Opposition has toppled NRM from power

By Patrick Odongo Lango

Even though I disagree with many things he writes, I immensely enjoy Chairman Mao's weekly column in the Sunday Monitor. In his last week's column titled, "Anite, the NRM bus and its unhappy campers" Mao made many forced errors. 

In the article, Mao painted the National Resistance Movement as if it were Museveni's private commuter van commonly known as Kamunye plying his private trade. That's far from the truth. The true fact of the NRM is that it is an aggregation of a diversity of personal and national interests across this great nation.

The secret of NRM is that it serves the interests of the majority of Ugandans. The most important interest is peace and stability of the country. Of course, there are a few in the NRM whose interest is the lure of political office and the trappings of power that comes with it — for which I guess is the reason Mao is in politics. 

Mao paid Museveni the highest compliment when he wrote that, "Museveni has no permanent friends and permanent enemies". The major problem with our politics is identity politics. When someone gets a particular identity, he or she will cling to it even when it is not serving his/her or the collective interests.  

Look at the high mortality rate of Kenya's political formations. When a vehicle isn't serving your interests i.e. moving you from point A to point B, it should be discarded, and fast! — to borrow from Mao' recently launched, badly named and badly timed Special Purpose Vehicle - SPV. 

In Kenya, the independent party, KANU was left to die a peaceful death. Many permutations then came up: NAK, Jubilee, NASA, ODM, FORD, etc. The problem with Ugandan politics and politicians is that they cling to their identity too tightly. This is a malady that made DP mark time for 50 years, and counting! 

The open-door policy in NRM of poaching “big fish", i.e. actively courting defections of opposition politicians to NRM, allows pollination of the NRM with the best ideas from DP, FDC, UPC, and all former "enemies" like Omara Atubo, Moses Ali, Aggrey Awori, Betty Amongi, Sarah Kiyingi, to name but a few. One of the little known facts is that Museveni allowed former LRA fighters who defected to keep their bush ranks and serve in UPDF.

So, given the many "cross-pollination" the NRM received over the years, it can be safely assumed that it is a completely new political formation except by name only. If you profile all NRM members of parliament and members of the cabinet today, you will find that they were either former — or more accurately secret — members of UPC, DP or other political formations.

It could be that one of the wonders that has skipped the attention of historians and scholars is that UPC and DP have deftly toppled the NRM from power through a Trojan horse technique. It's no secret that President Museveni himself is a former UPC youth winger and DP sympathiser. There are no NRM puritans in this current government. They're only opposition politicians disguised as NRM members!

The writer is an NRM member from Minakulu in Oyam District