By Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba, UK
Seeing Besigye’s photos at FDC’s Harold Kaija’s Facebook profile made me sad – he has indeed been sick, and we wish him a quick recovery, because he is still very important to our nation. Hope the doctors in Geneva got to the bottom of his sickness.
You don’t have to like someone to recognize their achievements and effect on the nation’s life. I believe that Museveni doesn’t like Dr.Besigye but recognizes his achievements and intelligence. It’s probably mutual respect between the two political giants more than a like/dislike situation. I don’t think they always agreed on things and had very different styles and opinions, but they are strong men for our times and respect one another for their accomplishments.
With no intention of being patronizing, it is quite difficult for younger people (who don’t research) to understand what a mess Uganda was in the 1970s and 1980s.
- Advertisement -
Besigye was part of the men that fought in the 1980s to make things right, and he is still fighting to make things better.
You might love him or hate him, and there are many that do both; he’s the savior of the Uganda opposition politics from 2001 up today. It is only when intelligence information of the time becomes available to the public, that we shall know it all.
It is a furphy to assume that Uganda opposition is in a better shape now with the singer as the face of it than it was under Besigye. Our opposition is in such a mess politically today that we would be truly blessed to have a leader, like Besigye. He is not only mentally strong, unbribable, and courageous, very smart, and educated, but he is also very determined and hard working. Together with his intelligence and vision, hard work is what makes him so successful. Did I mention that he works very hard? Yeah.
In his absence, we have had Bobi Wine release a song called ‘Nalumansi’ that has proved to be another divisive one – it basically pits Baganda against other tribes, and he claims that Baganda never truly support him, yet they voted for him and his party overwhelmingly in the 2021 elections. Anyway, time will come when Baganda will also see through him and drop him for good, because he isn’t good for Baganda, too.
Those of us who have been around since 2006, found Besigye’s guts breath-taking. No opposition leader has ever equaled him though he hasn’t yet led us to victory. I remember his arrest in 2006, and thereafter when we saw pictures of Sam Kalega Njuba, Dr.Sulaiman Kiggundu, and other leaders on streets protesting. A lot of Ugandans (rich, poor and famous) have suffered for him.
Besigye was breaking Museveni piece by piece, and the coming of Bobi kind of disrupted that. The strategy was to seemingly weaken him one region at a time – consolidating elected officials etc there so they can hold it. Buganda still had NRM elected officials, but the voters had already moved on. The Iteso region had been liberated; so was Northern Uganda, Rwenzori, Kasese and most of Rukungiri. Unfortunately, the opposition seems to be now losing all those pieces that he had been put together due to the divisions, fake news, fake leaders, disinformation and misinformation that befell our politics in 2018 up to now.
The FDC strategy was kind of similar to what Russia is now doing in Ukraine — stop piling munitions / troops etc all in one location so the supply lines aren’t targeted by NATO ammunitions. FDC were learning and they were adapting, and maybe they didn’t expect (or care) to wrap this up quickly; how do you eat an elephant? One piece at a time. Only my opinion, of course!
