To maim or to kill, a desire underlined to harm

Am perturbed by the constant support accorded to President Museveni for the manner he handled the Buganda riots by many people whom I considered responsible and am equally irked by his recent stand on shooting to maim. If find the difference between shooting to kill and shooting to dismember a matter of semantics underlined by an entrenched desire to harm which should concern Ugandans. It is unconstitutional for a man who swore to uphold the constitution and protect citizens and their properties to make such outrageous public utterances. Morally it defiles convectional wisdom for any popularly elected leader to turn against his electorate, unless our president was elected by Kenyans or Malawians. A ruler ought to take more care of his people’s happiness than of his own, as a shepherd is to take more care of his flock than of himself? It is most certain that at the pyramid of causes of these riots, a general feeling of frustration played a central role in fanning the emotions and our leaders are running away from issues. It is factual that the main rioters are unemployed Ugandans frustrated by their current conditions. The severity of these conditions is exacerbated by revelations of people in government or those connected to it by kith and kin who have amassed wealth. In any human society this causes envy but it transforms into hatred when all this wealth is seen to be possessed by people from one region. This could explain why a bus carrying passenger from Western Uganda was torched. To be specific Baganda youth who by nature were raised in this part of Uganda might feel deprived as to be relegated to mechanics, petty traders and boda boda riders when their counterparts from from the ethnic group associated with the ruling government are enjoying the benefits of state patronage. To this Sir Thomas More in Utopia asked. Who does more earnestly long for a change than he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? And who run to create confusions with so desperate a boldness as those who, having nothing to lose, hope to gain by them?
President’s statements to shoot to maim civilians indicate a desperate leader. This would be the last thing to be said by a president. If a leader should fall under such contempt or envy that he could not keep his subjects in their duty but by oppression and ill usage, and by rendering them poor and miserable, it were certainly better for him to quit his leadership than to retain it by such methods as make him, while he keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to it. We can call Uganda’s past leaders all sorts of degrading names but the line between the past and the present is becoming thinner by the day. Obote attacked the Lubiri, arrested Mengo ministers and Bataka, he later pounced on the royals incarcerating them in Luzira. Haven’t we seen Baganda ministers in the recent times being accorded a state tour to western Uganda prisons on charges of terrorism, haven’t Bataka been incarcerated in the aftermath of the riots in Kayunga or haven’t we heard about the impending charges against Prince Nakibinge for using foreign sources to destabilize Uganda.
He is an unskillful physician (he)that cannot cure one disease without casting his patient into another. He that can find no other way for correcting the errors of his people but by taking from them the conveniences of life, shows that he knows not what it is to govern a free nation.