As a young child growing up with my rural parents, my grandmother had a longstanding habit of sitting us ( me and my siblings) down surrounding a bonfire where she would tell us countless stories of their time. We enjoyed this particular time to the extent that when she lay weak on her deathbed, all we worried about was missing this particular service once she died.
When she finally left to be with God in heaven, life wasn’t the same again. Father, concerned we would get depressed from the loss took it upon himself to fill the void left by his mother. He would tell us a story every once in a while, although she couldn’t match Grandma’s expertise.
In one of the encounters that had since become only occasional, he told a story that stuck in our heads to adulthood. He said it had been passed onto him by his mother whom we dearly loved and held fond memories of.
Father told us that long before he was born, someplace far away from where he was born, there lived an old woman who was rumored to be a witch. The whole village knew her as a witch and even believed the abrupt death of her husband was connected to her witchcraft. That her witchcraft didn’t only bring misfortune to her neighbors but also brought her good luck and prosperity as her family prospered as her contemporaries swam in misfortune.
She boasted of good herds of cattle, goats, sheep, and very healthy plantations of bananas. Whatever her hands touched turned out to be a blessing. When drought and famine set in, to her is where the entire neighborhood went for redemption. Her children went to school and succeeded in becoming important citizens who lived in the city where they worked.
As time went on, some bad people, masquerading as saviors felt they were fed up with this evil woman. They accused her of causing a long drought that had brought intense suffering to the village as livestock and plantations died out. Hers continued to blossom as though she lived in a different world. A mob descended on the poor widow and hacked her to death.
Having witnessed what the bad neighbors had done to their innocent mother, the children resolved never to return to this village to live among the heinas who had taken the life of their only surviving parent. They decided to surrender their land to their envious neighbors for just a few hundreds of shillings.
The new occupants of the land swam in the bloom of the murdered widow’s hard work and believed their bad days had gone once and for all, never to return. Things, however gradually started downturning. The plantations that once bore giant bunches started wilting, animals got stunted and died one by one. Within no time, the land which had been a paradise in the area turned into a desert, like the rest of the neighborhood.
When a fierce drought attacked again, there was nowhere for the hunger-gripped settlers to run. They all died and all that was there to show was, first, a bad stench from the many decomposing bodies, and later skulls of the greedy bad people.
The secret was discovered years later. The poor widow had mastered the art of managing her estate. She watered her plantations when drought reigned. She would care for her livestock as though her whole life depended on it. She prepared her children, imparting morals necessary for their success in life, she weeded out dangerous weeds from her garden, and also fed the soil with manure. When the ownership changed, everything was lost. “You can not reap where you didn’t sow.” Father, still grieving the death of his mother, wound up the day’s narration as rivers of tears mechanically flew from our eyes.
Many years later, reminiscing on the narration, it’s been easy for me to superimpose its content to the present political atmosphere, especially about the relationship between President Museveni and the forces opposed to his Government.
The past two weeks have been action-packed ones, with the death of Speaker Emeritus Jacob L’okori Oulanyah, the election of his successor, and the appointment of Resident District/ City Commissioners(RDCs/RCCs) and their Deputies.
Former Deputy Speaker, Annet Anita Among, as expected, cruised to victory with utmost ease having crashed her challenger-Asuman Basalirwa in a landslide show of might for the ruling side. Government Whip Thomas Tayebwa was elevated to fill the gap left by Among, and the repossession of the House was once again complete for NRM.
Cast through critical lenses, one realizes that the two winners weren’t only former Museveni critics but the man they were replacing too had been a member of the opposition!
Jacob Oulanyah had formerly belonged to the opposition Uganda People’s Congress- UPC before defecting to National Resistance Movement. Just like Oulanyah, both Among and Tayebwa had been key activists in the then Col. Dr. Pizza Besigye- led Forum for Democratic Change. Among served on the COSASE as Vice-Chair, while Tayebwe contested for the Western MP in 2006 on the FDC ticket. Years later, the two are among the most powerful people in government.
Their parent party, in a weekly presser shamefacedly attempted to share the spoils of credit by chest-thumping for having “mentored” the two without explaining how, and why they lost them to President Museveni.
The two are not the only ones in Museveni’s government who once worked to bring him down. Former NRM Secretary General Justine Kasule Lumumba is said to have been a UPC Mobiliser. She would later turn out to be the most powerful person in the hierarchy of the party, only next to Museveni himself. She is now a Minister. Betti Olive Namisango Kamya, Beatrice Anywar aka mama Mabira, Hajjati Sarah Kanyike, Eriya Kategaya, Shifra Lukwago, Nakiwala Kiyingi are just some of the names who formerly opposed Museveni but now working with him.
Coincidentally, as NRM was making former rivals Among and Tayebwa Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively, Senior Presidential Advisor Catherine Kusasira and singer Big Eye were surviving being lynched at the burial of the father of a NUP official. Their crime was to go for a burial of a parent of someone who subscribes to NUP yet they support NRM.
That attitude doesn’t only answer the question of who is that Witch working to keep Museveni in power, but also answers another one. What would happen to this field (Uganda) if its skillful handler ( Museveni) was to be driven out?
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