Why Anita Among is not the enemy

Sure, she is annoying. Her disrespectful and often tyrannical utterances in the speaker’s chair have made her unlikeable. 

Her direct threats to activists and journalists are ugly. Her innocent, almost childlike excitement with her fortune, is embarrassing.  Indeed, as many have noted, Anita Among’s problem is a failure to understand that a witch does not eat meat in the public.

Among has struggled to understand that although all her peers and colleagues have accumulated through theft—and the system is designed for thieves—stealing has never become a type of business. If she understood this, she would have made all her acquisitions discreet.  

I will never understand why Among invited journalists and peers to Bukedea to show off her oversize house! No one was looking. Did she think we would appreciate her as a businesswoman? In an economy where even normal businessfolks have filed for bailouts? If it wasn’t village innocence, why “drive” two Mercedes Benzes to parliament—amidst a discussion of slave exports to the Middle East?

With all this being said, it is my humbling opinion that this fine lady from Bukedea ought to be seen in the image of a migrant worker, recently arrived from the village, excited by the neon lights of the city, tastes modernity, and decides to enjoy the largesse that her bosses are ready to enable her.

But deep into the system, she learns that her bosses are a ruthless and hated drug cartel—with many invisible layers of drug lords. The point I am making is this: whichever way her present battles end, our condition of absolute penury and starvation will remain unchanged. The cartel remains firmly in charge.

Among is a cog in a system she found wrecking Ugandans apart. It corrupted her, and she became corruption itself. But she isn’t the system. As a recently arrived migrant worker from Bukedea, our sister has no idea how this system works or looks like.

Consider the following: Among does not know a thing about our extortionist taxes. She has no clue about how or where they are decided. Among does not know a thing about all the thieves in coffee—and how 10 foreign companies get to keep 70 per cent of the farmer proceeds in a major national export. Coffee is meant to make Uganda rich.

Speaker Among has no idea why we pay one of the highest electricity tariffs in the entire world.  She has no idea why there are no medicines in hospitals. She sees that there are no medicines (or maybe doesn’t see this either) but cannot explain why.  Yes, she simply joined a thing on the roll.

In fact, she didn’t choose to join, the system chose her – for her required talents. Given chance to ride one of the wagons, she chose the highway, and is now struggling to control the speeds.

Who is the enemy then?  

Dear reader, you already know how much I rate President Museveni in this game. To continue with the image of a drug cartel, comrade Yoweri Museveni is a senior leader in this cartel. A top, top leader. But he is not the boss. He is also a worker. A senior employee.

He has some really big-deal powers. He can appoint political leaders and military officials. He can fire workers or order an execution. But still, he is not the boss.  

Yes, he has what looks like a lot of money to dish out. But he does not own the bank. (This makes his monies actually very small). Although he has a lot of weaponry, he does not manufacture weapons. (Maybe some small light weapons). But the serious weapons have to be given to him by the actual bosses, who also talk to him through intermediaries.

He has absolute barking rights and freedom. His bosses are democratic in these matters, they take an insult with good spirits. He can blast them, can call them “insufferable” and “imperial”. But they remain his bosses. They still call the shots.

I need to clarify that I am all for exposing and fighting the workers of the system at whatever level they operate. I am proud of the work of the #UgandaParliamentExhibition. #StateHouseExhibition soon. Yes, these workers of the system have agency and there are things within their hands.

It is my pain that President Museveni has been disappointing to even his tribe and family. Why run a country for 40 years without a single member of your family owning a commercial bank, a telecom company. These make Shs 2.5bn a day.

Or a mining site, not a dealership or a major coffee exporting company with say 50 per cent market share. But just simple stupid jobs in public service, and some scrawny tenders! No, man! The people of Ankole ought to be bitter with this man.

And for Among, if you survive your current troubles, I propose you go big. Everybody is a thief. Don’t back down.  Stay focused. Steal Uganda Railways Corporation and make it profitable, there is transport market in Uganda.  Take over UTL as your own, and kick Airtel and MTN out of business.  

We don’t like them at all. Accumulate so much and start Bukedea Commercial Bank (not a Sacco or an MFI). They have ridiculed you for trying to be European, turn this joke around with our BCB giving loans at two per cent interests as Europeans do. You will be a darling.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University