By Our Reporters
Appearing on CBS Parliament Yamwe program this Saturday morning, PDP Supremo Dr. Abed Bwanika has uttered a number of things-all aimed at illustrating the extent to which Bobi Wine can do without help from Dr. Kizza Besigye and other members of his defiance-driven People’s Government Network. Bwanika’s hostility to Besigye was so pronounced that even NRM diehards like Theodore Sekikubo and MP Kasule Sebunya sounded shocked. Whereas Sebunya said it wasn’t right to politicize Bobi’s situation to score quick personal points, Sekikubo warned Bwanika (who said he was speaking for Team Arua) against trivializing what is clearly a national issue. “I want to go on record telling Dr. Bwanika that this isn’t the time to talk about the Team Arua against Team Katonga because there are many people including myself who don’t belong to any of those teams yet we are genuinely concerned about Hon Kyagulanyi and what happened. There are many of us in NRM and others who are non-political that want to stand in solidarity with Hon Kyagulanyi, Zzake and others. Why are you deliberately alienating people? I don’t see how torture, against which we have a whole law, can be reduced to being a matter of Team Arua. It’s something we must all come together and condemn. It’s a principle and not just our personal politics. Tomorrow something similar will happen to another person,” Sekikubo said. Talking on top of his voice, Bwanika contemptuously answered “you are a member of parliament go and do something in Parliament.” He added, as Sekikubo protested: “you should actually be boycotting parliament to show solidarity with Bobi Wine. Let each one of us do what they can to solve the situation.” Med Nsereko (who maintained from the start maintained that Bwanika had a lot of suspicion to deal with and kept asking where he was and why when Bobi was being brutalized) insisted Bwanika risked alienating people from the Bobi Wine cause. “Today Dr. Abed your things have really confused me. You were not in Arua and you aren’t clear as to where you were and what you had gone to do there. You have left me very confused today,” the moderator said. Bwanika answered by saying it doesn’t matter: what is important is that he played the biggest role that delivered the Kassiano Wadri win in the last 24 hours preceding voting. “I was operating at a very strategic command center which the candidate [Wadri], Bobi Wine and other Team Arua members know very well. We are a big team led by [ex-Presidential candidate] Lubega Mukaku, Derrick Mutema, Katabu Moses, Kakande and others.” As he struggled to convince fellow panelists regarding his conspicuous absence on the fateful day Bobi was arrested and his driver murdered, Bwanika was bolstered by Imam Kasozi who referred to Eriya Kategaya’s role in the NRA war yet he wasn’t on the frontline. “Med you yourself was a kidogo in the NRA war but did you ever see Eria Kategaya in the bush? Wasn’t he very instrumental in the war? He became number 2 to Museveni yet for you who was in the bush, very few people even know your role,” said Imam Kasozi a leading ideologue in JEEMA party.
BWANIKA ATTACKS KB;
Towards the end of the program, Med Nsereko provocatively publicized the press conference Dr. Besigye and Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago were to have at their Katonga road offices. “Besigye, Lukwago and others have called their event to guide the country on what to do next. For you as Dr. Bwanika and your group, what’s the way forward?” the moderator asked prompting Bwanika to launch veiled missiles at KB. “Bobi Wine is ours and I’m a member of his internal team unlike people who are struggling to show he is their man and he is close to them. They fought him in Kyaddondo and I was there for him from day one. In Arua we and Bobi Wine were targeted by both NRM and FDC. They were both against us and you see where Bobi Wine has ended,” said Bwanika who also added that it was okay for Bobi to be in possessionof a gun. “Let me tell you there are lawful ways to possess a gun but Bobi Wine didn’t have any. I’m the one who sat him down and guided him on many things after winning in Kyaddondo. I saw he was new in this politics yet here he was newly elected as Kyaddondo East MP after being bitterly fought by FDC. I advised him against applying for a gun even when it was okay for him to get one. I told him it’s not good for you at your age. He is too young and I considered that he can be provoked and shoot at people and put himself in problems,” Bwanika asserted adding there is currently no political leader who is closer to Bobi Wine than him and Sam Lubega Mukaku. “We are his core team and we are managing everything well. It’s us who came up with strategies and assembled our legal team headed by Asuman Basalirwa and Medard Segona. That’s how we got those MPs in court.
And because Bobi is very popular, there are many lawyers who want to represent him. In Arua we have a team of 20 lawyers and there is also another legal team that will be filing a petition in the Constitutional Court on Bobi’s behalf to challenge his trial in the court martial. The affidavits are ready only awaiting commissioning. So you can see we are doing everything independent of that Katonga group,” proudly said the three time presidential candidate. Nsibambi reminded him the intended Constitutional Court petition was an exercise in futility “because we have gone there 5 times before and the same court pronounced itself on the legality of trying civilians in court martial and there isn’t anything new for you to do there.” Bwanika said “it doesn’t matter Besigye has tried these things before and failed-let’s also have the opportunity to try and fail.” Then he disclosed what they are doing on the political front. “We are a solid team led by Sam Lubega Mukaku with others like [Kenneth Paul] Kakande on board. We are having a press conference on Monday as Team Arua and it will be at Speke Hotel. We shall tell the country our own way forward as Team Arua. Let them wait for that because anything else being announced it’s not representative of Bobi Wine. If Besigye and his team at Katonga are genuinely about political change in this country, and they have genuine concern about Bobi Wine, let them come and sit at our press conference at Speke and we move together because the confusion they are trying to create to counter Team Arua will only weaken opposition and it will delay the political change we are all working for,” Bwanika said. He said besides the press conference, their Team Arua will on Monday file court papers applying for Bobi’s bail. “We are continuing to have many more meetings and all citizens seeking to help Bobi Wine should know we are the group mandated to represent and fight for him.”
