The saying that politics is a dirty game is parroted by National Resistance Movement (NRM) bigwigs like an article of faith you would be proud of. Indeed, when the ruling elite wants people in institutions like churches and traditional palaces to keep quiet, one of the arguments fronted is that these people should not soil their images in the dirt of politics.
Never mind that the holy and the dignified are sometimes wretched and deplorable. The assumption is that in the pursuit of power, it is normal to act like a crook.
The politician is expected to tell lies to win the hearts of voters and subjects. The politician is thought to be smart if his capacity for intrigue is high. The politician can be forgiven if he turns to blackmail to undermine an opponent and throw him off balance.
A politician who steals public money or goods can go scot-free if he can arrange to hold accountable the technocrats he used to execute the theft. Politicians can even commit murder if their reasons are clearly political and the differences between the perpetrators and the victims cannot be resolved in the courts, as long as the action is not repeated so frequently that the incidents can no longer be described as ‘isolated’.
The NRM has embraced those guidelines; not formally in writing, but in practice. After 40 years of NRM parading the dirt attributed to politics, the party chairman, President Museveni, is standing again for re-election in January 2026.
This week, while launching his manifesto for 2026-2031, the President made a reference to a security issue; the stealing of livestock that is now rampant in the countryside.
And it is not only livestock, but almost any farm product; from coffee beans to Matooke and maize; and of course the stealing of land itself.
President Museveni has talked about dealing with the actors involved in land grabbing and the displacement of peasants for as long as we can remember, but the general perception is that the crime and injustice are simply growing, the victims multiplying.
The success of the NRM government at reducing abject poverty in rural areas has already been shown to be patchy, and the menace of the village thief is undoing the little progress. Beneficiaries of programmes like Parish Development Model spend sleepless nights protecting or worrying about the products of their labour, as well as facing the threat of losing their very land.
Being in this situation is so demoralising that there are now people in the villages who feel betrayed and are talking of doing any work other than farming. When the NRM/A seized power in 1986, these peasants were President Museveni’s pet subjects, giving him wholehearted support even when some elitists remained sceptical.
Now the President and his security outfits seem incapable of protecting the peasants and their property from their tormentors. These tormentors, the huge pool of village criminals, are themselves children of NRM rule, most of them under age-40 and unemployed. It is the 1986 generation of loyal peasants that has bred and nurtured the new generation of young village hoodlums and gangsters.
Above them are (mostly NRM) local council chiefs and NRM bigwigs who believe that their occupation, politics, thrives on criminality and impunity. Honesty, hard work and slow money are despised. To be a thief of public resources is to be smart. What if stealing farm products is also for the smart? Has the young village thief learned from and been emboldened by singers of the doctrine that politics is dirty?