Last week on Friday, without success, Timothy Kalyegira invited me to 93.3 KFM radio station for the last edition of the Friday Panel of Journalists. Many years ago, we used to converge on Fridays to discuss over tea, coffee and cakes served by Ban Café, -the major events of the week.
We sat with any four or five of the likes of Chris Obore, Timothy Kalyegira, Charles Odongtho, Paul Busharizi, Don Innocent Wanyama, Sheila Naturinda, Ann Anena, Barbra Among, Bernard Tabaire, Angello Izama, Obed Katureebe, Dismas Nkunda, the late Francis Onapito Ekomoloit, etc. Andrew Mwenda and Charles Mwanguhya Mpagi hosted the show. As others dropped out, new faces like Ivan Rugambwa and Jimmy Odoki Achellam came in. I felt a sense of nostalgia about the swan song.
Like all radio and TV talk shows, it is mostly the discussions off air, before the show, during the advert breaks and at the end, that are really most intriguing. You hear the political gossip and things that can’t be easily substantiated.
Onapito -fondly called Ona- who worked at State House as the President’s press secretary, was very cautious both off and on air. He loved to quote Victor Hugo thus ‘there is no army that can defeat an idea whose time has come.’ It was his cryptic way of answering those who thought the opposition would surmount the NRM.
When one looks at the trajectory that the campaigns for the 2026 elections have taken, you can’t help but recall Ona’s words.
What was widely touted as a peaceful election campaign season has all of a sudden served us ugly scenes of violence. In Kawempe, the chaos left many injured. In Iganga, one Misaki Okello is in his grave courtesy of a bullet.
All this has happened at rallies for the main opposition candidate, National Unity Platform’s (NUP) Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly called Bobi Wine.
The Uganda Police and the army have come very hard on this group of mainly young, excited supporters. Some of them have been seen tearing Bobi Wine’s campaign posters, using tear gas and live ammunition to scatter what are seemingly peaceful but highly animated rallies.There are various arguments as to why these developments are taking place. On the side of the police and the Electoral Commission, NUP and its supporters do not follow the routes agreed upon, to campaign venues and hold procession on the road. That they also accuse them of snatching property like phones and handbags on the road while obstructing other road users and provoke the police.The police also make unsubstantiated accusations of destroyed police trucks with deflated tyres, theft of computers and jammers to justify their high-handedness. For crying out loud, why should the police jam the signals of a particular candidate in this social media age, if they do not have sinister motives? Are they trying to stop the candidate from publicising his rallies to those who are not at the scene? Or are they hiding their own transgressions in the bid to disrupt his rallies?Of course, the police have a duty to keep law and order and protect members of the public. A supporter who engages in theft or brutality is a criminal to be dealt with in accordance with the law. But the police cannot ostensibly act high-handedly and with a predetermined mindset aimed at frustrating a candidate. They should not also apply the law selectively.
We saw NRM supporters in yellow t-shirts beating up people and stealing their property in broad daylight as they trekked for a party function in Kampala.
One of the victims was Ms Grace Akullo, a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police. How come the police did not disperse the rally and throw teargas on this occasion to ‘protect the public?’
They have come up with the rather pedestrian and infantile suggestion that the supporters should converge at the campaign venue like congregants in a church and wait for the candidate to arrive like the main celebrant.The Buganda Katikiro Charles Peter Mayiga reminded us correctly that campaigns are about excitement.
The campaign, like it happened in Iganga, is a one-day event and not a week or month-long affair. If the supporters of a candidate are in town, the police may deploy to prevent disruptions for that day. A tolerant society can bear with others painting the town red (no pun intended) for that one day, and life goes on. The criminals do not fall in this category.NUP on its part claims that the police, army and RDCS act as a wing of the ruling party and so come in to frustrate them. They say that the NRM is astounded that they still have wind beneath their wings after their surprising performance in the 2021 elections. What they thought was just a passing cloud has instead grown bigger.
That agents provocateurs have been planted to stir up commotion and justify the violent disruption of their rallies. It also opens a window for the police to arrest supporters of the candidate, torture and detain them, like many others who have not been seen or released since 2019.Whether we don’t like Bobi Wine because we look down upon him as a Johnny- come-lately does not matter. If he is the one the young people have set their sights on -even if they will not vote for him, that is it. If he is the one who has captured their imagination, even if he cannot define and articulate a fiscal policy, that is it. If the young people of this country think Bobi Wine is the one who will deliver them from the evils of unemployment, nepotism, corruption, broken court system, state failure, lack of social services, bad roads etc even if he is not clear on how he will achieve it, that is itLike Ona used to remind us about Victor Hugo, there is no army, teargas, basement, fridge, or prison, biases electoral commission, bribery etc that can stop an idea or person whose time has come.
All the brutality since 2019 has not deterred people from following Bobi Wine despite the risks. People like Olivia Lutaaya spent four years in jail but came out and began where they had stopped, i.e. following Bobi Wine with passion.The police should wake up and smell the coffee. We have to devise ways of living with the reality of Bobi Wine and his apparent representation of the hopes and aspirations of the young people even if we think that they may be misguided.