People who live in glass houses should not throw stones

My attention has been drawn to a critique by Mr Frank Tumwebaze, the minister for the Presidency, castigating presidential candidates Kizza Besigye and Amama Mbabazi for offering mere rhetoric about their manifestos and not concrete policies in their campaigns.

He is right to say the question of the message, “different candidates are telling their respective audiences should be a matter of concern to all Ugandans. It should be substance and not in form of pledges. The feasibility of each pronouncement should be rigorously asserted”.

Mr Tumwebaze seems to have forgotten that that is the concern all Ugandans are expressing now about his own preferred presidential candidate, Yoweri Museveni.

For starters, we notice that candidate Museveni has said very little about combating corruption in his manifesto even though in an earlier one he had solemnly pledged that there would be zero tolerance to corruption and yet we have witnessed a lot of corruption throughout this term ending.
His government has fuelled, encouraged and applauded corruption and illegalities. Mr Tumwebaze, what have you to say about these blatant and rampant corruption and electoral malpractices spearheaded by your party? Have you ever been heard protesting against them?

On the contrary, you are always seen and heard praising the NRM and its performance. Why blame your former colleagues and others instead of the leadership responsible for all the mess in governance.

People who live in glass houses should not throw or play with stones carelessly.

Otherwise, other people may throw back stones in retaliation and smash their glass houses.

The catalogue of wrongs and misdeeds Tumwebaze has levelled against Besigye and Mbabazi are exactly the same that are levelled against Museveni and his government by Ugandans.

He has been head of State, head of government and commander-in-chief of the UPDF since 1986. Everyone else in government since then has been subordinate to President Museveni. Each has been appointed, controlled and ought to have been disciplined by President Museveni.

All Cabinet ministers, permanent secretaries, junior government officials, the police and sometimes senior army officers have been commanded and commandeered by President Museveni.

The presidential candidates Tumwebaze is criticising were acting on orders and directives of presidential candidate Museveni.
If they had succeeded in their work, Museveni would have taken the credit. If they were not as Tumwebaze asserts, Museveni should carry the stigma.

However, Tumwebaze reveals one of the greatest weaknesses of President Museveni. Museveni personally assessed and picked Kizza Besigye and Amama Mbabazi and entrusted them with government responsibilities.
Tumwebaze has now exposed to the whole world that Museveni is a very poor judge of the cadres he chooses to serve him and Uganda. Successful and wise leaders will always carefully select good and competent cadres to assist them in the running of public affairs.

If Tumwebaze is to be believed, then he has embarrassingly exposed one of the weaknesses of President Museveni.

Incidentally, part of Tumwebaze’s duties as minister should have been to warn President Museveni about his weaknesses to continue employing and recycling failures in government jobs.

For much of Mbabazi’s tenure as minister and prime minister, Tumwebaze was adviser to President Museveni.