Musaazi NAMITI | The Founder’s Mind Space
A lot has been said about former journalist Raymond Mujuni choosing to work for the government, yet a few years back he had ganged up with those clamouring for change. The Observer’s article published on October 8 brought the debate into sharp focus.
Many have read the Observer article, so I will not dwell on it. I will share an anecdote about what the founder and CEO of BbegMedia, Edris Kiggundu, wrote on his Facebook page in 2018 when he was the editor of Nile Post, NBS TV’s sister news site.
Mr Kiggundu said he had conducted an informal survey and wanted to know how many Ugandans would turn down a job at the State House that comes with the following perks:
- 4×4 car
- Security
- Regular travel abroad with allowances
- Three face-to-face meetings with President Museveni every month
Mr Mujuni’s new job does not involve working with President Museveni and does not come with the same perks. But since Mr Museveni leads the government, there are interesting parallels.
Mr Kiggundu’s post did not say how much the job paid, or whether it was hypothetical, but many people who responded to the post said they would not accept the job. Why? Because of what they called Museveni’s rotten leadership. Others said they would readily accept the offer.
I remember commenting on the post and stating the obvious: If someone has a job and they are happy with it, they do not have to work for/with Mr Museveni, especially if they disapprove of his leadership style. But if someone is unemployed or underemployed and they have a large family to support, I wrote, they would find it hard to reject that offer.
I went on to say that some people who would criticise people taking up the offer are hypocrites and are applying double standards.
I am a student of life, and I am still learning, but perhaps the greatest lesson I have learnt is that a source of income for most people is the be-all and end-all of life.
In our quest to have a steady or reliable source of income, we sometimes pay scant attention to ethics. This is not to say that Mr Mujuni has done something unethical working for the government. I am only illustrating my point.
Employees, for example, tolerate undemocratic practices at their workplaces. They sing praises of bosses when they should not. They befriend people they should ostracise.
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Many Ugandan journalists I know are outspokenly critical of Mr Museveni, and they have compelling reasons, one of which is that he runs a corrupt and incompetent government.
But some journalists are some of the most corrupt people in Uganda. Many run news outlets that do not sell any news or advertising space and make money either by publishing PR articles or blackmailing news sources.
That is how they survive. Yet they criticise Museveni—and I am not saying they should not—and think that anyone who has skills to sell working for/with Mr Museveni is a villain.
If working for/with Mr Museveni has become despicable, why are we not boycotting entire corporate entities such as Vision Group, which publishes newspapers that often carry fawning articles of Museveni?
The New Vision used to publish articles with the byline “By Vision Reporter”. They were not written by reporters of the New Vision; they were written by the Presidential Press Unit in the State House.
Those stories often sang praises of the president. Yet Ugandans, including me and the social media crowd that is (understandably) anti-Museveni, continued to read the New Vision.
The same Ugandans followed Vision Group’s senior executives and editors on X and Facebook. They shared their posts. They dined and wined with them.
You cannot do that and then turn around and say that a man or a woman who accepts a job to work for or with Mr Museveni is the villain.
Read: Spire’s cartoon on Alan Kasujja and what critics of autocratic regimes get wrong
The Observer’s article noted that choosing not to work with the government, which is the biggest employer and provides secure jobs, may leave you with one option: having a stagnating career and financial impotence.
People who are working with the government have bills to pay. They have children to look after. They cannot stop working for/with Museveni for the same reasons many of us are reluctant to resign from our positions, even when we have compelling reasons to do so.
Whenever we criticise people who have decided to work for/with Museveni, the first question we should ask is: What if they have nothing to do to earn a decent living? Or what if working with Mr Museveni is the surest way of advancing their career?
READ MORE FROM MUSAAZI NAMITI
🔴 Musaazi Namiti is the Founder and Editorial Director of OJ-UGANDA. He previously led the Africa Desk at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, worked for Globe Media Asia in Cambodia and writes a widely read column for Uganda’s Weekend Monitor. His work has been quoted by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Jeune Afrique, The Africa Report—not for playing it safe, but for saying what others will not.