On Friday, November 28, the KFM Hot Seat Friday panel of journalists, as we know it, belted out its swansong. This is ironic because it often operated below the belt, at least according to the government. I was honoured to be on this last show of what was an iconic media fixture. I didn’t gatecrash, as my haters would have you believe. I was invited. Imagine me, of all people. I am not knocking my abilities or stature. To the contrary, I am impressed with myself.
You see, I used to listen to Andrew Mwenda Live and the Friday panel of journalists religiously. Both were various incarnations and predecessors to the Hot Seat show. I recall when Mwenda had former president Godfrey Binaisa (derided as Bin Issa of Zanzibar to his haters) on the show. Mwenda asked him about another former president, Milton Obote. The late Binaisa, always calm and collected, praised the late Obote as astute, along with a number of other favourable adjectives.
After Binaisa’s encomiums, as he would call them, Mwenda told Binaisa what Obote had said about him. It was documented in a book, and it was not charitable.
Thereupon, Binaisa, right in the Monitor FM studios, KFM’s previous brand name, changed tack and declared Obote an unsavoury character or words to that effect.
It was a clever tactic by Mwenda. The before and after versions of Binaisa with respect to what he said about Obote and what he thought about Obote captured the variety which is the spice of life.
Mwenda didn’t stop there. His other provocations got him thrown behind bars where he was visited by the current Chief of Defence Forces with cameras and journalists in tow. One could not help but admire Mwenda. He was (and is) well read, boldly analytical, with a mouth that seems to run on rocket fuel. It never ran on empty, unlike some of his guests. On Friday, when the coven of journalists sat to analyse the events of the week, it only got better. Timothy Kalyegira, a man who is no stranger to controversy himself, would also show up. He came across as subdued, somewhat.
His voice was always dialled down so he could orally wring the neck of anybody who had the misfortune of being caught in his intellectual crosshairs. He was often more forthright than Mwenda. He hosted the last show, but this time without the fire and brimstone of an analytical messiah seemingly cross with the world. On the panel of journalists’ last dance, as it were, he was full of cheer. It being a Friday night, I thought he had sipped something. But Tim is a teetotaller.
So he was just high on the memories the show embalmed in him. Raymond Mujuni was also in the house. That guy is whip-smart and eloquent, too. I always thought he was a little effete, but in person he is the exact opposite. He knows exactly when to launch and land the knockout pitch. Also in the studio were Frank Mugimba and Isaac Kayonde, along with Jimmy Odoki Acellam. They all held different views and political stances, but got along famously.
Suddenly, I realised what the true heritage of the show was. It was not the show’s iconoclasms, nor was it the show’s guests, several of whom were presidents and former presidents. The show’s significance came from its purveyance and promotion of contrary standpoints, thereby crystallising the unity in diversity we must all embrace if Uganda is to achieve its destiny.