There is no tyrant, all over the world, who captures a country without stupefying its elite class, which class is responsible for wringing the common people into submission, into accepting that even though they are slaves, they are better slaves.

Surely, things have fallen apart; the role of elites and intellectuals, from time immemorial, has been one—to guide a society and hold its leaders to account—but today such people are guitar strings that misleaders pull to dissipate anger among the misled.

Elites cloak the evils of the tyrant. They edit the language of suppression into mild phrases, and ensure that the vanquished forget their servitude. Of course, a tyrant cannot survive without an enabler—a man or woman—who sits on national TV and convinces people that 2+2=9 and that such a supposition is arithmetically right.

But when an elite is blind to the realities of a society, then, without contradiction, he’s a fool. For there has never been a difference between one who murders and one who buries the already-unlived body—the two are parallel. For truth remains truth even when one tweaks it.

Uganda is at a crossroads, confused about which political route to take: the country’s democracy is in shambles—the constitution is dead; the infrastructure is gone; justice is an afterthought—the country is bereft of anything meaningful. But Museveni, even after his 40-year reign, grips the country, even in his senility, and the only way he can surrender it to its people is by bequeathing it to his drunk son, Muhoozi, who is unfit to even run a village Sacco.

Only if Ugandans were angry enough would they rise. Wolves have eaten their country into oblivion while they feed them with promises and dreams of peace. But what is the essence of peace if people cannot speak out their truth and go unpunished; if they still struggle to have a single meal a day; if hospitals are still death traps; if education leads people to nowhere; if roads within and without the capital city are fishponds; and when incompetence and corruption are highly valued?

It is difficult for normal people to be in Uganda and not be infuriated by the country’s political mess under Museveni, his family, and brownnosers. Ugandans are abnormal. Museveni has metamorphosed them into lunatics who are unaware of what is happening under the NRM regime.

And then there are the exposed patriots like Alan Kasujja, who are determined to convince anyone, even after traversing the world, that what is happening in Uganda is just normal. While Museveni tramples the liberties of Ugandans, elites like Alan ensure that the oppressed believe their oppressor is their only liberator and that what they call oppression is total peace, and that they should appreciate that truth.

A few days ago, on National Television, UBC, Alan Kasujja, the ex-BBC journalist and now Director of the Uganda Media Centre, reiterated that young people should not engage in toxic politics, that Uganda is peaceful, and that what Ugandans should focus on is getting into their pockets.

Alan said, and this publication quotes, “Uganda is peaceful from corner to corner.” He spewed all this having worked for the BBC News for 13 years. And when you digest all these facts, the only inference you can draw is that even though Alan has worked with the best, he has learned nothing. How unfortunate.

Alan is aware that peace is not merely the absence of war. He knows that without respect for human dignity and rights, peace is merely a word, a vacuum. Alan knows that freedom of expression is treasonous; he is aware that hundreds of people are in torture chambers on orders of Museveni and his son Muhoozi. He knows that arbitrary arrests of dissidents and opposition politicians are the government’s focus.

Alan is mindful of the fact that the murder of Ugandans by the Museveni regime is the most spoken language; he is cognisant of the soaring unemployment rates of young Ugandans. He knows of the scathing hunger in Karamoja, a land with multi-million-dollar wealth underneath its surface. He is quite sure of the fact that sustaining a business in Uganda is impossible due to the exorbitant taxes. Alan is aware that the country’s hospitals are empty and that the infrastructure is antique and in dire state. Alan knows that government critics like Sam Mugumya are in torture chambers and in jail without trial.

Of course, Alan’s claim that young Ugandans have opportunities, having travelled the world, is nothing but a mockery to young Ugandans who have incessantly suffered injustice and unemployment; Ugandans who go to bed on empty stomachs even when they hold degrees from the country’s most prestigious universities; Ugandans who die of fever because hospitals lack Panadol; Ugandans whose sons, husbands, daughters and wives the Museveni regime has disappeared or murdered.

Alan, in a fairer language, is a deranged fool. For we can excuse a drunkard Muhoozi, as he has always been an enemy of intellectualism and consciousness; we can forgive Andrew Mwenda or Kabanda for their idiocy, but not Alan, a journalist who has worked with the BBC for 13 years.

Elitism should not just focus on whistleblowing for the oppressors; it should equally be concerned with holding oppressors to account, reminding them that a country is more important than interim positions or offices—and when an elite ignores such basic truths, then he’s no better than an appendix—truth should be plain, and under all circumstances, it should remain the truth.