-Blank NEWS Online (NIGERIA) –From Austen AKHAGBEME:
The recent electoral, nay, generational clash between President Museveni of Uganda and Bobi Wine, the youth prodigy and opposition leader in the just concluded presidential elections, is another pointer to the continued domination of the old brigade in Africa political landscape in many more years to come.
Museveni, who just won his sixth term of five years each, extending his rule to four decades, has become an effigy of political constipation, electoral impunity, a soured fragrance of an expired ointment begging for relevance.
One wonder how the computation of results was so flawlessly swift amidst the internet lockdown in Uganda before, during and after the elections. His over 58 percent grab of the total votes cast, reveals either his uncanny ability to upturn election results, or the people’s naivety to understand that the expired fox has no new ideas to put Uganda, on a new and better pedestal for development any more.
Like Nigeria, there’s no denying the fact that Uganda has been so plagued with bad leaders since 1962, when they got their political independence. The infamous maximum ruler, Idi Amin, a voodoo ‘economist’ who saw nothing wrong with printing more currency when the treasury is lean, was from Uganda.
Milton Obote, especially in his second coming, was as nepotic and despotic as Idi-Amin Dada. His preference for the Acholi ethnic group and the brutality of his reign, left much to be desired.
Above all, the aloofness of the fellow leaders of other African Nations when Museveni practically locked away his opposition leader, the 38 year-singer- turned- lawmaker, in this election prior to voting, made nonsense of the erstwhile lip service policy of the African peer review mechanism. If it was Nigeria, that singular act was bad enough to influence sympathy votes and voters to the side of the opposition a la Edo governorship election.
When will these old and expired folks call it quit? How have they been able to hold sway despite their tired brains, bones, gait and guts? How is it that most African youths are easily mesmerized by the antics of filthy lucre to the detriment of their great future? What is it in politics, in Africa, that only the old gangs knew that the youths do not know?
These are the questions that bothers the mind and makes one wonder whether or not we’re jinxed as a people, easily bamboozled by the old cyclical clique of a rogue elite, masquerading as saviours on the African political terrain. This is painful.
Robert Kyagunlayi Ssentamu ,popularly known as Bobi Wine, is a courageous young man, a parliamentarian, musician and actor, who chose to stir the hornet’s net in what is recorded as the greatest opposition and threat to President Museveni’s endless advent in Uganda.
His courage is worthy of emulation by all other African youths, in our collective attempt to snatch Africa back from the feeble and filthy hands of these gerontic leaders and their collaborators. And that time is now!
- Austen AKHAGBEME is a Columnist with Blank NEWS Online
