In my culture we have a proverb “ekiharara noruzigye tibiguruka kumwe” which means that a cricket and locust do not fly together. Why? Because crickets fly a short distance and take a break. They also fly at a low altitude. On the other hand, locusts fly a long distance without a break and fly at a high altitude. When the two try to fly together in a long distance race at a high altitude, crickets drop out of the race. Locusts continue to the finishing line and win prizes.
In Uganda, relations between Bahororo and the rest of Ugandans are similar to relations between locusts and crickets. Bahororo (locusts) under the leadership of Museveni started the guerrilla war with a long term plan: to dominate Uganda politics indefinitely. On the other hand, the rest of Ugandans (crickets) especially Baganda and Catholics joined Museveni with a short term plan: to defeat Obote and his Protestant ruling UPC party. They joined Museveni’s guerrilla war and brought Obote down through Acholis in the army in July 1985. The Acholis who had a short term vision: to throw Obote and his Langi tribesmen out of power had no long term plan of holding onto power. Consequently, they were overthrown six months later and Museveni came to power in January 1986.
Museveni and his Bahororo relatives and Bahima cousins know that they are numerically inferior. To make up for the shortcoming, they decided that the only way to dominate the politics of Uganda is to build and monopolize security forces. While the security forces were being constructed, Museveni came up with the idea of a broad-based government in which he appointed people he even detested. He fought tooth and nail to block multiparty politics at the start of his regime because they would have blocked his long term vision. He opted for movement style politics in which candidates stood as individuals. Among the individual candidates Museveni carefully backed those he needed for his long term project to succeed.
In order to retain solid backing of Catholics he promised that the next president after him would be a Catholic. However, he did not indicate when it would happen. Meanwhile he has appointed two Catholic vice presidents in a row and given other Catholics key positions. To keep Baganda in his fold, Museveni has carefully selected Baganda Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and women to key positions in government and in the NRM. Look at those occupying key positions of speaker of Parliament, vice president, vice chairman of NRM, prime minister and the powerful cabinet posts of finance, planning and economic development, and education. This is not a coincidence!
While Baganda and Catholics were busy enjoying short term gains of their political struggle, Museveni filled key positions in security forces and foreign affairs with his tribesmen some of them possibly with Kiganda names or those related to him through marriage. Presidential advisers who hold strategic positions belong to the long term project camp. Security forces now control the domestic domain while foreign affairs consolidate international support for Museveni.
As Museveni consolidated his hold onto power he began to let crickets drop out of the race beginning with people from Bushenyi district many Ugandans thought were indispensable. He then dismissed some crickets in cabinet who did not agree with him inter alia on deleting presidential term limits from the constitution so he stays in power indefinitely.
Crickets may be are finally beginning to wake up. NRM nominations for parliamentary elections in 2011 have revealed who belongs to the locust camp causing resistance from crickets. That is why some locust MPs who previously contested unopposed, are being challenged this time around. NRM has thus faced unprecedented problems in the nomination process. It is hoped that all complaints in the nomination process will be attended to satisfactorily by NRM leadership so that crickets are not unfairly eliminated.
So what must the crickets do now that they seem to have discovered the locust’s long term goal? The time has come for them to realize that they cannot fly with locusts any longer. They have to begin to design their own strategy suited to their circumstances. Those crickets still deceived that a miracle will arrive and put them in power need to think again because there is no miracle coming. The longer crickets wait the more locusts consolidate their hold onto power in Uganda.