Dear New Vision,
I write in response to your article of today entitled “Bobi Wine declines to cut cake with Mayiga” which seemed intended to portray me as an indisciplined and disrespectful leader WHICH YOU KNOW IS NOT TRUE.
As a reputable newspaper I know inaccurate reporting isn’t part of your editorial policy. I am disappointed with the way you twisted the facts of yesterday’s event.
To set the record straight, I was invited as area M.P. to attend Gayaza Junior School’s Day, celebrating 106 years!
At the same occasion, the Katikiro of Buganda Owek. Charles Peter Mayiga was the Guest of Honour.
I attended the function, received the Katikiro and together, we inspected different exhibition stalls for students’ products and activities. We also
had a cordial chat!
It is therefore rather disturbing that your article says that I left the function without cutting the cake and suggests that I just walked away after being invited to do the same! You surely know that is not true.
As a matter of fact what you should have headlined is the fact that I was denied opportunity to speak at an important function in the heart of Kyadondo East!
I was at the function from 10am to 3pm (5hrs) and as protocol was being ‘observed’, many of the guests who were invited but didn’t show up had their representatives speak on their behalf.
Just at the point when the area M.P. was to be invited to welcome the Guest of Honour, the C.A.O’s representative was instead invited to perform that role.
My assistant tried to find out from the M.C. whether it was a mistake and they were bluntly informed that they had strict instructions NOT TO LET ME SPEAK. (You might as well want to pick interest in the source and reason for that instruction).Later, a friend who was one of the organisers apologized and told me ‘they’ couldn’t let me speak because they
were not sure what I was going to say!
As you accurately put it, on the same day I had been invited to officiate at four different functions (Gayaza Junior School, Kinaawa Secondary School, Nangabo Youth Bicycle race and the Uganda cranes vs South Sudan football match at Lugogo KCCA grounds).
After the Katikiro’s speech at around 3pm, and owing to the many panic calls from the organisers of the other functions, I silently left and rushed to catch up with my other engagements.
I must say it was a humiliation to the people of Kyadondo East to have their elected representative seated at a function for almost five hours and not given any opportunity to say a word. I had prepared to use the occasion to suggest ways of improving our education system!
Therefore, by the time the cake was cut, I was long gone and I think it was more important for me to say a word to my people rather than cut that cake.
Had I been allowed to speak,
perhaps what I was going to say would make a better headline than the cake.
It should be noted that I spent less than thirty minutes at the functions I attended later having spent the biggest part of the day at Gayaza because I could not leave the function before the Katikiro’s speech.
I therefore find it very unfair that rather than investigate this irregularity, and maybe point out the great things exhibited by those smart kids, you chose to highlight the cake!
I am not a ceremonial M.P. and would love to use every chance to speak for and to my people!
You shouldn’t have asked why I didn’t cut the cake, you should have asked why I didn’t speak!
I had not wanted to dwell on those occurrences but when I saw facts being twisted, I felt the need to set record straight.
There is no virtue I treasure as much as humility.
I respect my tradition and its leadership.
I thank you.
Hon. Kyagulanyi Ssentamu Robert-
Bobi Wine
M.P. Kyadondo East Constituency
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