Prof Nsibambi must study the evolution of cats

Calmly, Mr Charles Bichachi interviewed Prof Apolo Nsibambi and extracted from him the kind of doublespeak plaguing Uganda under the NRM. (See ‘Museveni Should use Remaining Four Years to Facilitate Transition’ – Sunday Monitor, October 22).
Asked whether it was good to remove the presidential two-term limit in 2005, Prof Nsibambi replies: I think at that time it was okay, but now I think it is unnecessary.
Bichachi: With hindsight, you think the term limits should never have been removed...?
Nsibambi: That’s correct.
What a year! In 2017, Prof Nsibambi is beginning to understand what Mr Museveni said in 1986 about overstaying in power.
The problem of course was not lack of foresight, but naked self-interest. In 2005, Nsibambi was the prime minister. If Mr Museveni retained power, Nsibambi had a good chance of staying in office; as he did.
Unencumbered by privilege now, the professor can see that President Museveni’s taste for power is not declining, but growing.
And yet, although he is miles away from those babbling ad nauseam that the Constitution permits changing Article 102(b), and that the proposed amendment is not meant to benefit Mr Museveni as an individual, Nsbambi is not completely free from auto-NRM-doublethink, oscillating between cautious honesty and flattery of the chief.
Bichachi: Do you think Mr Museveni wants to continue being President?
Nsibambi: I think so.
Bichachi: Why?
Nsibambi: Because he has been a very capable President; he has done a wonderful job and people are wishing him to continue with that good job.
Now, Prof Nsibambi should know that such answers will put his sincerity on the line.
Does Prof Nsibambi believe that Mr Museveni wants to stay in power because a mass of citizens out there are begging him to stay?
What anyway does he mean by a “wonderful job”?
All sorts of government-employed professionals are on (or threatening to) strike over salaries in an environment of near-criminal inequality.
Virtually all government work is creeping in slow lane.
The promised march to middle income status by 2020 was clearly a myth. No sane person believed it. But reversing direction (with Karamoja and Busoga now in the 60s and 40s per cent of wretched poverty) is a definition of failed policies.
Serious crime (rape, murder, mega corruption) remains unchecked.
Barbaric harassment of the Opposition is now standard.
Thugs with alleged links to our security institutions and even to State House are multiplying and their impunity growing.
Like mercenaries eyeing a cut from the NRM political cash machine, they pose as Museveni’s last warriors. Never mind that their vision of redemption resembles an anarchic state.
So Uganda does not look particularly beautiful. One wonders why Prof Nsibambi cannot visualise for it a leader other than a successor chosen by the incumbent.
Moreover, if a 40 million-strong nation cannot boast a pool of potential leaders, perhaps its only ruler for 32 years was not doing a wonderful job after all.
Glancing at Opposition icon Dr Besigye, Prof Nsibambi sees an “extremely erratic” figure, unable to secure post-Museveni security.
Well, the NRM has created for Besigye a nightmarish world in which it is very difficult to smile, or go white-collar-and-spotted tie, or act consistently. Survival strategies in such worlds sometimes involve being unpredictable.
The bubbles in which Prof Nsibambi has been a ‘politician’ are illusions. Besigye and a few others are trying to bell, not a sofa-bound furry pet sitting in a retired professor’s living-room, but an ageing tiger that could turn man-eater. Prof Nsibambi is confusing the two beasts.