[Ugnet] Bukenya's Potent Juju Comes to M-7's Rescue

Uganda's Vice President, Prof Gilbert Bukenya, has been having some very zany days. He visited a witchdoctor's shrine and was photographed on his knees with juju men allegedly praying for, among other things, the spirits to intervene and help President Yoweri Museveni succeed in his campaign to amend the constitution and get rid of term limits. This would allow Museveni to stand for a fifth five-year term as president in 2006.

Bukenya, who by daylight is a good Catholic, was stung by the ridicule that followed the reports and suggestions by the mainstream churches that he be shunned for turning pagan. He came out fighting, saying he was in the shrine alright, but he wasn't dabbling in the occult. Instead, he had prayed in his "own Catholic way." He also said he couldn't have prayed for Museveni to succeed in succeeding himself, because as far as he was concerned, that was a done deal.

However, it really didn't matter at that point whether Bukenya had had a voodoo moment or not. Like many African leaders, Museveni has benefited from the perception that "there is no alternative" to him. And that, largely, is one of the reasons some people support his bid to stay on. Therefore, the spectacle of Bukenya on his knees in front of a witchdoctor's fire, even if he were praying to the Virgin Mary as he says, makes Museveni more stately than him. It boosts the president, because the prospect of a successor who might even innocently canoodle with marabous gives many people the jitters. For that reason, the vice president is a great asset to his boss, and by his humiliation might have extended his lease on the vice presidency.

But it would be wrong to see this as nothing more than a circus. The supernatural plays a very specific role in Uganda's politics. Historically, the invocation of God's name and ancestors' spirits is done to insulate government action or policy from public scrutiny and other forms of democratic inquisition. The most dramatic of these was the claim by the military ruler Gen Idi Amin in 1972 that God had spoken to him in his dreams and told him to expel almost all of Uganda's 50,000 Asians, and seize their property.

The expulsion of the Asians wrecked the economy, but it was striking that few people questioned whether it was indeed a heavenly vision that set Amin out on his disastrous path. The people who received the stolen Asian property were also able to avoid the guilt by viewing it as a form of divine redistribution.

No African president demonstrates the value of the belief in the supernatural and the "people's traditions" to political survival than Togo's President Gnassigbe Eyadema.

Eyadema, who has ruled his unhappy country for nearly 40 years now, is a superstitious leader who has survived four assassination attempts.

The masses in Togo believe that his survival is because he has more potent witchdoctors than his adversaries. Eyadema has in turn converted that into a sinister ritualised apolitical culture that has ensured his hold on power.

His favourite pastime is reported to be attending his ethnic group's traditional wrestling matches. He also keeps several wild animals in his compound and raises his own special herd of goats, which he culls as and when presidential appetite dictates.

Eyadema uses the aura of the supernatural and "traditional authenticity" that he has woven around himself to exhaust both friend and foe alike. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was one of his victims. After going into a meeting with Eyadema, he was reported to have complained that "the room [was] packed with more dancers and singers than delegates. Whenever the president speaks they get up and cheer and sing and dance, and cry that he is the greatest, and so on. The same thing happens for other speakers, too. So it takes a long time."

Therefore, the pro-democracy movement in Uganda should not laugh at Bukenya. They will do well to be afraid instead.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is managing editor in charge of media convergence at the Nation Media Group.

E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[Ugnet] Bukenya's Potent Juju Comes to M-7's Rescue

Reply via email to