I watched a video clip in which two Ugandan cabinet ministers lectured civil servants about the latter’s supposed obligation to be blindly loyal to the current president and his political party. The ministers were condescendingly unequivocal in their harangues. “It is your duty to ensure that your employer (Yoweri Museveni) continues to exist,” one entreated the civil servants. The other minister invited her listeners to quit their government jobs if they did not support the ruling political party. “If you want Museveni or not, you are serving Museveni,” the minister told them. 

Nothing new here. Patrimonialism, no longer hidden behind nonsensical rhetoric about human rights and multiparty democracy, is Uganda’s open reality. Many years ago, during my days of delusions of hope for democracy and the end of personalised power, such statements would have been chilling. Today, when political clientelism and cultism is the guiding ideology, and promotion of dynastic rule is a fulltime occupation of the court dancers, nothing these people say surprises or bothers me. To them, loyalty to Uganda does not matter. Mental enslavement to a mortal individual, not fidelity to the laws and personal freedom of thought and choice, is the only ticket to public service. 

Truth be told, I chuckle at the folly on display, for history is rich with political demigods who have been abandoned by their worshipers. The very ministers who are now leading the songs of praise to our indispensable ruler will be among the first to pledge allegiance to his successor. Take it from me, if they woke up to find Mugisha Muntu or Kizza Besigye or Alice Alaso as president, they would declare their unwavering loyalty to the new occupant of State House. Why, they might even claim to have been opponents of the former ruler from inside his regime! This is a popular cover for some of the most ruthless champions of the worst offerings of discredited autocrats and dictators. Their loyalty is easily handcuffed with dollars, which is their only badge of honour. The ruler does not trust them, of course, for they are always available for sale.

The pretence to democratization has long given way to a personality cult that is familiar to those who have studied or observed state captors. Over time, these rulers personify the principle of L'État, c'est moi (I am the state). Anyone who believes otherwise is considered an enemy of the state. To use the fashionable language of political deception and manipulation, free thinkers and supporters of alternative opinions and leadership are labelled “not patriotic.”

With constant flattery and praise, the ruler believes the lie and begins to hear a song with a single line: L'État, c'est moi. I am the state. I am your father. You are my bazukulu. I am your grandfather. I made you. I know better than you do. I know what is good for you.  If you do not cave in to my ways, do not blame me for the personal pain that follows. Your redemption requires yielding to political indoctrination, euphemistically called “patriotism seminars”, that is about mental surrender to the ruler, and decanting of silly notions like loyalty to the country, to the law, to your conscience.   

We have seen this movie repeatedly, on every continent, in every decade that we have been politically conscious. A few examples from my lifetime come readily to mind.  Argentina’s Juan Peron, Haiti’s Papa Doc Francois Duvalier, China’s Mao Zedong, North Korea’s Kim Il Sung, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos, Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi, and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. Gods in their time. Despised by their former worshippers, once the myth has been laid bare by the inevitable power of time. 

Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, now settling into her Indian exile, is just the newest discoverer of the foolishness of presumed political immortality. She is now facing dozens of court cases in her homeland, including alleged murders, and genocide. The International Crimes Tribunal is investigating her alleged deeds.

The Rajapaksas of Sri Lanka, currently on forced sabbatical, but still unrepentant, arrogantly fronted the son of Mahinda Rajapaksa in this past weekend’s presidential election. He was rejected. The Congo Free State’s Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Zabanga, reportedly buried upright in a grave seven thousand kilometers from the ruins of his palace at Gbadolite, once owned his sad country. He has faded from normal discourse. These and many others remind us of humanity’s blind spot that denies us the humility demanded by history. 

We are witnessing this phenomenon at play in the United States of all places, that land of the free and the home of the brave. Donald J. Trump, the least qualified person to oversee that great country, has a very strong hold on the hearts and minds of at least forty percent of the adult population. Should he become president again, which is possible, America may experience turmoil that that great country has not seen in 160 years.  

We marvel at this phenomenon, in America and elsewhere, and recall the stories of rulers who brought their countries to ruin. However, my interest is not in the incompetent, semiliterate men in military uniform whose disastrous presidencies were predictable. The stories that engage my mind are those of educated, paternalistic, authoritarian men and women who presided over superficially prosperous and stable countries that went into deadly tailspins upon their deaths. As long as they lived, they offered illusions of democracy, complete with fraudulent periodic electoral rituals, and neutered legislatures that represented the rulers, not the citizens. They maintained a semblance of development, stability, and international respect. 

One that still fascinates me is Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the first president of Côte d'Ivoire. During his thirty-three years in power, he owned his country and his people. He called them his children and grandchildren and they called him Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux (The Old One or Mzee). While most of his subjects endured socio-economic distress during their country’s “economic miracle”, the president’s personal fortune grew to an estimated US$7 to $11 billion. 

Mzee Boigny was a notorious destabiliser of other countries’ governments, including assisting coup plotters in Ghana, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Dahomey (Benin). With his death in 1993, at the age of 88, he bequeathed a savagery to his political bazukulu (grandchildren) that included military coups d'état, and two bloody civil wars. The flag of the Heart of Darkness flew over his country for well over fifteen years after his death.  Happily, Côte d'Ivoire is recovering from its near-death experience. Whereas its political health remains very fragile, its economic growth is encouraging. Fingers crossed. 

I hope and pray that Uganda escapes the Ivorian curse. We have had enough painful unravelling for sixty years. However, the language I am hearing from the ruler’s courtiers invites us to don our sackcloth and ashes, enter a period of collective fasting and supplication before the Lord God in genuine humility and repentance. 

The folly of power is like the transient high the drug addict derives from smoking their chosen poison. Many of yesterday’s immortals are long gone, their deeds remembered by their victims, their names reviled by their subjects, their courtiers among the most vocal narrators of the worst deeds of their heroes. 

I hang on to a thin and vanishing hope that Uganda’s ruler may yet create conditions for peaceful transition to a democratically elected leader. I know that the odds of that are smaller than the likelihood that I will receive the Olympics Gold Medal for the 100-meter sprint. But count me among the hopelessly romantic optimists.

© Muniini K. Mulera