By Mulengera Reporters
At a recent Cabinet session, Gen Museveni directed the finance minister Matia Kasaijja to urgently find for him Shs30bn. He said the money has to be passed on to Dr. Chris Baryomunsi’s Information & National Guidance Ministry to be used to amplify publicity for his ongoing re-election campaigns for the 9th term as President of Uganda.
It was a well attended Cabinet session and Gen Museveni shocked everyone present when he furiously discussed and demonstrated his unrelenting resentment towards Daily Monitor and Dr. Kin Karisa’s Next Media Group-better known as NBS.
“Once that money is found, Dr. Baryomunsi please make sure [those media organizations] which dislike me and are my enemies don’t get even a coin. I’m talking about NBS and the Monitor newspaper. They should not share on my money because they hate me. They are my enemies,” multiple sources quoted a fire-breathing Museveni as unleashing on the two giant media outlets.
Gen Museveni, who these days is an easily very irritable man largely on the account of age, prefers UBC TV which he watches the entire day and night-whenever he gets time. He proposed that the Shs30bn for his campaign and pro-re-election publicity amplification should be shared out evenly among all TVs, Radios and online media platforms-with exception of Daily Monitor and NBS.
He went on to task the line minister Chris Baryomunsi to make sure his stand against the two giant media outlets is strictly adhered to. He spoke as follows: “Dr. Baryomunsi please explain to me this as well. I understand that Monitor has its other sister platforms whose decision-making it controls. What are those other ones? Please, Baryomunsi tell us.”
Baryomunsi went on to clarify that the Nation Media Group (NMG) establishment in Uganda comprises of not just Daily Monitor newspaper but of complementary news outlets such as NTV, Spark TV, the attendant online platforms and the weekend papers. As shocked Cabinet members and their day’s guests pensively looked on, Gen Museveni got back to the microphone and stressed thus: “None of those should get anything of my money [the Shs30bn] and Baryomunsi please make sure that is strictly adhered to.”
DEEPER RESENTMENT:
Yet the newly committed Shs30bn isn’t the only level at which the veteran leader from Rwakitura has demonstrated his extreme resentment towards the two independent and privately-owned media outlets-namely Next Media and NMG. Their respective media outlets like NBS & Ssanyuka TV (for Next Media) and Daily Monitor, NTV and Spark TV (for NMG) continue to be excluded from directly covering any of the President’s public functions, including the big man’s ongoing re-election campaigns.
The reasons for all this vendetta remain unexplained but what we know is that the President’s Press Secretary Sandor Walusimbi is the man who was specifically tasked with ensuring that none of their cameras or news reporters gets anywhere near the President’s campaign entourage. Yes, they have been reporting the big man’s re-election story but not very directly. They just get footage from secondary sources like UBC or even the Press Unit but not directly by way of having their own news crews directly on the President’s campaign trail.
The President, who these days is an easily irritable old man, believes and is convinced that the combination of his own Press Unit, UBC, Vision Group (New Vision, Bukedde newspaper, Bukedde TV etc) and his personal social media platforms and the NRM party’s can be sufficient to create for him significant publicity and visibility, which Baryomunsi’s ministry must now amplify-using the Shs30bn which the finance ministers Matia Kasaijja and Henry Musasizi (closely working with PSST Ramathan Goobi) have been instructed to urgently avail.
That President Museveni, renowned for craving maximum publicity for his re-election campaign and has always been complementary towards a vibrant media ecosystem in Uganda, can all of a sudden choose to maintain such prolonged hostility and vendetta against Next Media and NMG speaks to how invincible and indifferent the National Resistance Movement leader has become over the years.
The two privately-owned media outlets’ exclusion from coverage and advertising deals equally runs counter to Gen Museveni’s well-known and articulated love, support and dedication to private sector preservation and growth.
He has been President for the last 40 years without break and now believes he can demystify and disregard anyone yet the sun will still rise from the East. It will be business as usual and those close to him say that is the extent to which the over confident Gen YK Museveni nowadays feels indispensable as the unchallengeable President of Uganda, is also in part contributing to the endless haranguing and exclusion the management at NMG and Next Media should prepare themselves for.
“He is determined to move on and run his government without feeling obliged to be complementary to those two media platforms and don’t expect any de-escalation soon. He believes they are his enemies and that they don’t wish him well at all,” says a knowledgeable insider close to the President’s calculus.
“He is in part emboldened by the fact that giants like Facebook have been officially prohibited in Uganda for now almost five years and life continues. He is equally determined to demonstrate that life can go on and his Presidency can remain effective without accepting what he calls extortionist relationship with those so-called independent big media outlets. That is all. His decision is aimed at demystification and it’s not something anyone is going to convince him to alter anytime soon. They [NMG & Next Media] are free to directly cover any other campaign trails they want but not his. That is going to be the position until the end of the campaigns. He doesn’t want them anywhere in his campaign entourage and he has effectively demonstrated how powerful he is. His Ministers and other officials have to pick a leaf and learn how to effectively resist being blackmailed and extorted by journalists working under those so-called large independent media outlets. The President is merely leading the way.” (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
