By Mulengera Reporters
The UCC Executive Director Nyombi Thembo on Thursday addressed hundreds of Kiboga residents who had come to listen to him at Saaza Grounds on the outskirts of Kiboga Town Council.
At the instigation of Gen Salim Saleh’s daughter Desire Muhooza, who is campaigning to re-energize the NRM support and to also personally become the Kiboga Woman MP come 2026, Thembo was here to explain to local residents, business people, the clergy and local media activists as to why the Bizindaalo, aka Community Radios, which are used to communicate death announcements, missing children and even campaign messages etc, won’t be accepted again.
Even religious leaders like Pastors and some Muslim Sheikhs (who attended the event in large numbers) use such Bizindaalos (loud speakers mounted on trees or trading centers in the community) to preach religious messages and win over new converts. The Bizindaalos also provided plenty of entertainment by playing trending Ugandan songs to inspire future music stars.
In campaign season, those seeking votes use such Bizindaalos to also reach large numbers of people. These Bizindaalos had become popular thoughout Uganda partly because, unlike Radios which broadcast news covering the whole country, for them are focussed exclusively on local issues.
However, in many trading centers in Buganda in 2021, operators of such Bizindalos took to political rhetoric especially in Buganda and Busoga where they were used to amplify anti-Museveni propaganda while glorifying Bobi Wine who ended up defeating the incumbent President in both Buganda and Busoga.
In some cases, Bizindaalo operators would obtain recordings of Bobi’s campaign speeches and keep playing it to attract large audiences in return for campaign adverts. This angered people in government who pressurized UCC to clamp down on Bizindaalo and those owners who were operating them without license or authorization by UCC which regulates all communication services in Uganda.
In Kiboga, the closure of Bizindaalo angered many people and when she plunged into the Woman MP campaigns, Desire Muhooza leveraged her parental connections to get Gen Salim Saleh to prompt Nyombi Thembo to go and face the angry Kiboga residents. Their district is unique in that, because of it’s hilly nature, radios like CBS, Simba, Radio Kiboga itself and others don’t have good enough reception siginal and that gap had effectively been filled by the Bizindaalo. The radios don’t reach many sub counties and even where they reach, the service is on and off.
In his speech, Nyombi Thembo responded to the disinformation area woman MP Christine Kaaya Nakimwero of NUP has deliberately been telling and propagating in order to incite anger against the President and NRM. He explained that there is a law which prohibit unlicensed communications and broadcasting operations; the Bizindaalos inclusive.
Kaaya, who famously defeated Minister Ruth Nankabirwa in 2021, has been telling people that their Bizindaalos are off because Museveni hates them, which is why they should once again vote for NUP so that Bobi Wine becomes President and lifts the UCC ban.
“The truth is that we banned and confiscated the Bizindaalos because of the law which Parliament enacted and your Woman MP is one of the big people who make those laws in this Parliament for us to implement. There is a lot I would wish to do to let you my people live in peace and enjoy your Bizindaalos but the law which the MPs, including herself passed and put in place, doesn’t allow me. Those Bizindaalos are prohibited by law and my hands as UCC ED are tied even when I’m one of you,” explained Myombi Thembo who hails from nearby Kasanda district and did a lot of political mobilisation in Greater Kiboga for Museveni during the years he served as NRM Kampala Chairman and Minister for the rehabilitation of Luwero Triangle of which Kiboga is part.
He said that the law UCC is implementing by confiscating people’s Bizindaalos even requires him to prosecute those operating such unlicensed communication platforms but he hasn’t because he has to be lenient to fellow Ugandans (several Ugandan young men have been locked up and prosecuted in Kampala by UCC for operating unlicensed media platforms).
“Why doesn’t she move a private member’s bill and permit such operations? The truth is that she knows that these communications things are based on international standards which put in place bare minimums with which Uganda has to comply. I fault her for knowing the truth but preferring to tell lies because as a NUP politician, she wants President Museveni to look bad yet power lies in the hands of big people like herself.”
At the same community meeting, during which local residents praised Desire Muhooza for working hard towards solving people’s problems by bringing them to the attention of the relevant MDA heads before she even assumes the Woman MP office, was addressed by Henry Kagaali the Kiboga Town Council Mayor who thanked the NRM government and the President for funding social services provision and public infrastructure projects in his ara.
He vowed to work with key NRM government officials more because that’s the only way services provision can be prioritized for his people.
Kagaali, who went on his knees and begged Nyombi Thembo to become his political mentor, enumerated several projects the government has delivered in his town and also castigated fellow opposition NUP members and leaders who leverage social and other media platforms to attack and demonise the President and his family as opposed to mobilising ordinary people to embrace and benefit from government programs like PDM, Emyooga, GROW project and others. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
