AS FRAIL AS MAHTMA GHANDI; President Museveni’s Radical Weight Loss Program Is Affecting The Way He Is Running The Affairs Of The State

 

AS FRAIL AS MAHTMA GHANDI; President Museveni’s Radical Weight Loss Program Is Affecting The Way He Is Running The Affairs Of The State

president Museveni now resembles Mahtma Ghandi who was also malnourished because of constant fasting

Just around last week president Museveni celebrated his 76^th birthday. When he appeared to make another covid-19 update speech on Sunday, he looked a little jetlagged and much older than the 76 years he clocked.

The television images cast a figure of a man who has done more than eight decades on earth. This deterioration of the Ugandan president is not without reason.

Some conspiracy theorists have tried to claim that president Museveni is actually much older than the age he professes.   

Some of us resist the claim that Museveni is actually older than 80 years because we have followed his growth pattern by looking at his childhood photos and following his school and working history.

When you look at the footages of his swearing in ceremony at the steps of parliament on 29^th January 1986, you really see a man in his mid forties-which makes his claim of being forty-four years in 1986 a correct assertion.

So why has Museveni aged like this?

If you speak to members of the opposition, they will claim political pressure arising from the heat wave of the 2021 elections.

But there is a scientific reason to explain the trend.

Look here; president Museveni himself claims that at one time he had gained 105 kilograms of weight. And when he became health conscious he started a crush program to cut the weight.

Mahtma Ghandi was so frail because of fasting 

And indeed, according to him, he has so far managed to cut the weight as low as 76 kilograms!. This obviously shows that he has lost over 30 kilograms which almost 30% of his body weight!

30 kilograms is a lot of weight to an extent that even if a cow was to lose them, there will be immediate invitations for the vet.

While weight is a taboo in most circles, it must also be known that it’s the one that gives us some degree of respectable appearance.

For instance the facial appearance largely depends on the fat that hangs around the skull. When you shade more than 30% of your body weight, you automatically look much older than your biological age.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

I once accumulated weight from 75 kilograms and rose to 92 kilograms. So I tried to cut it down and embarked on a regimen that involved exercising a lot, not eating lunch, starving myself of supper , avoiding meat products , etc.

But guess what happened.

Of course the jogging was becoming more enjoyable because I was lighter. I even started playing some football with the lads.

But on the negative aspect of it was that I started getting aching knees and joints because I was not taking meat products that would nourish them with the required nutrients.

I started getting weaker, less effective and sickly. While the scales showed that I was losing some fat, my appearance also suffered a huge setback.

I was becoming unrecognizably older. Most people wondered whether I had escaped from prison.

I could have fought on and maintained the same regimen, but the aching knees and sickly feeling compelled me to rethink my weight loss strategy.

I therefore started eating meat, because I realized that my body needed the cholesterol and fat which I was burning while exercising.

I had stopped eating posho because I had realized it as the number one contributor to my increase in weight.

I had reverted to a diet that glorified greens, and light food. But the net effect was that I had become a walking corpse of some sort and weaker than ever.

I was suffering from memory loss probably because of hunger and lack of the necessary food nutrients.

Once in a while I painfully breached my eating discipline and ate some meat and posho and felt very vigorously stronger again.

That’s the time I realized that a balance was needed between controlling weight by adopting measures that don’t hurt my health much further.

So I started eating my meat and my face regained its looks.

The biggest Lesson I leanrt was that not everybody is designed for a small frame of a body. We are naturally born different.

Some of us are born with genes that easily convert food into immediate body mass.

What you need to do in such a situation is to work out that body mass rather than starve the body of the nutrients it needs. Losing 10% of your body weight is understandably safer.

As stated earlier ,President Museveni lost 30% of his body mass, which puts his overall health in jeopardy.

The mistake of starving the body of the food that has the nutritional value it needs to re-energize and renew itself is suicidal.

 When someone wants to cut weight the first thing s/he does is to cut out meat and fat. Yet the body needs those fats to regenerate itself and to boost the body hormones.

President Museveni revealed that he cut his weight by eating a lot of vegetables, less meat or no meat at all etc.

Having lost 30 kilograms already, he has already done well and needs to balance by eating the crucial food nutrients, even if they bring on some weight in the process. Then he can cut it out by exercising regularly. 

REPERCUSSIONS

If he doesn’t eat, then his health will suffer terrible setbacks. The body is like a car. It thrives on what we feed it.