NSIBAMBI WARNS HIM;
Saying he is a veteran having been in these things since 2001 and doesn’t expect much through courts of law, panelist Yusuf Nsibambi called on Bwanika to be careful not to alienate other lawyers willing to help the Bobi Wine cause “because things aren’t going to be as easy as you think.” Nsibambi, who has been defense lawyer for Besigye, PRA suspects and other opposition activists for close to 20 years, warned: “Today you boast of so many lawyers but I can tell you from experience many of them will soon abandon you. Are you as Team Arua prepared to have lawyers driving to different courts in the country for the next 2 years? Are you sure many of those lawyers are ready to use their money to fly to Arua for court or even use personal money to pay bail fees?” Nsibambi predicted that soon some of the publicity-seeking lawyers, who Bwanika says are very many and willing to defend Bobi for free, will quit and switch off their phones. “It’s not easy Dr. Abed as you may think. This Museveni state is more vicious than you think. You may need to ask John Matovu and other lawyers how their firms had to close because of the state hostility. I’m here as a farming lawyer not by choice but because I had to pay the price for defending people in cases Museveni is very much interested,” Nsibambi said. “By the way if you want to see how genuine some of these lawyers are; assign them to go and defend some of those small people who were arrested on that same day in Arua. They won’t because that doesn’t carry any publicity yet those ordinary people need more help than the Bobi Wines you are all rushing to defend. Those ordinary people are sick, they were beaten and their bread winners are in jail. How are they coping? How about Yasin Kawuma; have you been to his home in Buwama? Have you supported his widow and orphans or that doesn’t matter because there are no cameras?” Nsibambi also took strong exception to Bwanika’s claim that Bobi Wine and Francis Zzake were tortured much more because they are Baganda. “My friend we have endured much more off the cameras but we were advised by Dr. Besigye never to speak things that will show vulnerability to our supporters. Museveni sends those soldiers to beat MP Zzake in order to frighten your ordinary supporters. Now if you come to camera saying how they have beaten you badly, you show vulnerability and frighten your supporters. They will say who is me if they can beat MP Zzake like that?” Nsibambi said referring to the day Andrew Felix Kaweesi commanded a police raid onto their party meeting at Najjanankumbi. “My friend we had no cameras there but those guys beat everybody including Owek Joyce Sebugwawo. They didn’t spare Dr. Besigye. We were all rolled in the mud but we agreed not to go crying to the public about such things.”
BESIGYE DEAD BROTHER;
Starting with Besigye who lost his own brother Joseph Musasizi Kifefe, Nsibambi enumerated non Baganda who have died in the struggle. He gave the examples of Patrick Manenero, Col Amon Muzoora and others to dispel Bwanika’s claim that Museveni is harsher and more ruthless when dealing with Baganda adversaries. “I was the main lawyer with Erias Lukwago and Caleb Alaka who were beaten in Elly Tumwine’s court martial. There are beatings my clients the PRA suspects suffered inside the judge’s chambers at the High Court and we took a decision never to report such things to the public. Dr. Besigye said its bad my own brother is gone but I’m not going to cry about it. That is why you will never hear him complaining that I lost my brother but it hurts him because he is human.” Nsibambi said that as a veteran of the anti-Museveni struggle, he knows many things he would say to counter Bwanika’s propaganda but he often restrains himself as an elder. He also asked Bwanika, who kept saying their Kassiano victory politically obliterated Besigye, not to be over excited about winning the Arua MP Seat. “Yes you can call these MPs seats building blocks for the struggle but there isn’t much for our people in opposition winning that Seat. Kassiano Wadri is my friend. I have known him longer than all of you here but the truth is he has personally got a job and that’s all. It doesn’t in anyway bring liberation nearer for a Ugandan who has waited for change for all these years.” In the end, Bwanika showed immense respect for Nsibambi saying “yes today we have disagreed on many things but Nsibambi is my brother; I call him whenever I don’t have supper for my family and he always gives me money but today we have respectfully disagreed.” Earlier in the show, Bwanika got so angry and dismissed MP Kasule Sebunya as a fool who was talking nonsense. Bwanika thanked Katikkiro for speaking categorically that Baganda politicians were being targeted and witch-hunted. Sekikubo insisted his party chairman Museveni must go to police and record a statement about Yasin Kawuma’s death “because he is the occupant of the stoned vehicle and his subsequent writings show that the president knows much more.”
