By Karl Lyimo
I SHUDDER to think what could be happening to Tanzanians today, who are so overwhelmingly trusting and accommodating, if the country had plunged headlong into fast-tracking East African Federation.This was a subject pet of certain clearly megalomaniac folk who pushed for EAF practically in next-to-no-time regardless. The 'Mradi,' project, was meekly swallowed bait, hook, line and sinker in Uganda and Kenya, as recommended by the Amos Wako Commission in 2004!
'One President for EA by 2010,' cooed the Uganda paper 'Sunday Vision' in a front-page headline on November 28, 2004.
One of the forces behind the fast-tracking was none other than
Uganda President-King Museveni, reportedly the force behind the whole gamut. Could the man have been utterly selfless in that?
Picture, if you will, an East African Federation with Guess-Who as president, lording it over Rwandans, Burundians, Kenyans and Tanzanians in the manner and style he is today strutting over hapless Ugandans! No Sir (and Madam!)
With that kind of Democracy, give me Benevolent Dictatorship anytime! Who wants a sham Democracy in which those in power continually shift the goal posts, change the rules in midstream and obfuscate governance in every which way they can so as to perpetuate themselves, their ilk and their minions in power?
Look at the way, for example, Mussolini sorry, slip of the QWERTY Museveni is running Uganda today. Even after 25 years in power, he still insists on remaining in there come what may and whatever it takes to maintain the status quo, presumably unto the end of his, repeat HIS, world!
The authorities in Uganda, spearheaded by the Museveni Police, have been harassing, harrying and harrowing otherwise innocent Ugandans for choosing to Walk to Work in that country's major metropolises instead of taking motorised transport.
This, the walking workers say, is to cut back on commuter costs by conserving fuel, as well as graphically demonstrating in a pedestrian manner and style against rising living costs in general. It's also a way for Ugandans to keep themselves physically and mentally fit but which they are unjustly and unjustifiably denied by their mogul!
What, pray, is wrong with workers choosing to walk to their places of work instead of burning inordinately expensive fuel that could otherwise be put to better use? Why? I ask you!
Yet... And yet, the authorities persist with their ill-behaviour to physically attack walking workers for reasons which aren't quite clear. In a most surprising and childish move, President Museveni tried to dissociate himself from the attacks, lamely saying that this is police work, not a matter for State House!
The demonstrators have now changed tack, adopting another tactic. They were required to hoot for five minutes beginning at 5PM. I remember this strategy was applied to considerable effect in the US in the early 1970s against then-President Richard Nixon following the Watergate Scandal that finally hounded him out of the White House in 1974.
I don't know how the Museveni minions and other hoods will take the widespread hooting of motor horns in due course of time. But, I can see the police and their ilk hounding motorists for that, calling it criminal noise pollution, I guess!
In My Book of Things, Museveni's Uganda is today not much different from Muammar Qaddafi's Libya: a Failing State. Or, rather: Uganda's Museveni is not that much different today than Libya's Qaddafi has been for more than a generation now: leaders long past their prime in terms of Peter's Principle.
In every hierarchy Dr. Lawrence Peter categorically stated in their 1969 book on the 'salutary science of ' titled 'The Peter Principle' an employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence..."
The corollary to the Principle is that, "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out their duties!"
All you need to do here to do justice to this anecdote is to substitute the term 'employee' with 'President,' QED: quod erat demonstrandum!
Talking of Colonel Qaddafi, if the man brought prosperity to Libya during his regime, it is now being shattered to smithereens by his 'shooting war' against his very own people.
I shudder even more to think that it was this man who was at the forefront in calling for fast-tracking African Union, with a unitary continental Government from the Atlas to the Drakensberg Mountains... And guess who as its president!
I wouldn't be surprised if the man ended up bombing us out of house and home and shooting us all in the streets across the length and breadth of the Continent, from Cape Verde to Kapenguria
No Sir, and Madam... Africa could be a much happier place without such leaders, I say. And, more is the pity that as Mwalimu Nyerere once remarked about the Organisation of African Unity the African Union remains just like its predecessor OAU: a Trade Union of dictators... Tears!
