If Rwandans Cheered For Dictator Museveni Why Did he Come Back to Uganda?

Dictator Museveni

Gen. Museveni. The useless Kleptocrat claims Uganda is a “Middle Income” country. Photo: Facebook.

Ugandan dictator Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa traveled 50 miles by road from Kabale to Kigali, Rwanda the other day for the Common Poverty Heads of Government Meeting, a.k.a. Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm). 

There was excitement among the Rwandans who had lined up by the roadside, and others stood on the verandas and balconies of their houses to catch a glimpse of the Ugandan dictator. 

In reference to the photographs captured and videos recorded, the throngs of mortals were chirpy and capering about while cheering as the septuagenarian’s convoy wound through the scrubbed and squeaky-clean city.

Museveni’s chamchas ensconced in different offices back in Kampala capitalized on such a temporary moment to spin on social media the whole day— shoving it into our throats—about how Gen. Museveni is so great that he’s even loved by Rwandans. Some of his acolytes even likened the moment to biblical Jesus’s grand entrance into Jerusalem. You can imagine how patronage, a paycheck, and witchcraft can turn some individuals into vacuous beings bereft of any modicum of reasoning.

On the other hand, other Ugandans took to their social media accounts and joked that the dictator should remain in Rwanda since he is loved there. He would not need to hire crowds to cheer for him as he does in Uganda wherever he goes to patronize poor people with envelopes and other empty promises and threats.

This reminds me of several years ago at our rural primary school in Rukungiri when a parliament of about five monkeys and their ambling infants wandered into our school compound and began to play around on the heap of sand. It was nearing lunchtime and the school was quiet except for the voices of teachers from different classes.

I was the first to see the monkeys and I pinched Vincent and Patience’s ribs, my seat-mates, and furtively showed them the creatures. My mates couldn’t hide the excitement and soon the entire class was tickled. Soon everyone scampered out of class to catch a glimpse at the playful monkeys.

Of course we’d seen monkeys before. Yet we still longed to catch a glimpse of these marauding primates that had been stealing and vandalizing our fruits and bananas in the school garden. What had brought them to the school compound that day? No one knows, but I remember some incandescent pupils soon picked up stones and chased the playful visitors. 

We failed to arrest the thieves and vandals yet we had the golden opportunity to thwart these primates from assailing our garden further. They would not return to the school compound but our garden remained their field to showcase vandalism and pilfering.Back to the Rwandans getting excited about dictator Museveni making his grand entry into Kigali.

Some Rwandese might have seen a convoy of 40 armored sleek vehicles carrying one man going to attend the conference and wondered at such a hombre enjoying luxury amidst harsh economic times. I can imagine the hubbub and ululation of a Rwandan villager who had never seen such a convoy with a mobile toilet for the dictator.

Even if it were me, I would, at indescribable rapidity, scoot off to have a look at how a mobile toilet looks or a penchant for luxury superannuated dictator who moves with it looks or how a person who has been in power for almost 40-years looks. This is the same liar who when he seized power in 1986 declared that Africa’s problem was leaders who overstay in office. 

These Rwandans must have thought of our dictator as an immortal usuofia.

In this case, our beloved dictator became a tourist attraction in Rwanda. Right now, if Idi Amin or Adolf Hitler miraculously shows up anywhere in the world, I am sure thousands of people would all caper about the streets in the same manner as Rwandans, if not to welcome them, to see how exactly they look.

Rukirabashaija, author of “The Greedy Barbarian,” “Banana Republic, Where Writing Is Treasonous,” and “The Log Cabin,” is on the Scholar on Writers in Exile Program of PEN-Zentrum Deutschland. The 2021 PEN International Writer of Courage honoree is a survivor of torture at the hands of the Museveni regime. 

Full profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakwenza_Rukirabashaija


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