Bobi Wine guard injured, Museveni  team denies campaign pictures

Thirty-eight days to the 2021 election day and it’s getting squeakier every single rally. This week has been just as pepperhot, a week during which National Unity Platform presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, suspended his programme for a day to run to the Electoral Commission and seek answers.

If there were any indictments on the joke that is democracy in Uganda, picture a rabbit running to the leopard’s cubs to complain that the other cubs in the jungle have been attempting to maul it.

Yes, the EC might deny being a cub of the spotted animal but denial often validates the claims and there wouldn’t have been a sadder dirt to Justice Simon Byabakama’s eyeglasses than the smear campaign posters of Bobi Wine pasted on the perimeter wall of EC headquarters.

The posters depict Bobi Wine in a plume of smoke, not of the teargas this time, but what the people behind it wanted to show as weed and moral decadence.

Byabakama and his team have pleaded to having no idea why security keeps violently blocking Opposition candidates from accessing campaign venues. Naturally, the good judge wouldn’t have an idea who is responsible for pasting the black glossy posters right on his own specs.

Bobi Wine took it in his strides, tweeting later that “we found these posters all over the perimeter walls of the EC offices, guarded by the police! Not even this smear campaign will deter us from winning our freedom.”

So why did the rabbit run to the leopard cub? It was scared for its life. Forget the irony -- like one would say, times are hard.

Bobi Wine’s attempt to access Jinja City was swatted by security, and in the process one of his aides and a police bodyguard, ASP Wilfred Kato Kubai were injured. Bobi’s minder Daniel Oyerwot was left with mutilated lips in the Kayunga fracas.

Why were they shot at? In this village in Luuka, the peasants have an answer contrary to what Police have on file. Apparently, Bobi had to be taught a lesson for trying to lecture incumbent Museveni on the value of human life.

During his televised speech last Sunday, Museveni said people who were killed during last month’s Bobi protests will be compensated.

 To this, Bobi fired back: “President Museveni thinks that he will continue to kill people and promise to compensate the families, which he normally doesn’t do in the end. Let me ask you, which price can you be given after your 16-year-old son or daughter has been killed? There is no price for life and Museveni should know that.” 

But Museveni and his minders will insist they value human life more than anyone, at least going by their campaign theme. NRM has been eager to show that Museveni follows Covid-19 health protocols and will not do crowd campaigns.

So when images surfaced in the media of Museveni addressing a crowd, government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo was livid. He accused the media of bias, saying the image was framed to show Museveni as addressing a campaign crowd.

Museveni’s senior press secretary Don Wanyama also weighed in, calling the media “unprofessional.” 

“Crowds gathered outside the market, Museveni briefly cautioned them on dangers of crowding and moved on. We see your deliberate attempt to create a false narrative,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, it’s tricky to follow all these candidates. How many are they again? Maybe if the presidential debate had come through, but as it stands, the Inter Religious Council of Uganda has called it off, citing time and resource constraints.

Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba and his group were expecting donors to fund the December 3rd to 4th debate. Yes, we still expect donors to even fund our toilet paper. 

Now with no presidential debate, some of the candidates must say strange things to be noticed. And Willy Mayambala (Independent) did not disappoint: “The brutality must stop. My voters are dying, I need to lead Ugandans not trees.”

Mayambala did not run to the EC like Bobi but he could have joined Godfrey Aine Kaguta, aka Sodo, a candidate for Mawogola North in Sembabule District, in court. Sodo has sued NRM for not endorsing him as the party’s flag bearer for the parliamentary seat.

Sodo and Bobi have avenues for recourse. Not so for Margaret Evans, Lily Martin and Jean-Francois Bisson. The three Canadian journalists were deported from the country. They had come to cover the 2021 Election for CBC News. Now all they can do is complain on Twitter, where Opondo does not disappoint with brittle responses.

However, the person Opondo has not responded to is Gen Mugisha Muntu, who told Luweero to liberate itself from Museveni captivity. 
At this rate, Luweero might need counselling against depression induced by every other candidate telling them how guilty they have been in the Museveni grand project of things.