James Musoni of Rwanda and Gen Kale Kayihura of Uganda

What you need to know:

  • Cadre. As early as 2011, it was clear that Gen Kayihura was behaving and acting as a political cadre than the leader of Uganda Police Force (at least the one provided for in the Constitution of Uganda).
  • These things can even be funny…; in a typical Vintage Rwanda act, local government leaders have started an unexplainable wave of resignations since Musoni’s dismissal from cabinet. Well, liwa ya soso matange te.

Mr Simon Ndomanuenu. You don’t know him (may be) because he was a songwriter, not singer. But he might have composed three quarters of all the songs you attribute to Franco Luambo Makiadi. He ‘only’ played Rhythm Guitar. His first stage name was Lutumba (The War); and when president Mubutu declared his Cultural Revolution (at the peak of which Congolese were urged to revert to their native names), Simon Ndomanuenu adopted Simaro Lutumba. Simaro was a corruption of Simon.

He acquired the tag Le Poete (The Poet) when his Mabele (solo vocals by Sam Mangwana) became a monster hit in Kinshasa in mid 1970s. It is from Mabele that I always borrow the line: Liwa ya soso eza na matanga te (no funeral service for a chicken’s death). Le Poete Lutumba brings home the soso (chicken) allegory better in Maya. The original version was sang by Pepe Kale and Carlito Lassa and recorded outside the Franco Luambo’s TPOK Jazz production. But Maya was such a hit in Kinshasa that Franco Luambo forced the production of a TPOK Jazz version whose solo-vocals were done by Carlito Lassa.

“Oh Maya, loving you was like the relationship between the chicken and its owner. The owner loves his chicken and will defend it from predators. And then New Years Day comes. And the chicken owner just slaughters it”. Kasi soso etuni: lisumu nini nasali po na merite ukumu ya motindo oyo (but the chicken is asking: what sin did I commit to merit this kind of punishment).
This brings us to Mr James Musoni of Rwanda (former minister of Local Government and President Paul Kagame’s Political Assistant) and Gen Kale Kayihura of Uganda (former Inspector General of Police and Mr.Museveni’s Military Assistant).
At least one of these two men must be asking himself: What sin did I commit to deserve this punishment.

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As early as 2011, it was clear that Gen Kayihura was behaving and acting as a political cadre than the leader of Uganda Police Force (at least the one provided for in the Constitution of Uganda). But the chicken owner protected his chicken from all predators.
And poor Kayihura basked in this love… As is the wont with people carrying delegated power, Kayihura didn’t seem to appreciate the limitations of delegated power. He thought it was a real (power) and started acting as if he held real power.

Commonplace in such circumstances, ambition may have set in and bang…! And then there is the rumour of a foreign hand…; those things, you know. But aside from ambition and basking in the limelight of delegated power, how do we explain the tendency to the alleged criminality? Where did it come from? The guy is from a ‘socially-secured’ family and went to good schools. What clues can we (fake spies) follow to explain these allegation of a criminal tendency?

In Rwanda, Mr Musoni was the only RPF cadre left standing in the offside dream that there could be such a thing as a queue in which some people were standing in ordinal sequence: First, second, third...
Writing before the 2010 presidential elections in Rwanda, I even hazarded his name on the list of likely successors (or people who could influence the management of succession) to President Kagame. Before his dismissal, Mr Musoni was the only one on my list of people I tipped as the likely successors to President Kagame still standing.

These things can even be funny…; in a typical Vintage Rwanda act, local government leaders have started an unexplainable wave of resignations since Musoni’s dismissal from cabinet. Well, liwa ya soso matange te.

Mr Bisiika is the executive editor of East African Flagpost.
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