Covid; the political virus

When the novel Coronavirus broke out last year in Wuhan,none knew the implications therein, first the outgoing American Leopard called it the Chinese flu reasoning that it was manufactured in China,he even threatened to cut the government funding to the WHO

Here in Uganda our first case was in March and then subsequent measures were activated including a total lockdown,the president has in the past had over 15 addresses over covid and being in the people’s faces every time portrays him as one in charge.

First there was food distribution by the LDUs and local council chairmen again entrenching the patronage, suffice to note any other distribution would amount to attempted murder.

The key points of government communication have been on observing the SOPs to prevent the mass deaths, in some addresses,a video of the situation in other countries would be shown. So the emphasis would be made that we are at war.The president gave a proverb in the local dialect that it is a fool that looks at a burning house and says, Prepare for me to sleep. So in our minds this was the President in charge and the international media praised him.

Now the irony began When Ephraim Kamuntu was pictured addressing crowds in a church and when,”mama corona” was pictured clearly ignoring the SOPs that her Ministry had set.The president came out and defended her reasoning that she was overwhelmed, another was the gatekeeper of koboko who reasoned that she is the only way to development of Koboko, she was pictured with large crowds but as Usual the explanation was that the crowds are organic and controlling them is hard. Infact the president for once pointed out that why were the opposition MPs being arrested yet the NRM MPs were not being arrested. In an interview with NBS he said that those calling for elections were enemies of the people still emphasizing that we are in a war

Fast forward the Electoral Commission releases an electoral roadmap saying that campaigns will be Scientific without crowds, this reasoning is because the government loves us so much that it can’t afford to lose the citizens to the deadly virus.Then at the beginning of November were the presidential nominations and Robert Kyagulanyi is arrested and detained for violation of the guidelines as if he was the only candidate and later he is arrested.

I dare say that covid is the best thing that has happened to the NRM government and the pretence of wanting to save lives is a joke because the lives lost in the past days haven’t died of covid-19, but rather politicizing the virus to score political goals. We are truly the peril of Africa.