original story to be lies.
The impression circulating on the internet is that the Kabaka of Buganda is facing the direst tribulations in the kingdom's history and that Obote's 1966 coup was a tea party by comparison.
Someone somewhere is psychologically preparing ordinary people to expect the worst from their own elected government!
Royal Republican II
Finally, some top Baganda politicians are now openly putting Buganda up for political investors to buy political shares, which they will cash after the 2011 elections.
The brokers and touts simply ask the suitors what they promise for the kingdom in exchange for Buganda's hand in marriage. It is likely to be a very polyandrous marriage; very many husbands for a single wife!
But at the Eleventh Hour, all these suitors are likely to be informed that the only safe guarantee for THE NAMUNSWA is for THE NAMUNSWA to occupy the country's most powerful office, a suggestion even their opportunistic livers and spleens will find hard to swallow.
But the die will have been cast by then and the only questions will be whether the lion can be safely denied his share and who the lion actually is.
Is there any way we can save Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II from His Excellency Ronald Muwenda Mutebi, President of the Republic of Uganda?
No comments:
Post a Comment