Bobi Wine with Ssemogerere
It has been a habit of most opposition politicians to take politics to burials. As Africans, we believe that when a person dies, they should be accorded the highest honour during the burial because that is their final day on earth.
That is why we choose to speak only good things about them during eulogies even when we are aware that the person had a dark side to them. On the other hand, NUP leaders and politicians have really found fantasy in funerals, and I don’t think that the relatives of the people who lose their loved ones are always impressed seeing NUP leaders turn up at burials and turn them into scenes of drama.
Dr Kawanga Semogerere, a calm politician who hardly attacked anybody wouldn’t have loved Bobi Wine’s speech, a speech that was full of chest-thumping, attacks and insults. A man, whose wife said that he wouldn’t have loved gun salutes, wouldn’t be happy to hear someone to declare himself “elected president” of Uganda even when it is clear that he lost and even feared to go court to challenge the results.
Saying that they won elections whereas they lost is foolery that the NUP leaders and supporters have found fun in. I hope Ugandans are aware that the constitution allows any candidate who is not satisfied with the results to go to court and challenge results.
If there’s enough evidence, the election can be overturned and the elections held again. If they’re confident that they won the elections why didn’t they go to court? Again, how can a political party that got only fifty members of parliament win a presidential election? Were they going to lead the country without parliament? It’s simply illogical for someone to allege that he won elections in front of Ugandans who know all those facts and who actually participated in that process.
Dr Semogerere wouldn’t have loved to hear Bobi Wine releasing information that they shared in private, if indeed he told him about who killed Kayira and how it was planned. I think he was at liberty to release that information to the public when he was still alive. Even if he chose to let it out to someone, Bobi Wine wouldn’t have been his choice because Bobi Wine was a newcomer who knew nothing about Uganda’s leadership and politics who still needs polishing and mentorship.
It is very possible that Bobi Wine concocted this information which he says he got from Dr Semogerere but because he’s now dead, we can’t corroborate. I also don’t think Dr Ssemogerere would have loved to hear Bobi Wine declare that there’s no peace in Uganda – a country where he served as prime minister and retired honourably without any disturbances.
How can someone say that there’s no peace in a country where they move several kilometres from Kampala without being interrupted to attend a burial which is presided over by the state?
The person is given a chance to speak in front of the prime minister and even declare himself ‘elected president of Uganda.’ That’s the foolery that Bobi Wine has been riding on and unfortunately most Ugandans especially the youth have succumbed to it to the extent that they can sacrifice their lives to unnecessary violence sometimes fighting with armed police.
If the youth were aware that Bobi Wine simply takes advantage of their ignorance about the politics of the country, they wouldn’t give him even a bit of their attention, they would be busy engaged in productive activities that give them some income.
On the contrary, I feel the late Dr Semogerere would have loved to hear the speech of President Museveni which was read for him by the current prime minister of Uganda Robinah Nabbanja.
The speech gave a story on how the president was a former youth winger of DP and that means he was an active member of a party that Semogerere founded and loved so much. If Dr Semogerere was alive, he would have smiled because the president appointed the current president of the Democratic Party as his minister of Justice. Now, that’s the cooperation and the politics of tolerance that he embraced because in several pictures that were released, Dr Semogerere was seen with people he disagreed with politically – evidence that he was tolerant and accommodative.
The writer is a deputy RDC Sheema district
Source: The Observer