The popular saying that ‘you are what you eat’ is more than accurate. We are indeed what we eat.

If the NRM chairman feeds as well as he should, he will regain his youthful looks again. I have seen people much older than Museveni looking much younger than he is.

I recently saw former super minister in president Obote’s government Chris Rwakasis claim that he is much older than Museveni. But he has just made 80 years of age.

But Rwakasis looks superbly younger than museveni even when he is at 80 years probably because he has maintained a much bigger weight that fits with his body. Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda maintained an averagely good body frame because he never attempted to cut it down.

The way forward

It’s not a given that a bigger person is unhealthy

 You can maintain better health by exercising on a bigger body frame. 

President Museveni can look much better with a body frame of around 86 kilograms. Anything less than that will make him look older, weak and less healthy, suffer memory loss etc.. 

By the way museveni now resembles Indian nationalists Mahtma Ghandi who was so frail because of constant fasting. 

Somebody should advise president Museveni not to overindulge in weight loss because its affecting the way he is running the state.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a social critic and a blogger

kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

 

 

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Most Ugandans Cannot Contextualize Political Jargons; To What Extent Is Balaam Barugahaare A Useful Idiot?

 

Most Ugandans Cannot Contextualize Political Jargons; To What Extent Is Balaam Barugahaare A Useful Idiot?

Last week Mukono municipality Member of Parliament Hon Betty Namboze stirred a powerful storm in the cup when she cunningly referred to music promoter cum self appointed NRM mobilizer Mr. Balaam Barugahaare as a ‘useful idiot’.

The witty Namboze was later attacked for being abusive and using foul language to address his fellow countryman Balaam Barugahaare on a talk-show hosted on national television.

Balaam himself rose to the occasion and authored a stinging rebuttal which was supplemented by other social media gurus like Titus Seruga.

On his part Titus Seruga, out of probable ignorance about the actual meaning of the word ‘useful idiot’, lambasted Hon Namboze for abusing Balaam and being what he called a ‘political prostitute’ who jumps from one camp to another for personal convenience.

Titus went on to wash dirty linen in public when he revealed that Hon Namboze had quietly worked with Hon Patrick Amama Mbabazi in the TDA alliance and at the same time met president Museveni in state house in the night during the 2016 elections.

Revealing secret workings with colleagues is one of the most unfortunate tendencies of human nature. Its raw betrayal of sorts since it exposes you as a poor keeper of secrets.

Therefore Mr. Seruga Titus should have attacked Hon Namboze basing on the merits and demerits of the statements she made rather than revealing what they had done together in the past. 

UNDERSTANDING POLITICAL JARGON

Having read from several briefs, I concluded that perhaps most Ugandans have not contextualized the use of political jargons.

If they had known, they would simply use counter jargons to rebuttal Hon Namboze.

Ordinarily, the world useful idiot is a political jargon which explains the person who supports an organization or leader without a firsthand understanding of the mission of that particular leader. 

It also means a person who passionately supports a political movement without considering or taking into account the negative social ramifications of that movement on society.

It’s actually believed that this word was first coined and by Russian leader Vladmir Lenin in his reference to those he considered as his political opponents. 

It is a political jargon that is mostly descriptive rather than abusive, like most Ugandans have ignorantly portrayed it.

It must be stressed that the use of political jargon is the way political discourse is conducted in civilized societies when political adversaries are engaging in each other in a debate of some sort.

A ‘useful idiot’ is like a supporter of a cult. Like we all know, cults have a miserable ending.  It’s uncouth, for instance, to call your opponent stupid, foolish because these are directly veiled abusive words.

Once you fail to use the words that describe the behavioral tendencies of the person then you will certainly be considered abusive, which is not acceptable in civilized societies.

For instance instead of calling someone a fool or a stupid man, you can simply say, he is a sycophant to describe his proclivity for offering blind support to the regime or an organization.

You can also use other political jargons like influence agent, bootlicker, a pawn and words of that nature.

WHERE DOES BALAAM FIT?

When you look at the way Mr. Balaam has conducted himself in the run up to the recent years when he came out to proclaim his devotion to NRM, you cannot deny the fact that he exhibits elements of being an influence agent, a sycophant bootlicker or even useful idiot.

Why?

 Here is a man who claims to use his own money to buy off president Museveni’s political opponents.

