ADAM KAMULEGEYA: Why Bobi Wine mistimed his presidential bid

Friends, I am once again back with my usual brutal honesty which has garnered me many detractors at the same time winning me many funs.

After President Yoweri Museveni had been in power for over 30 years and the man Ugandans had trusted to help change the status quo, his former physician Dr. Kizza Besigye, was himself getting tired and old, the focus turned to a new opposition leader.

True that Mr. Museveni had done plenty of good things for the nearly failed state Uganda had become. Yes he was a very good dancer but the audience was saying: “Can’t we have the opportunity to see another dancer at least with a different style?”

But Mr. Museveni had continued to perfect his dances and often coming up with new ones. Then the people turned and said: “Where are the other dancers anyway?”

They looked around and saw none coming up or measuring up to Museveni’s gyrating style. Kizza Besigye was himself developing a stiff back without getting a chance to get to the dance floor.

Ugandans had heard indeed seen Major Gen. Mugisha Muntu; they had heard and seen Chairman Nobert Mao; they had heard and seen Engineer Patrick Oboe Amuliat and the other usual dramatists like Lubega Mukaku, Abed Bwanika, Mike Mabikke, Dr. Olara Otunnu and others.

But none had the pedigree to measure up to President Museveni a man who was literally born to be President of Uganda.

Let me be clear. We all know how Museveni came to power but some of us are completely unaware how he has kept that power in perpetuity. I won’t call him a ‘genius’ because some of you think that, by often saying that, I am actually belittling other Ugandans.

How about baptizing him a ‘fool’ who ruled a ‘clever’ people for 40 years? Will this connotation make you happy and you start to see yourself as clever?

Yoweri Museveni is an enigma. He is a Pandora box which you wouldn’t want to open. Ever!

There is a story of a hunter who once trapped a hyena with a hot stone laced with fats (amasaavu). He had thrown the hot stone into the Hyena’s mouth and two things happened: The hyena was getting burnt by the stone and decided to spit it. But the stone was also too sweet because of the fats laced on it. So the hyena had two difficult choices: swallow the sweet-hot stone and get burnt in the process or spit it and lose the sweetness!

This is the exact difficult choice which has been bedeviling Ugandans. We know pretty well that President Museveni ‘must’ go (because it is the right thing to do) but who to replace him is the million dollar question.

This was the case, indeed the dilemma, until a local ragga musician called Bobi Wine appeared from nowhere and turned the Ugandan political scene on its head.

I remember a conversation I had with a Canadian professor whom I met at a downtown Toronto eatery in a giant mall called the Eaton Center. We had charted with this knowledgeable man called Gary Webster with our conversation basically centering on Ugandan politics.

He had asked me why I chose to come to Canada a very ‘bad’ country, according to him, leaving one of the greatest countries on earth? He meant Uganda a country he last visited in 1973 at the height of Idi Amin’s madness.

I had grumbled with that suggestion indeed question and I saw sense from his perspective. Well, I don’t know up to this day what makes a country great! Is it the resources like the case with Norway or Canada? Or the natural beauty like the case with East African states?

When Gary stood up to leave after our meal, he made this troubling comment which I quote here:

“That Museveni of ‘yours’
sounds like a canning man
who will not leave power
anytime soon (it was 20 years
ago, in November 2003).
But the person who will
eventually remove him; will
be very insignificant indeed!”

I have lived with those words from Prof. Gary Webster and some years back I reminded him of his prophecy on Uganda.

I told him that President Museveni has not left since he last predicted (“Museveni will not leave power anytime soon”) but now a musician has risen (“someone insignificant will take power from him”)!

He hed a herty laugh when I told him about Bobi Wine. He was somehow hesitant to hold onto his second part of the prophecy.

Well, my reader, at one time I tried to get into the shoes of that ‘insignificant’ person and with a group of likely minds, formed a political party called RNP (Rainbow Nationalist Party). Then I positioned myself to become a presidential candidate in 2016.

I actually managed to get some district signatures and later chosen by my peers (25 independent presidential aspirants- TIC) as their chairman.

It was a tall order and after a few months, I discovered to my chagrin that, may be, I wasn’t the person Dr. Webster had predicted to remove Mr. Yoweri Museveni from power!

I couldn’t believe that I had invariably lowered my stature by thinking that I was that ‘insignificant’ person to remove Museveni from power.

