By Mike Ssegawa
Some years ago, Bobi Wine , now MP candidate for Kyadondo East, sang a song Obululu tebutwawula.
The song was an appeal to the population to desist from using politics especially during elections, to sow seeds of division and discord.
And Bobi told his supporters and fellow candidates that he will stand by the principle, by playing clean during the campaign month.
It about 16 days to the June 29 bi-election, and the Apollo Kantinti group have unleashed a can of worms. It is difficult to say the Bobi Wine campaign could remain silence in the face of unrelenting attacks from the Kantinti campaign, especially if it is about character assassination of the Bobi brand.
Last weekend, photographs of Buchaman, a former singer with Bobi Wine’s Firebase Crew and member of the Ghetto republic, were awash social media campaigning for Forum for Democratic Change flag bearer Apollo Kantinti.
The Kantinti group is banking on Buchaman to shoot down the legend Bobi Wine is building that he is the leader they have been waiting for, a savior for the people of Kyadondo East. And Buchaman did not disappoint his newly found lovers in the FDC family. He hammered nail after nail in Bobi Wine’s character and hoped he would close it by saying the Ghetto republic president is a king of manipulation, warning voters against falling for his smooth talking.
Buchaman said these unfortunate things about his former hustler before adoring FDC big guns including Kizza Besigye, Mugisha Muntu, Nandala Mafabi, etc. Muntu who is known for saying he doesn’t believe in such cheap politics, said nothing to that effect, that one can come out to malign a former friend in a bid to discredit him. A lot of course, usually takes place among friends, and whereas Buchaman is fast to complain how Bobi cheated him, Bobi has been silent about him. And time has announced in deed who was helping the other – because Buchaman music career has literally died since he left the Ghetto republic family.
But for Kantinti, this was a new low in his campaign to hope that a man who failed in a music career, and blames a fellow artist for his failure, would rise up to rescue his short political career. The Baganda would call it – okusaba akawanga obulamu (asking a skull for a long life)!
Buchaman is musically dead, just like Kantinti is a dead man walking – politically. And you can see the last kicks of the dying horse when it starts seeking cheap jabs like asking Buchaman to join his campaign. Kantinti’s ferry is full cracks, and by the time it docks on June 29, it will be written off completely. Never to sail again.
Buchaman on the other hand, is carrying vendetta against Bobi Wine for nothing. The truth is, save for a mention in columns such as this one, and fuel fees from Kantinti campaign, nothing he will do to discredit Bobi Wine would stop the storm from sweeping Kyadondo East in Bobi’s favour. Time has never been too ripe for a message like Bobi’.
And of course, even if Buchman shouts his already hoarse voice dry, it would not resurrect his dead music career.
The only benefit I see in the Kantinti-Buchaman alliance is actually, misery courts misery. Both Kantinti and Buchaman will die in their own movie.
The events of the past days show Buchaman and Kantinti as opportunists, sowing seeds of hate, and of course, they are not addressing the issues, but appeal to character assassination to beg supporters’ sympathies.
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