Through employing gunboat diplomacy and after a bloodbath in the Rwenzururu region, where our government apparatus was used to carry out a genocide-like attack, the regime is now celebrating the conscription of the Obusinga bwa Rwenzururu into "supporting NRM."
One regime's online media website reported that while meeting the Omusinga wa Rwenzururu the other day, President Museveni said that he is now happy that the Obusinga has opened a new chapter of toeing the NRM ideology! But what ideological concept is there to follow in NRM apart from resigning to indifference and serving the Tibuhaburwa dynasty?
From what is reported and attributed to the meeting between Museveni and his captives, one can't stop to marvel at the shamelessness and impunity that reigns in Uganda today.
The reports of what transpired in the meeting of Omusinga Wesley Mumbere, who has been held captive for almost a decade, and his captivity is evidence of the institutionalized use of violence to coerce cultural leaders into a silent conspiracy against their subjects.
It shall be recalled that after losing and rigging elections that had turned out in favour of Dr Col Kizza Besigye in 2016, more embarrassingly in the Kasese region, where NRM failed to win even a single slot at LC 1 village elections, the regime's military outfit framed the Rwenzururu kingdom for treason, invaded the region, verran the king's palace, killed dozens of innocent people including children in a shocking massacre that was followed by massive destruction of what the people of the Rwenzori had painstakingly put together as a cultural foundation for the hereto young cultural institution.
Today, Rwenzururu stands in ruins with hundreds of mostly young people jailed without proper trial. The Omusinga, who has spent the best part of the last decade in detention outside his kingdom, must be credited for the majestic patience he has exhibited through these years while being held in isolation, himself losing his mother and other loved ones without an opportunity to attend the burials.
As the Rwenzururu king and his subjects limp through the rebuilding of their desecrated kingdom, they have to contend with bearing the cross of singing praises to their captors! The attack on Kasese continues to be an open and bleeding wound to the extent that even the fast-tracked General Peter Elwelu, who commanded it, is at a personal level fighting blood torment through singing loudest and hysterically dancing at public prayer meetings!
As the people of Rwenzururu, and indeed all of us Ugandans, process the pain of the physical and psychological destruction and disintegration of a heritage so dear, Buganda, Busoga, Bunyoro and Tooro stand next in the line as targets, following the highly-disputed 2021 elections.
In these regions, their majesties, their kingdoms, and people may not have been invaded in the manner and fashion of the Rwenzururu, but the dictator's grip is squeezing them out. The defining silence of all cultural institutions, religious bodies, and non-governmental
organisations about the politically motivated kidnaps, murders, detentions and parading of civilians in the military courts can be mistaken for a calculated conspiracy against the citizenry.
The chain of corruption, abuse of office, nepotism and outright robbery, and plundering of state resources as one scandal follows another has gotten out of hand. The fact of the matter is not that our leaders are just indifferent to the situation prevailing, but because of the conscription and muzzling of the would-be people's mouthpieces!
The leaking of presidential letters, the pronouncements by Mr Museveni and his handlers, the semi-coup by General Muhoozi Kainerugaba together with the army, the unofficial structures by regime operatives who seem to be in charge of the country at the expense of the official government structure, the amount of debt the country has sank in, the economic, political and social crisis looming over Uganda with a totally broken-down governance systems, are quickly delivering us into a failed state we are destined to become.
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That being the case, as Museveni celebrates conquering Rwenzururu, the rest of us should cry for a beloved country perishing in silence!
The writer is the member of parliament for Mukono municipality.
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