Jimmy Spire Ssentongo
After reflection for some time, I have come up with an idea that could solve our political problems and summersaulting, at least for the next 100 years.
From my eating experience, I have learnt that you don’t spit a sugarcane bite before chewing all juice out of it. And sometimes, when the bite is too big, it is safer to keep chewing until it is thinned out enough not to injure the corners of the mouth on exit.
By now, we must be aware that in President Museveni we have a man whose special qualities it might take Uganda another three hundred years to see in another person.
Only a deluded fool thinks that Uganda can have an alternative to lead us forward in peace and stability. But whereas we are all entitled to our opinion, we are not entitled to our lunacy.
I honestly do not know where Uganda would have been if God did not send us our dear president. This country would have been a pathetic desert; we would be rotting in the limbo of underdevelopment; we would be stinking of nothingness.
Uganda cannot then thank God by letting go of His special send. As I suggested here before, dear Ugandans, look at yourselves in all your millions. Do you see anyone with presidential qualities?
The inconvenient fact is that we are all a bunch of incompetents, only fit to serve in lower positions and to be led. Look at our whole cabinet and parliament and tell me if it wouldn’t be easier to search for a grain of salt in sand than to find a potential president among them.
And they have been wise and humble enough to admit it. Ndugu Rugunda [prime minister], can you be anything better than a perpetual follower?
Honourable Ssekandi [vice president] and ye all, rise up and tell the nation that the only capable one has already been found. Let those countries that are yet to find their best keep changing presidents; we arrived.
This is not a Moses that is supposed to hand over to Joshua to lead us to Canaan; he must deliver us into the era of oil revenue and beyond.
He was chosen even before he was born. Very soon, when the world gets to understand who a special person he truly is, Rwakitura [the president’s country home] will turn into a place of pilgrimage. Fear of blasphemy makes me hesitant to compare, but I mean something like Bethlehem.
Born humbly in a kraal, only to become a saviour of this desolate nation that was lost in the wilderness of visionless misrule!
Every generation has its fools. We are told that God so loved the world that He sent it His only son so that it may be redeemed. But what happened? The fools killed Him!
This generation has also had its own unusual luck of being sent a liberator. Again, its fools are saying that he has to go, in the middle of his mission! Do we really know what we have with us? Are we trying to question and test God’s benevolence?
Aware that only him can deliver at the presidential task and that this country may collapse without him, I am humbly proposing that we crown him King of Uganda.
We are wasting time and money in piecemeal amendments to remove term limits, age limits, etc, yet we truly know that this is all because we cannot afford to lose this extraordinary specie.
The reasonable thing we should do in the circumstances is to scrap the presidential elections ritual altogether, at least temporarily. What are elections for when we all know the best?
As a king of eternity, he will govern us smoothly without any worry that some other clueless Ugandan will take over and reverse his so many achievements. Our duty is to not interfere with his great plan for us. Let us humbly admit that we are misguided in thinking that any of us living in Uganda today can handle that job.
For the moment, let us turn State House into a palace. Let us learn to bow, genuflect, and prostrate before him. The palace will surely need servants to clean around, cook, wash dishes, look after the lawn, hold the king’s garments, carry him shoulder high, plus feed and bathe his dogs.
There are about 245 legislators whom I think would happily do this job at a fee. We had misplaced them earlier. The palace will also need toilet tissue.
Our Constitution is made of nice porous paper; let us work the remaining pages into a roll. Once this is used up, we could as well roll up the paper meant for presidential election ballots and tally sheets. Honourable Smell Nsubugu, could you follow up this noble task?
Oh, I forget! With all its sumptuous meals, what is a palace without a place of convenience? Yes, those small rooms where kings go on foot. Considering that we shall have a big number of servants, we will need a big one. I think the parliamentary building will do.
The pigeonholes would keep our tissue well. On the government side of the plenary, we may set up urinals. With our visionary king in eternal charge, I don’t think we shall need parliament, anyway.
Other MPs, apart from the 245, could be informed that we have no more work for them – except if they are willing to join other servants in the palace.
Let us erect huge statues of our king in every town. Let the whole world know that we found what we wanted. And when our king eventually dies (which I think is impossible anyway – God forbid), let us embalm him and ask of his body to kindly lead us for fifty more years.
For God and my indispensable king!
The author heads the Center for African Studies at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi.
