{UAH} Betty Nambooze: People talking about Byanyima presidency are enemies of the opposition

NATIONAL CONVERSATION :

It has been featured prominently in both the mainstream and on social media over the last two days that Eng Dr Winnie Byanyima is gunning for the Ugandan Presidency anytime soon.

The news has stirred up quite a debate among the both the NRM leaning and the Opposition folks and indeed major publications had it as their lead story.

Ironically though, the story inside the papers is totally different from what the headline insinuates. Ugandans have been reluctant to believe that propaganda is one of the major weapons of dictatorial establishments especially at a time when they can't salvage their reputation and no longer have anything to lose.

State sponsored news stories flash on front-pages even when more sensible stuff happens out there in form of news.  Just like pigs – or better still – swine, NRM will be happy to drag you into the mud if only to make you look like them.

To anyone who has been keen, the project to tarnish both Rtd Col Dr Kiiza Besigye and Eng Dr Winnie Byanyima has been on for quite some time now with whole falsehoods of suits in court if only to make them look nasty before the unsuspecting public.

DP as a party has suffered this propaganda thing for too long to the extent of being influenced into decisions as a party to save its reputation. We have been demonized as a party that is tribalist and Catholic leaning in nature and leadership. Norbert Mao assumed the DP Presidency by faulting the party constitution (you can rightly call it a coup) which was tolerated if at least it would make the party appear less or non-Buganda centric.

As a result, DP suffered splits and rifts from which it is yet to recover to such an extent that even subsequent elections have failed to satisfy an element of legitimacy. Of course, once DP dropped Dr Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere and replaced him with somebody much older than him Mzee Ssebaana Kizito, a protestant, just to prove to all and sundry that DP was not Catholic.

With FDC as potential fodder, Besigye was faulted for having served too long and not practicing what he preached. His resignation or early retirement as party president left FDC staggering and only caused a state of a dual presidency when Gen Mugisha Muntu took the mantle.

Yet, the propagandists still went after both of them accusing them of hailing from the same region.

In the same way, the media have seemed to suggest that Eng Dr Winnie Byanyima addressed a press conference to declare her candidature and indeed went on to impute it upon her albeit without authority that this will be in 2021 when she will be 62 years of age, 13 years shy of the constitutional limit of 75 years.

It is clear that she has been quoted out of context especially as it was a Q & A interview on the sidelines of another meeting by FOWODE who were celebrating their own contribution to the Women Movement. In the circumstances, what else would have been a more fitting answer to a question from a journalist whether Byanyima  considers herself a Presidential  material?

 This is something we have to learn to live with as Opposition because we are the target. We will be quoted effectively even for what we have not equivocally said.

I for one love to wear a round hat once in a while but whenever I have done so, I have been confronted with a question as to whether am imitating Museveni and tending towards NRM. Once I was made to ask a colleague if he was considering to move pantless in order to be different from Museveni.

Surely, Eng Dr Winnie Byanyima's answer was the most appropriate for any woman whose record in the women movement is well known than a statement of a person declaring her candidature. Any woman politician worth the title would have given the same answer when confronted with such a question.

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"When a man is stung by a bee, he doesn't set off to destroy all beehives"

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