The leaders of tomorrow are here but they won’t wait for tomorrow

By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

If Ugandan leaders at different levels who have concluded the last ‘next election’ equally care about the next generation, it is about time they started planning for Uganda after Bobi Wine, nee Robert Kyagulanyi.

For, three years after joining politics, Bobi’s historic mission is done; youth are inspired to seek leadership. The proverbial leaders of tomorrow are here, and they are not waiting for tomorrow.

Scanning last week’s councillors’ swearing in countrywide, you find that many who have taken office are aged below 30 years. The revolution Bobi triggered has sneaked up on us and the youth want to take charge.

When the election results were being announced some four months back, many Ugandans were taken aback by a photo of Kampala Capital’s new city fathers in their victory pose, some in sleeveless tops, tattoos clearly visible. Somehow, Mayor Erias Lukwago aged 50, slipped through the youth wave and got re-elected. One of Lukwago’s big challenges will be following the lingo used in his council meetings and figuring out the emoji’s in official memos entering his in-tray.

But it wasn’t Kampala alone. Across the country, the ‘children’ pushed their way through and many had to return to campuses to complete their first degrees after being elected. The revolution is unstoppable.

And the youth have the numbers. And when numbers come at play anything can happen. Numbers have affected societies far stronger and more sophisticated than Uganda.

Look at nuclear power South Africa being bulldozed by the Nigeria, which we like to laugh at as disorganised. Nigeria’s becoming Africa’s biggest economy has had all to do with numbers. Remember how Nigeria whipped MTN to its knees with a $5.2 billion fine as South Africa’s giant telco pleaded with a stream of mea culpas? What about the US that couldn’t stop China from becoming its biggest creditor, or the UK that humbly watched as proud English household brands like Land Rover, Leyland, Jaguar became Indian?

Now at 39 years, ‘Mzee’ Bobi, has to bear in mind such international trends as he manages the great youth force which is raring to move faster than him. Will Bobi still be in charge of the opposition by next election 2026?

As many newly sworn-in councils across Uganda were sharing the management posts, people above 40 years were being relegated to advisory roles. So even as Bobi scans how numbers have bullied the big governments out there, he needs to look inside his camp as well. He should also monitor the over one million young Ugandans in other countries who went looking for jobs, having lost all hope of earning a decent living in Uganda.

What will their role be five years from now after returning home, worth maybe $50,000 each? And what is their potential role?

Bobi must be aware of the role played by returning World War II soldiers in ejecting the colonial masters from Africa. So he needs to watch and engage the million young Ugandans who are living a hellish existence out there and will be returning in the next half decade with ironised hearts and broader viewpoints, and could eject him from the movement he has fathered, turning him into an ‘advisor’ if he is lucky. Many of them are university graduates now working as security guards and housemaids.

Bobi and leaders from other political groupings do not have to tell the young councillors to hide their tattoos or shave off their “dreads”. Those are merely externals. They need to work on their mindset first, and quickly. There is this widely held belief in opposition circles that you have to first get the national political power before spearheading change. As such, all opposition efforts expended in pure politics of opposing the incumbent executive. But as has happened all the time in Uganda, the election is held after five years and the incumbent wins. Then your hungry supporters either join the ruling party or leave the country.

But does it occur to the opposition leaders that government only collects a small fraction of the GDP, and the rest of the wealth, over 86 percent in Uganda’s case, is with the people? There is no law prohibiting the opposition politicians from mobilising the people to engage in better economic production of wealth. If the five years after losing an election are devoted to economic mobilisation of the supporters, who knows if that may not be a more effective form of campaigning than purely focusing on power and politics?

The numbers. It is now established that a third of Uganda voters consistently don’t like the incumbent executive. Wouldn’t mobilising them economically make them attractive enough to woo one person each to double the opposition vote to about two-thirds?

Just a thought.

Joachim Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail:[email protected]