Calm down, a Bobi Wine presidency of Uganda is not going to happen anytime soon, and there is ample evidence readily available for those who care to analyse Uganda’s current political terrain. We have seen these charlatans and yellow dog-gangsters before who stoke fears with claims unsupported by any evidence but they eventually fade away, sometimes into oblivion. 

Like Kizza Besigye and Aggrey Awori who captivated many including foreign groups in past elections, Ugandans are advised not to pay much attention to the men behind the dark curtain claiming to have support within police and military ranks. In Buganda, those same tribal chauvinists (Suubi & Nkooba Za Mbogo)) and decayed political party surrogates supported Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere in 1996 and later Besigye in every election he was a candidate but they couldn’t prevail over NRM.

In Buganda, except for parts of Kampala and Wakiso, FDC on which Besigye has run, never won either presidential or parliament races, and NUP, even with the hubris could come crushing on January 14, 2021. The belief, except for theatrics, that Robert Kyagulanyi and NUP represent a credible political generational shift is already being debunked and dismantled countrywide.

As elections draw nearer, groups of local actors, coordinating with foreign agents are firing blizzards of narratives they believe have put President Yoweri Museveni, NRM and Uganda on the negative spotlight. These groups dance more to foreign interests than Uganda’s which they deride.

For some time they had tried to build a case on calculated and fabricated falsehoods for the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague to investigate and indict Museveni over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity with respect to the 2016 conflicts in Kasese. The ICC has now rejected their accusations. But, these quislings haven’t given up their mischief and hope to continue waving the ICC, EU, and US as the bogeymen.

Using the local media and journalists, dark social media platforms, local but foreign funded non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society and human right outfits, foreign journalists, crooked lobbyists like Robert Amsterdam, and the recently defeated US Congressman Eliot Engel to build a narrative that Museveni is a kleptocrat who must be removed. 

Instead of taking the supposed high road, the NRM must flood the insidious media platforms with clear and forceful pushback because opposition lies that they can win this coming election are devoid of any credible evidence. We should not simply ignore Bobi Wine and think that he and his sidekicks will be persuaded on their own to abandon follies. These groups believe that they can grab power through bullying. They treat NRM’s muted responses to their shenanigan as a sign of weakness or cowardice which emboldens them to push their anarchist agenda beyond boundaries. For now, Kyagulanyi may dominate conversations about the present but his outlandish claims that he can win the January election is really an empty dream only fathomed by his obsequious crowd, and hate-filled hearts. 

Kyagulanyi and his movement must be dealt a fatal puncturing and repudiation so complete that it severs his grip on supporters and leaves him with no choice but to limp offstage. While many partisans may share his dream of capturing the presidency in 2021, those who despise him, it seems clear that the work must go on, the cause endures, and the fear extinguished so that the nightmare dies.

In multiple other ways, Kyagulanyi is a familiar Ugandan type, of such figures as Besigye, Awori, Norbert Mao, and Olara Otuunu. Like them all, they possess flamboyant and self-dramatizing personas. They tapped into genuine popular grievance toward NRM, and ascended in moments which caused the system to quake and be intimidated.

Personality cults in politics built on fickle grounds are quite common, but they never live long, in every case their movements eventually decay, and Kyagulanyi doesn’t offer any plausible reasons to suggest he will be an exception. Fascination with supposed strong men who burst on to the scene in noisy conventional opposition politics won Besigye 26 per cent of the votes as a Reform Agenda candidate in 2001. His appeal was raised in 2006 when mishandled by the police but has been on the decline and is now slipping from public view as well as positive consideration.

The comparison to Besigye, Awori, Mao, Otuunu or David Sejusa is not invoked here as a compliment. But in this case let’s keep the comparison scientific. Like all the above, Kyagulanyi is employing false accusations, warnings of betrayal and his own very narrow perception of alleged national decline hoping to tap into currents of discontent against popular but unfulfilled expectations.

And like those above, Kyagulanyi is said by people who know him as more interested in publicity for himself than issues he claims. Kyagulanyi now seems intoxicated by publicity and power, becoming louder with each passing day and more unleashed from facts. In fact many pundits believe that had the police left Kyagulanyi to float even in his disregard for Covid-19 SOPs, he wouldn’t hold to any serious scrutiny.