Taking Baguma to court isn’t strategic PR, it is a failure of strategic PR
I have only ‘‘met’’ Saturday Monitor columnist Asuman Bisiika on social media where I have read him say he has his own republic called ‘‘Kiburara.’’
It is in Kiburara where perhaps Bisiika hopes to flee when the going gets tough in Uganda, Rwanda and the DR Congo (he claims ‘‘citizenship’’ in all the three countries).
I don’t know why Mr Bisiika decided to ‘‘found’’ his own republic, but I hear, and I have also read from him that some years ago he was hounded out of Rwanda where he remains persona non grata, according to a Kigali-based ‘‘Suited Penguin’’ called Jacobs O Seaman ((he has an acidic tongue that can lash you to hell if you cross his path).
In his writings, Bisiika has the uncanny ability to roll sarcasm, history, security and politics into one huge fat rolex that would terribly excite Tourism minister Maria Mutagambwa’s taste buds (did you see her picture munching a rolex?).
And so because I don’t like missing Rolex, I read Bisiika on Saturday. ‘‘Without a strategic review of the administration, operational and command functions of the police”, he wrote last Saturday ‘‘no amount of public relations will change popular attitudes towards the institution.’’ (Saturday Monitor, August 27).
In 2012, the government forked out a cool $1 million bucks, about Shs2.5 billion then for an Irish PR firm, Glenevin Operational Risk and Security Consultancy, to white wash the muddy image of the police. The million bucks, as expected, sunk into the bottomless police PR pit for reasons eloquently stated above by Bisiika.
Two weeks ago, in a classic case of a poor workman blaming his tool, Fred Enanga was replaced as police spokesperson by Andrew Felix Kaweesi.
To announce his arrival back in the limelight, Kaweesi who strikes me as cocky compared to calm Enanga, dragged before the press a police driver accused of deliberately knocking a man said to be a Kizza Besigye supporter on a Kampala street.
Kaweesi also threw another gambit; he hinted that former Kampala Central police commander, Aaron Baguma would appear before court to face murder charges (until that point, Baguma was still elusive).
‘‘Baguma’s appearance in court would have been a strategic PR opportunity for the police but they seem to have lost it. It was a better PR action than parading the rogue police driver before the press,’’ wrote Bisika.
Baguma took himself to court and was remanded to Kigo prison. Baguma’s court appearance, now that it has happened, isn’t strategic public relations (PR) but a failure of strategic PR. If you run a petrol business it is strategic to plan for a day a fire breaks out. Putting in place mechanisms to prevent fire outbreaks is strategic. Scrambling to put out the fire after it has broken out is reactionary.
The Police was forced to produce Baguma in court because a fire had broken out. Producing the rogue driver before the press and Baguma in court is a scramble to put out the fire. It is not strategic public relations at all. It is akin to a disorganised petrol businessman scrambling to put out an unplanned for fire.
Compare the Baguma case with how the UPDF has handled the Col Felix Kulaigye ‘‘Congo gold saga’’. You will notice that the army comes out better compared to the police’s handling of the rogue driver saga, the Baguma debacle and the brouhaha elicited by the hoodlums it ‘‘procures whipping services’’ from.
Kaweesi is a good spokesperson for the police in its current format but like others before him, he will end in the bottomless police PR pit.
Mr Odokonyero has interest in media development, communications& public affairs [email protected]
