By Our Reporters
When he appeared on NTV’s 4th Estate political program, the DP boss Norbert Mao was clearly in a very belligerent mood and indeed by the time the show ended, he had told off everyone. There was the moderator Charles Mwanguhya Mpagi, veteran journalist Joseph Kabuleta and a masscom don from Mukono-based UCU. But it’s Mwanguhya who faced Mao’s wrath most. The witty politician from Gulu got so incensed with Mwanguhya’s insistence to characterize the newly unveiled DP Bloc as a league of political failure, a situation Kabuleta made more complicated by branding Mike Mabikke and Abed Bwanika to be “political entrepreneurs.” These two are actually very important people, to use Mao’s words, because they are some of the key principals in the DP Bloc. Mwanguhya specifically irked Mao when he belittled Bwanika by saying he is the only member and official in his little-known PDP Party. This angered Mao who uneasily turned in his seat as Mwanguhya spoke. Mao furiously fought back telling off Mwanguhya as follows: “I really pity our media today. The standards have gone so low, I don’t even know what to say but if I was the host for 4th Estate and wanted to be a better journalist, I would prepare. What for instance stops you from going through the recording from hotel Africana and conduct your show better? We had many journalists including those from NTV and Dr. Abed Bwanika [he called him a very eloquent debater] came with the entire executive of PDP and its saddening to sit here and listen to the moderator saying he is alone in that party. What would it cost you reviewing the recording from that DP Bloc event so that you make yourself informed as you ask these questions?” Mao’s utterances deflated Mwanguhya who uneasily turned in his seat having been clearly discomforted by the unwarranted personal attack the DP boss launched at him. Mao was also very uncomfortable with Kabuleta’s characterization of Mabikke and Bwanika as “political entrepreneurs,” something he said the veteran sports scribe can’t even prove because no such proof exists. Mao, who was very adversarial and clearly in a fighting mood throughout the TV program, dismissed Kabuleta as a very unserious analyst just out to make sweeping statements. Mao said it was unfair for Kabuleta trying to make a name at the expense of people’s hard-earned reputations. He then turned on the lady from UCU saying “let me wait to hear how differently the one who teaches these journalists will be.” Instead she disappointed him by dissing the DP Bloc wondering why they believe to be politically relevant and get prominent coverage that day they had to attack KB as opposed to the NRM whose boss YK Museveni has possessed the ball for the last 34 years.
