In honour of Dan Nsubuga

It was a cold night. I lay on the wet grass under a lusterless moon brooding. That afternoon the military had stormed the streets; their red tops spelling danger, their gaping guns ready to spill blood. The atmosphere soon turned smoky with bursting balls of teargas choking many. The rumble of gunfire shook the foundations of the city like an earthquake and citizen Dan Nsubuga lost his precious life.

Rest in peace, Dan, your death was not in vain.

My mind raced back to 30 years ago when a young revolutionary who had just captured power stood on the precincts of parliament and waxed lyrical about the fundamental change he was ushering in. It was a fundamental transition from a violent and capricious past to a new dawn of good governance capped with constitutional reforms, institutional revival and economic transformation whose benefits would spill over to the rest of Africa.

Today, when we should be running faster along a path illuminated by the light of democracy, it's flabbergasting the military are stomping the city not in the time of war, but during an electoral process of choosing new leaders. It's obvious the best years of the old man with the hat are far behind him. His seniority has become his senility. The narrative of impotent institutions and the tumor of corruption testify dismally against him. He has hit the panic button by letting the dogs out to stop the wind of change. They shoot and smash up things while he creeps back into his power and seeming invincibility, unfeeling about the suffering proletariat he ostensibly came to redeem three decades ago.

These things make me brood and weep over my country. Then I wipe my tears because the Dan Ndubugas are not dying in vain. The time for military politics is fast running out.