Those who have persisted in the opposition will tell you one thing: It is one of the harshest places to survive.
Most times you are bereft of money, some of your friends desert you and you have to navigate forces that are out to finish you.
Ask Amama Mbabazi, the former powerful minister who used to have close to a battalion of security guards.
Every step Mbabazi took would shake the ground. He was the second most powerful person in the country, forget the vice president.
He was loved, feared and loathed in equal measure.
Then in 2015, Mbabazi’s life turned upside down after he broke ranks with President Museveni.
Out went the perks such as the heavy security detail.
Those who used to regard him as powerful eventually started making fun of him.
There were reports that he had not paid his domestic power bills and his house was due for disconnection.
The Rogue also remembers reports that the president was footing the school fees of his grandchildren in an international school.
I cannot verify the authenticity of these reports but one thing they illustrated was that Mbabazi had become powerless.
For someone who had worked in government for more than 25 years, he found life in the opposition very challenging.
Then he decided to do something about it.
Mbabazi decided to keep quiet and not to comment about the political happenings in the country.
When security personnel stormed Parliament and roughed up MPs opposed to the removal of the presidential age-limit, Mbabazi decided that he would not tweet or post something condemning the incident.
When security agents roughed up Bobi Wine, he decided to keep quiet. No tweet, no facebook post.
Then the wedding of his daughter to Cyril Ramaphosa’s son happened and things started changing for the better.
Museveni and other big shots were in attendance and this provided Mbabazi with a route back to the top echelons of power.
So does it now come as a surprise that in a space of two weeks, Museveni has met Mbabazi twice?
First at Kisozi on December 31, 2019 and over the weekend in Togo, Lome where the two had gone to attend a meeting of the Brazzaville Foundation.
In the Kisozi meeting, Mbabazi was spotted holding a big brown envelope.
The envelope, our flies on the wall told us, contained his updated CV including a paragraph to the effect that “he is now a strategic advisor to the President of South Africa.”
We have been told that he whispered to Museveni that he was ready to serve in any capacity.
Then Museveni remembered that the position of RDC for Nakapiripirit was vacant.
He sarcastically asked Mbabazi if he would serve there, the former prime minister nodded in the affirmative.
Museveni smiled sheepishly and patted him on the back.
The Rogue is a satirical column that runs every TUESDAY on The Nile Post.
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