By Wafula Malik
On today’s Al-Jazeera’s the stream program that has just ended, two Ugandan bloggers Grace Natabalo & Rosebell Kagumire ably floored Andrew Mwenda.
Yes you guessed right: topic was Bobi Wine. Mwenda, who has always blamed all opposition inadequacies on Kizza Besigye, had the opportunity to alter his earlier narrative. He now says the problem is both Besigye & Bobi Wine whose supporters he says are the problem for Uganda because (in his own words) they are intolerant & undemocratic. He actually called them “cyber bullies.” This prompted Kagumire to warn Mwenda not to trivialize people’s anger against inept governance like that. Natabalo weighed in saying its insincere for Mwenda to characterize whoever is opposed to the Museveni status quo as insultive, intolerant and undemocratic. Mwenda said Bobi Wine & Besigye don’t represent a future better than what Museveni has offered. Instead he said the perfect opposition he wants to see is the one epitomized by Gen Mugisha Muntu & a group of FDC MPs that are opposed to Dr. Besigye and the defiance campaign. Mwenda had also deceptively described this week violence that saw UPDF soldiers unleash violence on the general public and journalists as unprecedented, something Kagumire exposed as sham and untrue. She referred to past violent episodes including the brutal clobbering of Besigye at Mulago round about in 2011. Mwenda then deceptively adjusted his argument saying it was the viciousness with which James Akena, his former employee at the Independent, was beaten that was unprecedented. This too is untrue because the Ugandan security has always acted ruthlessly towards media practitioners. Mwenda also unconvincingly said the brutality of the security forces this week was because both the CDF David Muhoozi & IGP Okoth Ochora are new in office and are therefore bound to make operational mistakes regarding the caliber of officers they deploy. He praised Okoth’s predecessor Kale Kayihura by falsely claiming there wouldn’t have been so much brutality if he was still the IGP. Reason? Mwenda says Kayihura had a network of informers who would have enabled him to preemptively deploy to ensure people never get to gather or assemble anywhere to demonstrate.
