{UAH} Bobi Wine and Kizza Besigye

What should deal be between the old and new opposition leadership?

 Kampala, Uganda | GAAKI KIGAMBO | The manner in which the Police attacked and arrested popular musician cum politician Bobi Wine (real names Kyagulanyi Robert Sentamu) on April 22 was the same as when in 2011 they arrested Dr Kizza Besigye; a four-time presidential candidate against longtime President Yoweri Museveni. So why did Bobi Wine's arrest not produce the same shock effect?

It could be because for most Ugandans such misconduct by the State has become so commonplace it hardly surprises anymore.

Yet if there is any one thing it underlined, it is the fact Besigye and Bobi Wine are birds of a feather who must hasten their flight together in their individual and collective struggles to end Museveni's long rule.

The Police, with elements of the army in tow, shielded Bobi Wine's car from prying journalists as they smashed its windows with batons and gun butts in order to arrest him for trying to access his One Love Beach.

He was there to hold a concert the Police had cleared five days earlier but had cancelled at the very last minute. Whereas the Police claimed he had not fulfilled their safety and security standards, it quickly became clear they were acting on the orders of Museveni who, according to Daily Monitor, has outlawed all Bobi Wine's concerts.

Soon afterwards, they confined him in his house, which is illegal in Uganda, the same way they have repeatedly done Besigye, when he attempted to move out to his business. No two politicians have been treated in similar manner in Museveni's Uganda.

On the face of it, the two men are aligned as regards their declared aim and they demonstrate the same resolute determination to see it through come hell or high waters.

Both have a way with the people gained, inadvertently, nearly over the same stretch of time: 2001 to date; Besigye through turning on Museveni while Bobi Wine through singing largely protest music against Museveni's regime.

Both men are powered by the idea, carved in Article 1 of Uganda's Constitution, that real power lies with the people. Thus, Bobi Wine's formation is 'People Power' while Besigye's is 'People's Government', their looseness and vagueness, particularly the latter's, notwithstanding.

A superficial contest

Yet rather than close ranks and harness their energies, the two have pitted themselves against each other since Bobi Wine's instant rise to political stardom hardly two years ago. It is a clumsy superficial contest that, as all superficial contests go, benefits none of them.

Buoyed by a landslide victory in a 2017 parliamentary by-election that launched him into active politics, Bobi Wine has ridden the wave of those who have fashioned him as an able, fitting and timely successor to Besigye. The fashion owes to his charisma that likens to Besigye's with which he quickly locked horns with Museveni. Many who intensely dislike Museveni admire those abrasive and unapologetic ways.

As with Museveni, people who wish Besigye off Uganda's political stage do not necessarily dislike or undervalue his contributions to the country. They simply express a yearning for an orderly transition of power in national level politics, whether in the major opposition or the ruling NRM party, which in Uganda is rarer than rubies.

Bobi Wine has fuelled the clamour as Besigye's successor by successfully backing a string of candidates in other by-elections that Besigye couldn't support for one reason or another. He has jabbed him over largely misconstrued comments Besigye made over his slogan Twebereremu (Let's All Get Involved), or his ability to defeat Museveni at the polls. Furthermore, he has aligned himself more with an odd coalition of small parties led by the grand old Democratic Party. Their vote haul in all previous elections is hardly a fraction of Besigye's whom they have dedicated quite some time to attacking.

Besigye's Spent Force?

Those who think Besigye selfishly dominates opposition space seem to equally believe if he steps aside or is successfully attacked out of it, the support he draws will gravitate towards whoever emerges in his place as the top oppositionist. That is engaging in flights of fancy.

For one thing, political loyalties do not shift quickly and easily as sand unless they are nudged so. Otherwise, Besigye himself would have been a different proposition had Nasser Ntege Ssebagala, the political magnate of 2000/1, not urged his supporters to back him.

Besigye has yet to fail politically. Otherwise, he wouldn't still be accused of dominating opposition space. What's more, he has shown himself gifted to attract sympathy whenever he is mobbed as happens to be the case currently. This has happened in all elections but one, that of 2011, he has participated in.

In 2016, for instance, Besigye was mobbed out of The Democratic Alliance (TDA) in preference of Amama Mbabazi, who up till then was the engine running the NRM. He not only drew an outpouring of support at his nomination that personally overwhelmed him, he added 1.5 million votes to his 2011 tally against Museveni's 0.5 million votes.

So, if indeed iron sharpens iron, the person Bobi Wine will benefit from allying with is Besigye. As the State increasingly turns on the screws against him, only Besigye has been through what he will likely be put through and what better person to seek encouragement from than one who has been there and endured it all. Besigye did not have the advantage of a forerunner to look up to as he tumbled into the rough politics Museveni dictated. Bobi Wine need not squander the opportunity. Luckily, he does not have to start from scratch.

Good old days

To be sure, there was a time, not too long ago, when there was no doubt the two men were close associates; Bobi Wine a quasi-protégé of Besigye, who looks nowhere near done battling Museveni.

Besigye's politics inspired Bobi Wine's popular protest music against injustices and unfairness the state generates and exacerbates. He articulated in song what Besigye thundered out on and off the stump.

At one time when none of Bobi Wine's peers could touch Besigye even with a long stick, the sensational afro-dancehall star visited with and offered him musical comfort when Police detained him in his house shortly after the 2016 polls for daring to express his rights without fear or beseeching anyone.

But then the 2017 by-election happened in Besigye's backyard. Pleas and negotiations for Bobi Wine to shelve his interests for the sake of the FDC candidate, who had lost the seat in the first place, fell on deaf ears. The quasi-protégé adjudged the time as ripe enough to strike out on his own. The rest is the currently unfolding story that presently more unifying opportunities neither man should allow to go to waste.

What (and How) Alliances Work

It is in Besigye's interest to live up to the bigger person that he already is anyway and reach out to Bobi Wine in real terms and hammer out a solid, respectful alliance with him as opposed to occasional media platitudes professing collegiality and openness to working together. Such an alliance would have to acknowledge Bobi Wine's fresh energies pumping into the opposition's cause and agree pathways of amplifying and flourishing them. Contrary to fears this might present Besigye as weak and supplicant, the opposite could not be truer. Besigye is beyond proving anything to anyone. Moreover, it would settle the cardinal accusation against him, that is; wanting to hog opposition space.

Equally, it is in Bobi Wine's interest to identify and invest his newfound political capital in opposition stock with the best returns possible. So far, none beats Besigye's. He has maintained top spot for the last two decades and built resilient networks nationwide. Bobi Wine believes in standing on the shoulders of giants, the reason he peppers his talk with quotes of famous foreigners like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, etc. Besigye is the homegrown, more useful and relevant giant he should demonstrate more affinity to.

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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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