But the same man claims that he is not a political actor, holds no political position in the NRM party, but goes on to spend his own money to buy off those he considers as political opponents of the president. This is bizarre!

We understand that citizens can raise funds for a political party to pursue and actualize a given cause. During the American elections presidential candidates raise money to support president candidates.

But it’s totally unheard of or probably unthinkable to hear someone use his own funds to buy off the political opponents of another.

Mr. Balaam brags to having used his own money to buy off NRM political opponents like radio talk show political demagogue Bassajja Mivule, social media activists like Ashburg kato, musicians like Butcher man, Full-figure and many others.

Now listen to this carefully; does it make sense for someone to use his own money to fish out political opponents of an organization where he holds no position?

The act of buying off the political opponents makes sense to the apologists of the regime. That’s why we consider it to be useful.

But the fact that you use your own money to do so is very idiotic indeed.

In a more organized setup you would expect Balaam to take those funds to the coffers of the NRM party secretariat at plot ten Kyadondo.

That’s what most of the powerful entrepreneurs like Sudhir Ruparelia , Mulwana and many other companies do when they decide to fund the ruling party during elections.

    Mr. Balaam considers himself as a high rate tax payer whose business empire ranks within the second tier of companies that pay most taxes in Uganda.

He therefore claims that he has an interest in having a party that can sustain the peace and stability in the country in order to do business. That is granted, no problem.

LOGICAL ACTIONS

Even if we justify the buying off of political opponents as a good gesture, look at the people who have been bought by Balaam.

The unfortunate aspect of it is that they are not political actors at all.

We should weigh how much political relevance does Bassajja Mivule weigh in the politics of Uganda?

How much of a political threat does Mivule pose to the peace and stability of the country, so that we can gauge him as a threat to the stability that Balaam needs to do his businesses?

What is the political value of people like Ashburg Kato, Full figure, Catherine kusasira and others bought off by Mr. Balaam. How much value do they add to NRM.

How much of a threat do they pose to the peace and stability of the country?

Without being disrespectful, those aforementioned people are not even politicians. For instance a person like Catherine Kusasira fullfigure and Butherman were not political actors at all. They were only interested in their music and not concerned about the Ping-Pong involved in the politics of the country. 

In the most recent past Balaam was captured on live television paying off renowned socialite known as Bad-black a huge sack of money which she had failed to retrieve from the ministry of health for doing an advert alerting prostitutes from sleeping with truck drivers to contain the corona virus.

The whole sage was justified by stating that the money, rumored to be over 300 millions, was handed over by Balaam to Bad-black to protect the image of the national resistance movement and its chairman, President Yoweri Museveni!

When you think through this, you will find it not adding up at all.

If a business man is using his money to do such work then what name should we give him or her?

Look; someone is using his own money to buy off people who are not and have never been political actors to defend a political organization! Oh dear me!

The Nigerians will say, ‘’ heey ,,you de laugh naw, ,, to such a person’’.

To use the word ‘useful idiot’ to describe such a person is even an understatement.

In fact Hon Namboze was being civil in her description.

 Nevertheless we need to contend that the word itself is not necessarily an abusive word in a raw sense of the word, like most people have misunderstood it to be.

In more vivid terms, those who understand politics will tell you that it’s normal for someone to use a political jargon to define someone else.

We are not saying that Balaam is an idiot, for he seems to be an intelligent lad. But we are saying that his behavior patterns in regard to the way he has submitted his loyalty to the NRM put him in a very difficult indefensible situation.

It’s interesting to know how he brags to his wife and family about how much money he has used to buy off non-political actors just to show support to NRM.

How does his wife take the message?

Please describe that way you would feel when your father comes home and tells you  that ‘’I have just given Badblack 300 million , which government had failed to pay her for making the covid19 advert.

THE WAY FORWARD

Balaam needs to get back to the drawing board and change strategy to strengthen his attachments to NRM. For instance if he can make a swoop for rebel leader Joseph Kony and buy him out of the bush then nobody will contest his credibility.

Alternatively if he can fish out political actors like Norbert Mao , Abdu Katuntu Kiiza Besigye , Salaam Musumba and bring them back to the NRM fold then he will make it very difficult to be described as a ‘’useful idiot’. He will forever be regarded as a master strategist.

The Author Fred Daka Kamwada Is A Seasoned Social Critic And Blogger

kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

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