Therefore I abandoned the whole thing and even became immunized from the disease called politics. I will never interest myself again, perhaps when Mr. Museveni is still around, into campaigning for the presidential seat.

A long time ago, Uganda was a land that produced great politicians and nationalists to boot. But after the appearance of President Yoweri Museveni in January 1986, all those great minds fell on the wayside. Some became old and passed away while others abandoned politics completely.

Yet among the emerging elite, many shunned politics “nebasalawo baffe namazina gabwe mubiwato- they chose to die with the secrets of their dancing styles!”

Museveni had come from the bush with a small group of intellectuals we used to call “Macho yine- four eyes” named so because of using spectacles. Sometime we would refer to them as “wajuwaje- I know more” all because we were jealousy of their education.

It was from this semi-literate actors that Mr. Museveni put together his first cabinet. And from that time on, he decided to often recruit into government ‘not-so-serious’ individuals.

For the last nearly 40 years, President Museveni has systemically and deliberately curtailed the advancement of a serious person to take over from him. In his mind he might have that heir-apparent but as a nation, we can’t fathom who that might be!

He deliberately crafted this scheme where he surrounded himself with very old people (Moses Ali, Kirunda Kivejinja, Philemon Mateke, Henry Muganwa, Matia Kashaija, Haji Naduli, Sam Kutesa, name others) and then ‘insignificant’ ones.

This last group is of men and women who cannot even be selected to seat on serious village committees but are now heading government departments.

President Museveni is like the mischievous “Mr. Ichuli/ wakamyu- hare” who married the king’s daughter by drinking from a very hot pot (he had moved with the hot pot (ensuwa) telling everyone how it was only him who could drink the hot water. Unbeknownst to the other ‘foolish’ animals, the water was also cooling as Mr. Ichuli moved around!).

This is exactly who Mr. Museveni is. By moving with very old cabinet members; it shields his own frailty. By recruiting the ‘semi-little,’ this makes him look and seem to be the only ‘clever’ person around.

Leaving that aside, an erstwhile physician to rebel leader Yoweri Museveni, seized the mantle and tried to wrestle power from his former patient (South Africa comedian Trevor Noah makes a comedic compelling case on this one).

His name was Dr. Col (rtd) Kizza Besigye Kifefe a no- nonsense man with a coarse voice. He is aged now but still commanding immense respect among Ugandan politicians and he is a hero to many of us.

Dr. Besigye had stood against Mr. Museveni from 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016 but always with same outcome. Voters were beginning to question his capacity to unseat Museveni so much so that many were often heard saying that: “Dr. Kizza Besigye was only good at escorting President Museveni to the finish line.”

AN ‘INSIGNIFICANT’ LEADER APPEARS ON THE HORIZON:

In 2017 a new political kid (our ‘insignificant’ fellow) was unveiled to Ugandans and his name was Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu or lovingly known as Bobi Wine. He came in by the way of a by-election to replace an MP who had been disqualified.

I don’t think there is any other Ugandan Parliamentary election or a candidate who captured the national psyche like what Mr. Bobi Wine did. He was young; a ganja (weed) smoker and very smart. These three facts endeared many supporters to him.

It wasn’t even his celebrity status that hypnotized people. The voters had seen a new face and believed in the possibility of Bobi Wine becoming Mr. Museveni’s long-awaited crusher. The embellished in the Biblical story of David and Goliath!

Like I titled this article, Bobi Wine would have easily become a president if the country was not called Uganda and the years not between 2021-36. And I seriously mean this.

When he formed People Power, he rode on a wave of youth discontent and nearly defeated President Yoweri Museveni in the 2021 presidential polls. His party, NUP, succeeded in getting 57 MPs effectively becoming Uganda’s leading opposition party.

It was a great feat indeed and many commentators predicted a great political future for the young Bobi Wine.

Sometime in 2020 I met Bobi Wine at his Kamwokya offices. It was actually David Lewis Rubongoya who ushered indeed introduced us and soon left to perhaps listen in from a nearby office. Like meeting Mr. Museveni; when you meet Bobi Wine, it is difficult not to like him. He has that thing Americans call the “X- Factor” which turns water into wine.

I had gone to that office to seek for support for my brother Tebajwa Adam who wanted to stand on a NUP ticket in Kyotera constituency.

Bobi Wine was eloquent and very passionate about finding a new solution for Uganda. I never told him about my political and military past therefore I never made efforts to impress him. But he reminded me of the first time I met our leader, Yoweri Museveni, during the bush days.

