“Hajji alaggide!’’ Some political actors for very dubious reasons have chosen to retrieve from archives this slogan of 20 years ago and bestow upon Sebagala powers rivaling God’s ‘’Let there be’’.
What political mileage they expect to get by claiming that Sebagala willed the political existence of Dr Besigye is unfathomable. They have not explained why after Sebagala switching allegiance to Museveni, he has failed to order the political demise of Dr Kizza Besigye.
However this debate absurd as it is has helped expose the thinking of some of the people claiming to be fighting for freedom. It is for the sole purpose of probing the working of these minds and not the relevance of an ‘irrelevant’ Sebagala that I write this piece.
I invite you to join me in rising above the din of trivial clap trap and do some serious analysis.
Those arguing that Sebagala ‘gave’ supporters to Besigye hold the following erroneous but revealing beliefs;
1) That leaders (Sebagala) own People.
2) That Leaders (Sebagala) think for people ( yabategerera)
3) That people are incapable of making independent and informed choices.
According to them, people are no better than sheep that must be herded to grazing areas for their own good with a whip if need be. They insinuate that Sebagala imposed his thoughts and choices on the collective consciousness of Ugandans.
They believe that the millions of Ugandans that voted for KB in 2001 and have since shared the trenches with him are following Sebagala’s prescriptions. They imply that when people think, they think Sebagala thoughts and when people speak they speak Sebagala’s words.
Hajj alaggide was an electioneering slogan that some unscrupulous individuals are trying to turn into some hallowed article of faith and turn the man into a deity (god)!
We who understand the struggle know that true liberation can only come about by the conscious effort of people i.e. leaders and the led working in close concert and consultation to win their freedom. There is no struggle without the conscious and active participation of the people.
In this struggle, leaders exercise authority without being authoritarian. When people simply follow the dictates of the leader that becomes dictatorship. When leaders pander to popular sentiments that is populism.
Leaders and the led must engage in a mutual process of setting the goals and deciding the means of achieving such goals. Both educate, learn and encourage each other – fraternity. It is this fraternity, the convergence of people and their leaders around a common interest that set the stage during the 2001 election. Like all major political events, the major motive force in 2001 were the people themselves. Their enthusiasm and courage to break out of the shell of timidity that had defined the political tempo of the 1990s was the game changer. People get leaders that they deserve, a determined people got and identified with a determined leader-Kizza Besigye.
Therefore if some people are still struggling to understand events of 20 years ago, they clearly have no grasp of the present currents and therefore cannot control the correlation of forces to tilt the parallel gram of these forces in favor of change to create the future we aspire to build.
In 2017, Dr Kizza Besigye had this to say, ‘’People are intelligent, they don’t rally behind individuals, they rally behind their interests and when their interests are betrayed, they abandon the individual. Imagine if I called for a rally and told people that we should join M7, what would their reaction be? I think I can even be stoned to death. Betty Kamya used to be admired and followed by many, now her home is surrounded by military, the military is protecting her from people that admired and supported her!
In 2001 hajji Sebagala was a darling to very many Ugandans, now tell me where is Sebaggala? Can he move on Kampala streets without security?
Ugandans follow people that carry their interests.’’
Nyanjura Doreen
bikodoreen@gmail.com
