First of all let me state this clearly I am neither a member of the FDC nor a member of it’s key political rivals the NRM and NUP or any other political grouping but a Ugandan who is very interested in the progressive political development of his country given how much bad politics had taken this country backwards in the past.
And like every responsible Ugandan who has followed the pulse of Uganda’s political space and development with keen interest over the past two decades, I am appalled at the current bickering among men considered of sound mind and respectable standing at the helm of the Forum for Democratic Change party.
While it is normal for us all to disagree sometimes fundamentally on the ‘modus operandi’ of how we are to handle the key issues and goals as groups where we belong in our day to day lives it is uncouth to have these disagreements spill into public domain and expose dirty linen that devalues the very entities we purport to cherish and represent like is happening with in FDC.
The current falling out in what was once Uganda’s biggest opposition party and most respected at one point is beyond an embarrassment to the bickering parties and more so to the Ugandans who for a long time held faith in this nascent political party that had shown some glimpses of real democracy and progress having successfully had three Presidents over it’s duration of existence to date a feat not even the ruling NRM party can boast of since it officially became a political party about 20 years back.
Descending into camps of bickering politicians accusing each other of being in bed with the ruling NRM party and being financed by all sorts of unclear sources may be is a sign that the time to sweep clean the entire lot of leaders running the party over the past many years has come.
May be they have had their fill of power, it’s perks and being in the proximity of the things they always wished for and need to move on. Otherwise there is nothing logical that can explain how a group of people purportedly brought together to push for regime change through legal and democratic means can go off track and start tearing each other apart in public like jilted co-wives trying to prove ownership of a less concerned husband in some God dammed ghetto!
I wonder what the bickering group thinks of the young men and women that have over the past so many years lost their lives directly or indirectly at the frontline of FDC’s push for Democratic Change or those that have lost livelihoods, become permanently disabled, been tortured mercilessly by the regime and thrown behind bars minus prosecution in the name of being FDC activists or they want to come out and tell us it was all a joke to them that has lost its taste. Does any one in this crop of bickering wanton leaders still have any heart for the party besides carrying any ounce of patriotism for this nation or any good cause or they have all become seasoned political merchants wheeling and dealing for personal gain in the corridors of power?
Will the likes of former FDC National Chairmen Hon. Sam Kalega Njuba and Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu turn easily in their graves any more or their ghosts should come out, spank these messy thugs and run riot over the once promising National leaders that have chosen to become bickering journey men until they are shipped out of FDC for it’s own good.
How about the women of varlour who have been in the party’s ranks at one point like Ingrid Turinawe, Sara Epelu, Deputy Lord Mayor Doreen Nyanjura and others, will they be wrong to hang up their political boots or majestically walk away from the FDC at this point in time after all their so called party leaders have degenerated into a bunch of bickering cocks or is it grass hoppers trapped in a cage and don’t seem to have any way forward on growing and progressing this once very promising party.
Peace loving Ugandans, the progressive ones at that who want to see this country grow politically and mature at one point are dumb founded by the current developments in FDC given the UPC is already in bed with NRM and DP recently also joined the fray with it’s President taking up a cabinet position. I now tend to believe our President H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni when he said he will crash the opposition completely at one point, it’s now up to the Najjanankumbi based party’s leadership to prove otherwise or else we will now be sure they could have been quietly part of this plan!
Enter the Elders
The disrespect exhibited by the current Leadership which involved locking up the party’s National Chairman and as a result impeding a press conference he was supposed to address at the Head Office recently in the heat of this mess is another show of very callous, unbecoming and uncouth behaviour from those who ordered and executed this hooliganism and utmost disrespect to the Man who is supposed to put things in check and in order when they have gone astray.
It leaves one wondering whether the current crop of rivalling leaders with in the party have the discipline and political maturity to sit down before the party elders again to get some much needed wisdom and counsel besides being reconciled and finding a way forward to keep the party afloat and above their personal ‘eating’ interests.
So as the FDC party gets into an already very discredited internal election season that will go on until August, those involved in this mess should remember their names will not be forgotten for what they have done to destroy what many Ugandans hoped FDC would deliver to this country at one point and the sooner they repent among themselves, come clean and confess to the Ugandans who held them in high esteem, the better it will be for them otherwise they will never have another chance to say or represent anything credible politically or otherwise in the eyes of right thinking Ugandans.
In fact by the time this mess and drama is over, the political funerals of some FDC heavy weights will be in procession and no amount of intimidation, sacks of money thrown around or big words will ever revive them politically. For God and my country!
The Author is a journalist and a social political Analyst
Email: michaelkanaabi@gmail.com
WhatsApp: +256701133509