President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda remains an interesting figure.
He continues to confound many with his Pan-African speeches that are punctuated by theatrics, now and again, laced with vernacular and a few Kiswahili words.
That alone has over the years built mysteries around him which has borne him the tag of 'dictator' which he dismisses, in television interviews, with a wave of the hand and a brief remark "a dictator who is overwhelmingly voted for. That must be a good one!".
And so the announcement that he had contracted Covid-19 and would be working from home shocked many people, especially in Uganda.
Since 1986 when he took over power through a bloodless coup against Gen Tito Okello, a few days after a Nairobi-mediated peace agreement, he has never taken leave from office and no Ugandan has heard that the president was ill.
All manner of rumours therefore begun to pile as news hit the airwaves and the socials. He had to immediately address the nation to quell building tension - that included giving an address to Parliament during the budget statement on Thursday.
It was one of those rare occasions when he delegated power to the prime minister, little-known Robinah Nabanjja, which surprised Ugandans more. If by any remote chance that Museveni allows anybody to enjoy power in Uganda, it has been his brother Gen Salim Saleh and of late his son Gen Muhoozi - who last year, in Kenya got the label 'the tweeting general".
Museveni belongs among the world's longest-serving presidents and has a lot of influence in East Africa, though he chooses to concentrate it on his country.
He is a political strategist who sits long hours with others close to him, his kinsmen, senior National Resistance Movement commanders and politicians. The sittings happen preferably at night, and enables the president to maintain a close grip on the affairs of the country.
Now clocking 78 years with Uganda firmly in his grip, a choking one in the eyes of his critics, the president is a known health freak. He engages in physical exercises which include swimming and many times he has showed the world how fit he is.
Other than his left arm that sometimes gives him difficulties in moving, he is not known to suffer any health condition. Museveni belongs to the group of traditional-style rulers who rarely, publicly, owns up to a sickness or any other human weakness.
Coming from a clan of the Banyankole people that is known to live long, his father Kaguta having died at the age of 97, and his known uncles having lived beyond 100 years, Museveni considers himself young, and many times he has shown fitness donning his military fatigues matching majestically, trotting now and again and doing exercises publicly.
Despite the strongman's show Museveni harbours fears of infections and so on trips he carries his traditional food; he has his own standards on nutritional content, and he publicly says it. He has emerged as a solid proponent of African foods, despising western diets.
Museveni remains embroiled in an internally generated war of the mind about his firm believe in African (or borrowing from his early engagements with Pan-Africanism) and dismisses modernity in its various presentations (Christianity, colonialism/loan post-colonial linkages, English language, and donor aid). This is a war of the mind he regularly wages on anybody who wants to hear.
As the firebrand freedom fighter ages, and the heavy state responsibilities continue weighing on him, he has gradually transformed into an African elder, sharing publicly what he firmly believes should concern Africans-strict adherence to the African cultural believes and practices that belonged to our forefathers including diet, food, sexual and reproductive health, medication, and religion. He never hides his disdain for Western culture. He in fact blames them for the current challenges facing third world countries.
As a military general and grandfather (many times during his dialogues with Ugandans he calls them bazukululu-which loosely translates to grandchildren), he seems to hate anybody questioning his way of looking at things and general approach to life. He is the man that commanded a team of armed young men that toppled a civilian government in January 1986, and has ruled Uganda ever since. A man like that would certainly wonder whether there exists in his surroundings anyone that knows more about leadership than him. Who can question his wisdom?
All his time in leadership which includes his days leading rebels in the bush, he has been treated while working. It is reported that while a rebel leader operating between Nairobi, Dar es- Salaam and other friendly capitals he recruited physician Dr Kizza Besigye now turned his political enemy and Dr Ronald Bata to join him and offer medical services. His manner of receiving treatment has continued even after becoming president where treatment is offered to him State House - his view of sickness and hospitalisation might have changed greatly.
Since taking over and firmly believing the country needed his personal attention, he has been omnipresent and therefore his name became synonymous with Uganda. In 2017, he was quoted saying he has never been sick. That for over 31 years he has never been hospitalised or admitted for treatment, because he eats healthy African foods and avoids irresponsible behaviour.
And so his letter to Ugandans on June 11, admitting that he was on his fifth day of Covid-19, was surprising as well as frightening to many Ugandans. Many said that they had never heard that Museveni was sick. The letter emblazoned on a State House letterhead and titled Statement from HE The President, publicly announced that he was Covid-19 positive, and would take leave.
Many people remained unbelieving while others "killed" him on social media disregarding sensitivities harboured by the family and the office of the president.
Several people speculated on his condition for hours- for he had repeatedly said he cannot get sick- purely an African attribute to rulers and husbands- never to show weakness and fallibility to the rest of the community or family- for that will create tension and anxiety -over power and wealth.
Since the outbreak of Covid-19, Museveni has maintained a strict health protocol, including sitting nearly five metres away from people during public meetings, rarely shaking hands, preferring to wave his right hand, and those who work around him including staff, senior government officials and MPs undergo frequent tests. He doesn't share a microphone and carries his food, toilet facilities and doctors.
Public pressure, comments and reminders that people are concerned about his health forced Museveni to respond that he was working from home.
Some claimed that his sickness was an answer to their prayers following his decision to sign the anti-LGBTQ Act into law the same week, a stand that has attracted approval and condemnation.
After Uganda's Parliament passed the law, either voluntarily or suspected latent coercion, the president got the political will and support to assent to the law. Immediately after the law was signed the US government issued a travel advisory to its citizens visiting Uganda as Western media came hard on Museveni. In most African countries, same-sex marriages and homosexuality are criminal under the penal code. It is therefore not clear why Uganda would be singled out for enacting the law.
Following Thursday's budget reading in Parliament, Museveni immediately released a statement accusing his public/state officers of colluding with colonialists by signing loan agreements behind his back. He accused them of plotting to get money for their own use which in his estimation was corruption. He blames them for the current debt portfolio. Through a signed statement, he says he will personally take over loan agreements and will be the one signing them.
His senior officials, including the prime minister, are embroiled in a mabati theft saga even as Museveni accuses public servants of corruption.
His scepticism about Christianity and related western practices is captured in his book 'Sowing the Mustard Seed' where he accuses missionaries of being responsible for rendering Africans (Ugandans) lazy. He argues that people were led to live at the behest of God.
In her book "The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Betrayed: Memoirs of Miria Matembe, the author accuses the president of weakening the Leadership Code that aimed at forcing public officials to declare their wealth. Matembe, a former minister in Museveni's Cabinet, also accuses the president of pardoning people convicted of corruption.
Helen Epstein, a lecturer of Human Rights and Global Public Health at Bard, says that while Museveni yearned to fill the intellectual void left in Eastern Africa after the retirement of Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, he does not quite measure up to Nyerere's legacy.
"Museveni's ideas are limited and pragmatic, nurtured in the battlefields of Uganda's rural Luwero Triangle and within the constraints of global capitalism. This book is steeped more in the narrow convention of a street fighter than the contemplative tone of a scholarly treatise," says Prof Epstein.
Former journalist and now Kira Municipality MP Ssemujju Nganda says the president always claims that he is requested by people to remain at the helm but this is not true.
"He violated his promise when he assumed power in 1986. He violated his own manifesto on 2001 where he promised he was not going to stay for long.
"At one stage he claims he is not interested in the seat but people urge him to stand. The president and his family have become a big burden to the country," says Nganda.
For a man who started off as an opposition politician, jumped into exile and led a mass movement that changed the political direction of the country, Museveni must constantly be bothered that his country could slide back and that is something he wouldn't wish for.
