Simon Kaheru: When you obfuscate instead of manifest, you lose…so use the manifesto properly

By Simon Kaheru

THE WORD MANIFESTO has an interesting but obvious history – which phrase itself contains a pun.

It came from the Latin ‘manifestus’ which the online etymology tool etymonline.com says meant “plainly apprehensible, clear, apparent, evident”. It “was also used as a noun (to mean) ‘obvious facts, palpable things'”.

Our current environment in Uganda should have us all using this word in every conversation by now but … no.

The definition makes me think the opposite of manifestus would be “obfuscatus” – from ‘obfuscate’, which means: “make obscure, unclear or unintelligible”

That seems to be our general mental demeanour in this country right now – “Please obfuscate us!”

See, so far around this presidential campaign even the most educated people around us are simply sharing photographs and videos of throngs of people wearing t-shirts in the colour of their preferred political parties or candidates.

By the time the presidential candidates had fuelled up their cars, a couple of them had released soft copy versions of their manifestos declaring how they would lead between 2026 and 2031 if elected.

So far, I have seen fewer than ten articles digging into the manifestos of the two leading horses in the race – NRM and NUP.

One of them, by ‘Researcher & Economist’ John Robert Tenywa, summarised both quite well, saying:

“The NRM manifesto’s strength lies in its roadmap and policy depth, though it falls short in acknowledging the failures of previous terms. In contrast, the NUP manifesto champions political reform and systematic overhaul…vital pillars, but the document lacks a detailed socio-economic blueprint.”

In various arguments elsewhere, many have agreed with this for good reason.

Another piece I read which lacked a byline but was posted online at https://ugbriefs.com/delivering-stability-and-vision-why-president-musevenis-manifesto-outpaces-bobi-wines-fake-incompetent-and-selfish-promises/ presented some annoying details.

The author used an online AI-content detection tool called GPTZero (it’s easily available and does not cost too much – try it yourself!) and says:

“…the preamble to Kyagulanyi’s Manifesto is…only 5% written by a human, 82% mixed (human and AI) and 13% AI generated….” and presents a link to the Report.

Plus:

“… the ‘Message from the Party President’, a representation of the candidate himself, runs on only one page and when run into the AI detector, is 82% AI-generated, 13% mixed, and only 5% human!”

We all know where the article ends.

Pre-AI, we were dismayed here in Uganda to discover that the FDC Party had copied their manifesto from the UK’s Conservative Party. But we were not surprised.

Look, the NRM architects have had forty years of experience running government and are in a good position to put forward clear, palpable plans. Plus, they seem to have ALL the economists, social and political scientists, agronomists, and so on and so forth on their side.

Otherwise, why are their arguments so clear?

The NUP side of this battle… not so much.

In fact, some NUP protagonists – including their leader Bobi Wine Kyagulanyi – have even created ridicule for themselves by publicly manifesting a skimpy understanding of how to run a country.

Being the underdog in this fight, they could have done with a lot more help from the clever people out here who say we must change from the NRM after these four decades to something fresh. They need to Be Serious, but can’t.

All the Opposition parties involved in this campaign should be doing much, much more because theirs is an uphill battle, for sure.

But what are the clever people who claim to “support Opposition” doing?

Sharing photographs of crowds.

No jokes – even when discussions happen, they are centred around almost anything BUT what’s in the manifestos. Obfuscatus.

I see Professors, PhD holders and ‘leaders’ online making the most simple of arguments using one-liners and rhetorical questions with zero reference to a Manifesto, Report or Plan.

It’s confounding – people who derive their social status from a process that involved academic study that required reading long and hard and citing documents, now refuse to do so when determining the future of the nation.

Many people who read their Bible every day and can quote paragraphs out of it for any instance of a normal day cannot tell you on what page of their preferred candidate’s manifesto you can find the one issue linked to their employment.

But they have on quick standby photographs of their candidate overlooking throngs of people in their party colours.

One friend I will not name here irritated me so much with his refusal to discuss the manifesto that I asked him if he had used photographs to apply for his current job, rather than a sensible Resume/CV.

He took further offence when I asked if the CV section of ‘Hobbies and Other Interests’ was his strongest point in being given his senior level job.

We are operating like this out of a mental laziness that shows itself up amongst these elites who insist on being led by people they claim to look down upon and yet who we deserve.

All these clever people running financial, telecommunication, beverage and logistics companies will continue to be at the mercy of politicians who don’t need to do much more than buy and distribute t-shirts simply because we refuse to step up and challenge them.

That’s why we have some presidential candidates clowning on stage and in the media with platters of rice and making claims that some primary school children are already turning into memes.

In one meme, we giggled at how FDCs Nandala Mafabi this week very kindly offered to lower the age of the elderly from 80 to 60, and to increase their allowance. He himself, it turns out, is turning 60 in January next year, just before he gets elected President, if dreams were to come true.

Yet, even as he made that declaration to the people of Kween he said: “We know at 60 years, a person is tired and can no longer be productive.”

Yeah – and we just move along continuing with campaigns even as one candidate tells us he can no longer be productive roundabout the time he would be swearing in as President.

Never mind that he makes zero reference to how that money will be created and about retirement ages in this country.

Scour the internet for any Ugandan economist dissecting his strategy, or that of the other Opposition people who should be doing much more, and you will be defeated.

You will return with more photographs of candidates and their crowds and more obfuscation about what most of the candidates are actually capable of doing…giving the clear victory ahead to the one who actually has a Manifesto. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).