The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Our MPs’ move to extend their term of office is not only a sign of selfishness but also moral corruption. The Ugandan MPs are treating us like Russia’s Stalin who inflicted unimaginable pain on a hen, that walked back to him expecting grain.
COMMENT | Allawi Ssemanda | It is sickening. It is a sad reflection in this enlightened era that with many other real pressing issues faced by Ugandans that need legislation and are not addressed, one instead hears members of parliament discussing how to extend their mandate in office. They are doing this without consulting Ugandans with who they made an agreement to represent them for just five years!
One would imagine that MPs and all other elected leaders made a political contract with Ugandans to serve for five years. It being an agreement, you would think those who would want to extend their terms would find it prudent and morally right to go back to the same people and change that agreement altogether!
The suggestion of a term extension from five to seven years is morally wrong and should not be accepted; after all, moral corruption is the foundation of all other kinds of corruption!
The MPs’ push is a sign of impunity. They know that Ugandans can do nothing to stop their endless thirst for power since they claim the constitution gives them a right to do what they want.
It is unfortunate, this is not the first time one sees these reality-detached people take all sorts of supposed to be key decisions without involving Ugandans who they made an agreement with.
“Honourables”?
The tragedy is that when many are voted to parliament, they change over night to the extent that when they are introducing themselves, you hear them saying, “I am called Honourable so and so”.
They are so detached from reality, in what looks like some form of compulsive psychiatric power disorder, that they think whatever an MP wants is legal. They think this way because they have power to amend the constitution or come up with bills and acts that suit their endless desires.
I have been following the 10th parliament now for a year plus and concluded that the majority of our dear MPs mainly think about how to make their lives better during and after parliament.
From voting for free luxurious cars at expense of taxpayers money, to voting to exempt their allowances from taxes, to voting to be given “royal” burial, it is clear they are about themselves not us – Ugandans. With that, whenever I think or hear of parliament, I see and think of a group of selfish people and the parliament session as a normal tea-time ritual.
Let’s not be hoodwinked to think the MPs push to prolong their term is normal and about serving Ugandans.
As Indira Ghandi taught , questioning is basis of all progress and those who don’t question are condemned to live in bondage. Its time Ugandans ask serious questions of our MPs.
We must ask why they claim to be patriotic when all they give attention is what directly benefits them?
If they can change an agreement they made with Ugandans without asking them, why should Ugandans think this is not moral corruption? Why should Ugandans not think they are obsessed with power and that they fear to seek voters mandate again because they did not deliver?
Personally, I think this is an indictment. When voting for leaders, we should stop voting for fortune hunters but states men/women incase we still have any in Uganda.
MPs speak and defend this sickening 7-year-term proposal with all spiritual eloquence, play patriotic games before cameras, and maintain a fake patriotic appearance before public but this move has exposed them as greedy people who are insensitive to real issues that affect Ugandans.
They should stop insulting Ugandans and stop advancing kindergarten reasons to justify why they want to extend their term in office beyond what they asked Ugandans to give them.
Referendum option
This should be a referendum question to all Ugandans or a constitutional review commission should be formed to address it than leaving it to MPs who are direct beneficiaries.
How do you ask an interested person to make a judgment on something he or she has interest and expect fairness? Other than intellectual dishonesty, is this different from what URA officials did by asking for a presidential handshake which later parliament investigated and reported that it was wrong after terming it as soliciting an award?
To media people, its now you to save Ugandans by explaining to people this unholy proposal. If media fails to sensitize masses about the danger of ignoring the country’s input on this proposal, they will be sanitizing and endorsing moral corruption and the hegemony of the morally corrupt ruling classes.
Our MPs must immediately give attention issues that are affecting Ugandans such as passing the health insurance bill that has been shelved for years now among other pressing issues.
Otherwise, I am thinking that our parliamentarians have now resorted to Russia’s Joseph Stalin teachings and actions.
Reminds me when Stalin reportedly plucked a hen’s feathers, put the pained bird on the floor, threw a handful of grains to it . The fear-crazed bird forget the pain Stalin had caused it and hobbled and followed towards him to eat the grains.
Stalin he told his dumbfounded colleagues that, this is the way to rule people, if you inflict inordinate pain on them, they will follow you for food for the rest of their lives!
After all in some cases I have heard that some MP’s gates are always littered with constituents who go there seeking for help.
Our dear MPs, you have already inflicted unbearable pain on us, such as paying your huge salaries, untaxed allowances, and paying for your expensive burial. That is enough, don’t be like Stalin and leave us with nothing including taking our right of deciding how long you should rule us – and still expect us to follow you for grain.
*******
Ssemanda Allawi, PhD, Student, International Relations And Diplomatic Studies. allawissemanda@icloud.com 
