By Bowers Mugabi Kaweesa
Our simple-minded folks have always been attracted to individuals who appear strong. #WhisperEyeNews
#Uganda #UgandaNews
The leaders of Kooki chiefdom have been successfully persuaded to sacrifice their morals for an imaginary sense of stability and protection, not to mention an illusion of restored greatness.
Generally speaking, times of social unrest have always been a feeding ground for dictators. Periods of economic depression and political or social chaos give dictators the opportunity to appear as savior and, when conditions allow it, seize power by all possible means, including killing! Museveni’s populist demagoguery seduced broad swathes of the population.
However, most of the inflated promises turned out to be no more than hot air. So how is it that he has succeeded in brainwashing the Kooki leaders to forget within a nick of time the known reality about their chiefdom and their relationship with Buganda?
The answer is embedded in “neurological laziness” because, like it or hate it, our folks don’t want to think for themselves! Like the proverbial sheep, the burden of reasoning is left to somebody else.
This third party in the equation is ironically the aggressor that they want to identify with. It’s on record that Mr Museveni has for over 40 years been targeting socially and economically vulnerable people – those who are not always well educated or informed and, as such, often feel confused and insecure.
As a master of manipulation, the president will use the RDCs and semi-literate local leaders to exploit the rage and frustration of this population through the psychological process of “identification with the aggressor”. Many of the impoverished people of Kooki see in the “strong” man both a reflection of themselves and the promise of a “Flower Garden State”. They are caught in the allure of illusions and magical thinking. They become brainwashed.
Then comes in the Katikkiro of Buganda. Quite sagacious and foresighted, he adamantly refuses to be drawn into a ‘stupid’ conflict between Kooki and Buganda, and he hastily rubbishes it off as “nonsense” because he very well knows there’s no bad blood; it is simply the work of propaganda lords.
Mayiga knows that for a dictator to maintain his hold on power, he seeks to control information, ideally by centralizing all mainstream media. He knows very well that the common people of Kooki have benefitted from Buganda tremendously and they are not stupid enough to have forgotten the over 100 hospital beds and mattresses received by Rakai District from Mengo.
Neither are the parents of over 600 Buganda scholarships from Rakai District daft enough to disassociate themselves from their benevolent benefactors.
Now the Kooki leaders in their ‘wisdom’ found it pertinent to stop using Luganda as the official language in their meetings and instead adopt English! I trying hard to stifle laughter; these are men who are married (and I hope their wives are women). And I wouldn’t like to say anything about the Kooki cultural leader, who spends a big chunk of his time in Kampala, Buganda. That ain’t the debate.