[ israellyimo@yahoo.com
I SHUDDER to think what could be happening to Tanzanians today, who are so overwhelmingly trusting and accommodating, if the country had plunged headlong into fast-tracking East African Federation.This was a subject pet of certain clearly megalomaniac folk who pushed for EAF practically in next-to-no-time regardless. The 'Mradi,' project, was meekly swallowed bait, hook, line and sinker in Uganda and Kenya, as recommended by the Amos Wako Commission in 2004!
'One President for EA by 2010,' cooed the Uganda paper 'Sunday Vision' in a front-page headline on November 28, 2004.
One of the forces behind the fast-tracking was none other than
Uganda President-King Museveni, reportedly the force behind the whole gamut. Could the man have been utterly selfless in that?
Picture, if you will, an East African Federation with Guess-Who as president, lording it over Rwandans, Burundians, Kenyans and Tanzanians in the manner and style he is today strutting over hapless Ugandans! No Sir (and Madam!)
With that kind of Democracy, give me Benevolent Dictatorship anytime! Who wants a sham Democracy in which those in power continually shift the goal posts, change the rules in midstream and obfuscate governance in every which way they can so as to perpetuate themselves, their ilk and their minions in power?
Look at the way, for example, Mussolini sorry, slip of the QWERTY Museveni is running Uganda today. Even after 25 years in power, he still insists on remaining in there come what may and whatever it takes to maintain the status quo, presumably unto the end of his, repeat HIS, world!
The authorities in Uganda, spearheaded by the Museveni Police, have been harassing, harrying and harrowing otherwise innocent Ugandans for choosing to Walk to Work in that country's major metropolises instead of taking motorised transport.
This, the walking workers say, is to cut back on commuter costs by conserving fuel, as well as graphically demonstrating in a pedestrian manner and style against rising living costs in general. It's also a way for Ugandans to keep themselves physically and mentally fit but which they are unjustly and unjustifiably denied by their mogul!
What, pray, is wrong with workers choosing to walk to their places of work instead of burning inordinately expensive fuel that could otherwise be put to better use? Why? I ask you!
Yet... And yet, the authorities persist with their ill-behaviour to physically attack walking workers for reasons which aren't quite clear. In a most surprising and childish move, President Museveni tried to dissociate himself from the attacks, lamely saying that this is police work, not a matter for State House!
The demonstrators have now changed tack, adopting another tactic. They were required to hoot for five minutes beginning at 5PM. I remember this strategy was applied to considerable effect in the US in the early 1970s against then-President Richard Nixon following the Watergate Scandal that finally hounded him out of the White House in 1974.
I don't know how the Museveni minions and other hoods will take the widespread hooting of motor horns in due course of time. But, I can see the police and their ilk hounding motorists for that, calling it criminal noise pollution, I guess!
In My Book of Things, Museveni's Uganda is today not much different from Muammar Qaddafi's Libya: a Failing State. Or, rather: Uganda's Museveni is not that much different today than Libya's Qaddafi has been for more than a generation now: leaders long past their prime in terms of Peter's Principle.
In every hierarchy Dr. Lawrence Peter categorically stated in their 1969 book on the 'salutary science of ' titled 'The Peter Principle' an employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence..."
The corollary to the Principle is that, "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out their duties!"
All you need to do here to do justice to this anecdote is to substitute the term 'employee' with 'President,' QED: quod erat demonstrandum!
Talking of Colonel Qaddafi, if the man brought prosperity to Libya during his regime, it is now being shattered to smithereens by his 'shooting war' against his very own people.
I shudder even more to think that it was this man who was at the forefront in calling for fast-tracking African Union, with a unitary continental Government from the Atlas to the Drakensberg Mountains... And guess who as its president!
I wouldn't be surprised if the man ended up bombing us out of house and home and shooting us all in the streets across the length and breadth of the Continent, from Cape Verde to Kapenguria
No Sir, and Madam... Africa could be a much happier place without such leaders, I say. And, more is the pity that as Mwalimu Nyerere once remarked about the Organisation of African Unity the African Union remains just like its predecessor OAU: a Trade Union of dictators... Tears!
[ israellyimo@yahoo.com
