{UAH} TOP SCRIBE PREDICTS MAJOR RETURN FOR BESIGYE AFTER 2021

By Gilbert Mwesigye

To his credit, NTV journalist Raymond Mujuni used the latest Sunday edition of Fourth Estate to host two veteran journalists to discuss the Kizza Besigye legacy and the implications KB's non-participation in 2021 elections will have for the country's politics. The big-name media personalities hosted were Charles Onyango Obbo and Timothy Kalyegira Nyakahuma who are simply some of this country's finest when it comes to political insightfulness.

Whereas Onyango Obbo (vividly recalling a Saturday afternoon phone call he received in late 2000 from Eng Winnie Byanyima to go and meet Besigye who declared he would run against Museveni in 2001) said the retired Colonel would be remembered for returning credibility to opposition politics and setting such a very high standard, Kalyegira eloquently argued it was too early for anyone to write off Dr. KB. The controversial scribe from Toro Kingdom built a scenario showing that Bobi Wine Kyagulanyi Sentamu is increasingly becoming broken and as of February 2021, he will have no option but to find his exit from politics to return to his recreation business.

 

"All the things they have done to Kizza Besigye since 2001, they are going to be done to him and he is already being constrained. He goes to Mbale they block him and he can't go anywhere and mobilize freely. And there is nothing new in all this. It was expected because that is how they have treated Kizza Besigye for all these years," Kalyegira said. "No matter what happens, we all know already about that Saturday afternoon in February 2021 when EC Chairman Byabakama will sit somewhere surrounded by media cameras to go through the ritual of announcing the winner who we already know will be none other than Yoweri Museveni."

Kalyegira said it's possible (though not very certain) that the controversial results Byabakama will be announcing that day could anger citizens and spark Tunisia-like street protests culminating into the ouster of Gen Museveni and he thinks it's at that point that KB's Plan B will become relevant. "I'm imagining Bobi Wine not being able to do anything in case Ugandans don't spontaneously go out to protest on their own and Kizza Besigye will be somewhere vindicated because it's going to end just like he predicted at that event at Najjanankumbi. He will emotionally have prepared his supporters for that outcome and I imagine having everybody in the opposition driving to Kasangati for leadership into that Plan B," Kalyegira said on the NTV program. "It's then that Besigye will once again emerge as the true leader of all opposition forces in this country and nobody will be able to take that away from him because Bobi Wine, who has tagged his hopes on elections whose outcome is known from day one, will be broken and totally clueless."

He says more people will then appreciate Besigye's political shrewdness and foresightedness. Kalyegira anticipates that at that time KB will be leveraging on the unanimous good will of Ugandans who have liked him more for stepping aside to avoid being perceived as maliciously eclipsing Bobi Wine who believes he can overwhelm Museveni out of power through elections.

Just like Kalyegira, Onyango Obbo said KB's decision to decline contesting in 2021 was the best prudent political decision he would have made in the very constraining circumstances that the scientific election has imposed on the country. Onyango Obbo said in the absence of the KB momentum, the media houses must be very innovative to find something to ride on to make good sales during this campaigning period. That KB's absence in the race has totally distorted the media narrative and to still have the enhanced sales that would ordinarily have been anticipated during the campaigning period, the media decision-makers have to think very innovatively fort their readers to continue having reason to buy and read their stuff.

Obbo recalled how KB's entry into mainstream opposition politics relieved Monitor newspaper from the perception of being the epitome of leading policy opposition to the regime. That until Besigye came up and mounted a qualitative challenge to Gen Museveni, the newspaper for which Obbo was editor always shouldered the responsibility of articulating policy alternatives to counter what Gen Museveni and his Movement government was offering. That boldness and fearless, that saw him bell the cat, placed KB in his own category as an opposition figure "who pushed the Museveni envelope like nobody else had done." The two journalists recalled the emotional dilemma and vulnerability KB's unexpected challenge occasioned on Gen Museveni eventually bringing out the worst in him.

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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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