Is this determined by the temperament of the people involved or political tactics and strategies that are doomed?

From the time the Boona Bageigahare Nyekundire Group first emerged on the scene with an organized campaign by Hon. Peace Rugambwa, the Senior Presidential Advisor on Agriculture and Local People to foster poverty eradication, inclusiveness, and empowerment of the marginalized communities in south western Uganda, until now, there’s been a rift.

Gen. Jim K. Muhwezi, the Minister of Security, has been at the helm and been the object of public derision with countless attempts to erase the association, including torturing the founder Hon. Peace Rugambwa.

Hon. Rugambwa said she was attending a church event in Kakindo when a pick-up full of Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) soldiers pulled up on Friday, November 29, 2024. The men, she said, started beating her up, injuring her together, and members of her team of whom some ended up in jail and you are aware of those claims.

She believes the soldiers were sent by the Security Minister Gen. Jim Muhwezi, with whom they have had a long-term wrangle, which has now deepened. The duo tried to reconcile in July 2024, but the reconciliation process yielded nothing until now.

Astutes with a keen understanding of political tactics and mobilization, these strategies are doomed. They are not “resistance,” but rather provocation and, in the real sense, hogwash. Or rather, is this something else at work, something that could be induced in stressed-out marginalized Ugandans, especially those in Rukungiri, a district he has led for decades?

The other day, he confronted the association founder Hon. Rugambwa humiliating her before the president and other individuals, which predictably evokes rage, both in private and in public. Humans naturally experience humiliation as a painful emotional attack on their identity. Those inflicting humiliation can not occupy the moral high ground because of the destruction they wreak, and personally, I count them losers.

SPA Peace Rugambwa and Minister Muhwezi during the day of reconciliation in 2024

A rejected a scandal-plagued icon of the country’s past ( herein I refer to the pandora papers; Sukari Loma Investment Holdings Ltd, Audley Holdings Ltd, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi funds) to the car tracking deal with the Russian based Joint Stock Company Ltd.

This is going to be a big thing for the people of south western Uganda and country at large because it’s no secret he also knows and it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control because the attacks and more of the same can’t deny the people their chance to develop as the President prefers in pretence of putting matters to order.

Gen. Muhwezi is the same guy (as he usually puts it on his his X handle) who locked himself in the bathroom of his Kololo house after he was dropped from the cabinet in 2006. He was so bitter with President Museveni, his party flag bearer today, and to add insult to injury, he was shortly charged over the mismanagement of the Gavi funds to mention but a few

Viral like it went, go-anywhere, talk-to-anyone, the style of reaction could send shockwaves through the National Resistance Movement (NRM), his fellow freedom fighters as well as nationally as the leaders and his comrades faced calls from his frustrated loyal supporters seeking for authenticity and his aggressiveness.

Ugandans, however, moved on immediately because of the fact that they knew who the person of Gen. Muhwezi was and still is, with no doubt.

The determined Boona Bageigahare Nyekundire Group with a large membership aims to combat household poverty and foster development through agricultural initiatives, often operating in alignment with the government’s Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) program headed by Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho alias Salim Saleh, but to this day, still pains him.

Gen. Muhwezi didn’t feel hard hit because they operate on his vast farms because he legally owns them (that’s a debate for another day) but because he’s done nothing for his electorates and he’s feeling his own inferiority complex run down his ankles.

In rukuga, there goes an adage, “neteire ekikabire erakirigatsya,” literally meaning that even that that produces a dead one won’t hesitate to lick it, of course in amazement that it also produced something. Now, many years down the road, the electorates in their bigoted nature (I presume that’s how he sees them) for so long, that this is all he knows them as.

One condition that matters to him is subtle but logical: It turns out that when selfless people build up even a small buffer of goodwill like Hon. Rugambwa is doing to the people. Their conversations go much better. But this hurts him because his entitlement makes him think even the attributes must go to him.

Specifically, people need to have moments of positive feelings for every one moment of their lives, even after scores of suffering under one’s loose control and feelings. I put this to Gen. Muhwezi, as a fellow Ugandan, that we are all entitled to a share of this country’s cake, you fend for your family and stomach; okay, but the rest also deserve a life. You own no one, but for a fact, you owe the people more than you think.

The lesson for Gen. Muhwezi, like me and any other person, is clear: Embrace complexity. Highlight nuance, contradiction, and ambiguity wherever you can find it. For one thing, complexity leads to a fuller, more accurate version of reality. It also increases the odds that new information, change, and transformation will be taken seriously now and the years to come. We learn, relearn, and sometimes choose the other way round, choose where you fall.

But in a time of high conflict like you try to create always, coherence is bad practice. Tidy narratives gently warp reality until one side looks good and the other looks evil.

Gen. Muhwezi, thank you for fighting for you, for us, and for the good cause of our good country Uganda ‘BUT’ we all deserve better. Stay better, not bitter General, and please, let’s continue to keep Ugandan hopes alive.

Boona Bageigahare Nyekundire Group must thrive, and Team Peace Rugambwa must not be left out because you share divergent opinions.

The author is a Journalist and Communications Enthusiast.