The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Something disastrous is happening in FDC that people will only understand much later
COMMENT | SSEMANDA ALLAWI | For a decade plus, Dr. Col. Kizza Besigye has been attacking and accusing president Museveni of being a dictator and a selfish individual. He has accused him of failing and using NRM as a personal party and a vehicle to advance what doctor Besigye calls selfish interests.
In 2015, when NRM announced president Museveni as its sole candidate in 2016 elections, the good doctor said Museveni was covertly using some party members (especially those who moved the idea of his sole candidature) to ring-fence the ruling party’s top position for himself.
He has also on many occasions accused president Museveni of being intolerant to those who hold dissenting views. Whether this is true or not, I will not discuss it now. What is clear is that, Doctor Besigye is exactly what he has been accusing president Museveni to be; only that he has been hiding it.
Last week’s Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) presidential contest in which Besigye openly supported the Patrick Amuriat’s candidature against incumbent Gen. Mugisha Muntu exposed doctor Besigye’s long hidden true personality. He is a bully, intolerant to those with dissenting views and yes, though he has not ring-fenced FDC’s top position, like president Museveni who wants an NRM secretary general who will listen and dance according to his tune, Besigye too wants an FDC president who will bow before him and take his views without raising any question.
Even in 2012, when Mugisha Muntu contested for FDC’s top position, Doctor Besigye did not support Muntu, at least not in public and many believe he was behind Mafabi’s candidature. This of course is his right to support a person of his choice, but we should know that from a political moral perspective, for party cohesion and unity, Besigye should have played a neutral role.
It was after Muntu defeated Besigye’s Mafabi in 2012 that Besigye resorted to almost weekly press conferences at his Kyapa Karuhanga donated Katonga Road office, started running a parallel FDC office and activities, and effectively undermined Muntu’s leadership. Through FDC leaders who believed in him, Besigye literally shifted from FDC’s headquarters at Najanankumbi to his personal office at Katonga Road.
His decision to run a parallel office and also campaign for Amuriat against incumbent Muntu was due to Besigye’s selfish reasons – he wanted a party leader who will follow his demands without asking why. His decision followed Machiavellian principle; the end must justify the means.
Put in a proper perspective, Besigye started his long mission with the end and acted out of sheer selfishness disregarding the likely consequence of his action such as splitting the party by kicking Muntu out.
After this, the reasons to justify Besigye selfish act, will be generated in form of reasons given for reconciliation in name of uniting the party.
To me, this is the reason why Besigye did not care and openly campaigned against the incumbent despite opposition from nearly 30 FDC members of parliament who backed Muntu’s candidature. Some of these MPs have been branded moles by Besigye supporters for dissenting from his ideas.
Besigye can speak with all spiritual eloquence, play patriotic games in public, maintain a holy and democratic appearance before the public, but he is opposite of what he preaches. Like he says of President Museveni, Besigye too believes he is the only Christ Uganda has been waiting for to liberate it. He thinks he is the only man with vision to lead FDC and others are either “moles” or can be bought.
This is the reason why Besigye, as a senior party member, failed to caution his camp against party dividing statements when they started to spread baseless allegations of Muntu being an NRM mole. Indeed, during the voting day, Besigye told journalists that Muntu’s camp was using money to win the contest, words which his close confident Kawempe South MP Mubaraka Munyagwa echoed claiming they had “defeated and rejected NRM money” an insinuation that Muntu was funded by NRM to run for FDC presidency.
As Indira Ghandi taught us, questioning is the basis of all progress, and those who don’t question are condemned to live in bondage. This is the time for FDC members to question Besigye’s claimed sainthood. Is he the only Christ FDC and Uganda in general has been waiting for to liberate it?
Is it right for a few people to brand those who do not subscribe to what they believe in as moles or objects to be bought? If it is right, how do we know that these few people are good people and not corrupt or moles? And that their actions are simply patriotic? These are questions Ugandans and FDC members must ask themselves.
As we wait for General Muntu’s promised announcement of a personal decision, there is no doubt Besigye’s selfishness and his supporters branding party officials and senior members who do not agree with him as moles, is throwing FDC in what Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb called `The Black Swan’. This is a moment which can happen and bring disastrous effects when people are looking on and they only understand it long after it has happened. As Nassim explains, once a society is infected with Black Swan virus, everybody buries his head in the sun and this is why many of FDC supporters do not see that Besigye’s moves are meant to make the FDC party a Besigye affair.
The best way for FDC to liberate itself from Besigye’s Black Swan virus is by questioning further his actions. After all, Albert Eintein taught us that it is important to ask and question everything. We must question Besigye’s goodwill for FDC.
Leave alone being one of its founding members, they must question his morality even if he claims he is incorruptible, question his sanity even though many believe he has never tested alcohol. There is need for FDC to assume nothing. FDC must not treat Besigye as a saint after speaking with faked political holiness. They must ask questions like; if Muntu is an NRM Mole, who is Besigye whose businesses continue to flourish under NRM government that Besigye claims is dictatorial? Why does it not crackdown on his business despite Besigye’s claim to fanatically fight it?
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Ssemanda Allawi is a Phd, Student International Relations and Diplomatic Studies.
allawissemanda@icloud.com
+46764262304.