In Bobi Wine, I saw a replica of Yoweri Museveni but the former being a revolutionary without guns.

His entire office and compound was full of pictures of great revolutionaries a sign that here was a young man so determined that he would give his life for Uganda. Bobi also reminded me of myself when I left my parents to go and join Museveni to help liberate Uganda.

Be that as it was, I was left not convinced that Bobi Wine would remove Museveni from power. It wasn’t because of the fact that Bobi Wine was young or inexperienced as a politician but it was because; Mr. Museveni had created an impenetrable path to the presidency.

As a former career-guidance teacher, I wanted to advise Bobi Wine not to rush into becoming a presidential candidate. He had time on his side a luxury Museveni didn’t have. I decided against advising him because it was obvious that he was already smitten with trappings of power. Somehow he was convinced that he would actually sweep Mr. Museveni and his NRM party from power.

Like he had failed all previous leaders since 1972, Museveni wasn’t about to make a pass for Bobi Wine.

When leaving that People Power office, I mentioned two things to my brother. One: Bobi Wine will make a good showing in the forthcoming election and sweep many parliamentary seats. This happened. Two: Because of Bobi Wine, Mr. Museveni will, from henceforward, have no threat to his presidential seat. This is being witnessed right now.

Look, we have other young people on the continent aspiring to take over leadership positions from an ageing generation. So far only Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye has succeeded in defeating a ruling party through an election.

South Africa has Julius Sello Malema and Mmusi Maimane; Zimbabwe has Nelson Chamisa; Kenya has Babu Owino and Johnson Arthur Sakaja; Senegal’s Ousmane Sonko is now vice president to Diomaye Faye and Uganda has Bobi Wine.

Like I often tell you, Bobi Wine has a very huge task or call it ‘mission impossible’ in his quest to remove Mr. Museveni from power.

In 2031, when Mr. Museveni will eventually bow out willingly or unwillingly, Bobi Wine will be 50 years and above therefore having lost all the spark of youthhood. His face will be lined up with signs of the struggle and many of his friends will have deserted him. He will still have a following but a significantly reduced following. He might still be the top most opposition politician (to fight off MK- the President’s son) but he will also be fighting off other emerging young people fighting to occupy his space.

2031 would have been a good timing for Bobi Wine to become President but there is one significant problem: Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba (MK), President Museveni’s largely misunderstood son will be ready to succeed his father.

A few weeks ago, daddy turned his entire armed forces to his moribund son. Ugandans are still talking in whisper what that appointment meant especially to the future of the country’s politics.

Like I mentioned the ‘Three Scenarios’ in my previous article, MK is now likely to be his father’s heir not to his ranches and farms per se, but the presidential seat.

I know you are now accusing me of suggesting that Uganda is a monarchy. It is not but if “it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck!”

And MK knows deep down that the only impediment to the finish line is Bobi Wine. It is true that MK, who is older than Bobi by a couple of years, will be an aged man by 2031, but it will still be the two of them to dictate the political direction of this country.

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION:

Bobi Wine mistimed his presidential bid. He went for a hyena (kibbe) before it became tired. Now the hyena has had significant ample time to strategize including of course elevating his son to command our armed forces.

Unless if you were born with half a brain, at least you should be able to comprehend why President Museveni positioned his son as UPDF topmost commander.

The year 2026 will not be political business as usual. That is why I am suggesting to Bobi Wine and other to stand aside and wait to fight for another day. Time is surely on their side and as Murphy’s Law says:

“What will be will be!”

Therefore it is better for Ugandan politicians to take a back seat (I often forget that they get food from opposing) and watch Mr. Museveni self-destruct.

We now know that the errors and political blunders NUP and Bobi continue to exhibit everyday will eventually eat into their popularity. It is more than probable that there will never be another ‘wave’ to sweep our politics.

AS THE LAST WORD:

A friend of mine, a retired High Court Judge, sent me this lovely, can we call it a joke, and now I share it with you here.

AND Pontius Pilate asked the crowd:

“Who should I let go?
And the people shouted:
“Barnabas the thief!”
And 2000 years later, people are still choosing the thieves!”

If Bobi Wine and his NUP knew about this, then why all the hullabaloo about Mathias Mpuuga? May be they mistimed and even exaggerated their leadership credentials!

Adam Kamulegeya
adamkam2003@gmail.com
0779 104 336