Sunday 8 June 2014

Before we send Hon. Sam Kuteesa to the UN, he must promise Etofaali for the Wanainchi!



         


So he has got the money, he is reigning minister for foreign affairs; how convenient. He has served in the echelons of regimes through torrential times, height of pacifism and a mixture of them. He is a father in law to the first family and boy, does he have the backing!
The modern African society with legal regimes like ours breeds a class of untouchables. Not entirely for bad reason but enough to keep the rumour mills busy and the money mints on their toes. There is no telling when an accurate verdict catches more flak that blatant hate speech. Yet, neither the scheme of trivializing one’s legitimacy nor an approach predicated upon more trophy hunting can by any inch dissipate the enormity of the stakes that lie with certain responsibilities.

So what if he has for decades kept millions of dollars on some Swiss account? He might as well be a diligent attorney and farmer extremely disloyal to vain indulgence to grow his piggy bank. Would we rather have a harried gold digger with a sordid financial history well poised at hitting a jack pot? This may be interesting to a point but we are at a loss on who the judge of reputation in Banana Republics like our own should be.

So what if he was named in an oil scam? No one could prove it anyway. No one will even go as far as arguing that the system is too rusty at the core that the rigs need more than oiling and the cogs more than grating. It is the way it works, prove it or forever hold your peace. While the futility of our legal machinery, underpaid police personnel and suspect judicial system go about the routine hunt and peck, the verdict always lies with a particular harebrained invisible hand and we know it.

There is a more maddening bit about the pettiness. Sometimes we do not feel credible enough to poke holes into lofty humpty dumpty until he comes tumbling down the wall. One moment we are having a Historical senior citizen picking personal vendettas with a hitherto unknown one Theodore Ssekikubo, the other we are fronting him as our best candidate for a UN job. Clearly one could be the other’s son so it cannot be about a girl, not one they would share in some sort of erotic appeal. Yet again, our duty is to watch while our tuff is trodden on and hope that we end up with the successful camp because then perhaps our nonchalance will earn us a measure of unbridled admiration. (read, nobody gives a…….).

We can forgive that crap by Obama’s boys about gay rights and stuff. For one, Kuteesa is not the only one who made that law, a law is a law, and a system is collectively in a way responsible for churning out one. Either all countries with Anti Gay laws should not be allowed in the UN and then where will the discrimination lie?, or some dissident or fugitive of sorts might be the only legitimate ambassador for such positions. Yet again will that be a representative of the country? On the contrary, we could send Otunnu, he is yet unmarried, good with words and he could very well be the wild card for such a challenge. Just saying.

My beef though is, we vote for the President, Mayor, MPs, not in droves and neither am I even indulging the rigging statistics and democracy demographics, but who voted Kuteesa to represent us in UN? Did you? Perhaps you would but did you?  He never stood for a national position so there is no telling whether Ugandans let alone Africans would as a collective clue tip him for their voice, but how do these things work? So was it likely that someone like Nobert Mao or Kizza Besigye or better still Seya would have the same opportunity?

Anyway, we do not care in the very least, a Ugandan is a Ugandan, after all it has really helped that Obama a Kenyan is President of the US. Just someone you can relate to however remotely because that puts food on your table. As they would have it, we do not yet have consensus of ideology so it is just for a few enlightened ones to blaze the trail. Enlightened democracy of the elite is the more familiar given our monarchical inclinations.

We are known for our bad boys, so it is unlikely that we will have a Miria Matembe or Nsaba Buturo pecked up for such assignments but if that be it, I suggest we send ones we can of subtlety guarantee will represent our mores or lack of them. We all saw, well not all, but we all know what Gaetano did on BBA once upon a time, some loathed it, others celebrated it; but he came back home a hero, a Ugandan boy. He jammed the airport and perhaps he could be the only person to pitch up against the etofaali master, Mr. Katikiro. Or we send the 88 year old Mzee who walked from Bushenyi to Namugongo, since clearly it is an old timers thing?

Kuteesa has proved he can fill the Koffi Annan shoes, ask Sekikuubo, but even if he has not, he is at least professionally qualified so that should do. Naye people like Katikiro would have build twenty thousand masiro from one year in the UN, guaranteed. Naye these loaded Rwakitura boys?,……

$TOH
@matsikogodwin

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