By Mike Ssegawa
It’s not hot news that Gen Kale Kayihura is out on bail after more than 75 days in the Makindye Barracks jail. Apart from a few young people and his Kisoro people, who stood by him, the silence of people who lined up at his offices was indeed a book worth reading.
When Gen Kayihura was facing his darkness time, where were his friends? And, if shunned he was for his atrocities against Ugandans, were there no good things this man did for anyone.
I was alive when i saw hundreds of people falling over each other to shake Gen Kayihura’s hand.
Fast forward.
The hottest news maker in Uganda today is Bobi Wine, an entertainer turned politician. Bobi made his mark on Uganda as a bad boy. It’s even strange to read the good works of the self proclaimed ghetto president. However Bobi has been the ambitious young man and his dreams and willpower has brought him this far. No one should fault him for this. His songs and bad man image however earned him friends and foes… But of recent he has won more ardent followers in Uganda and abroad who don’t actually know a single song for this Mubanda(antagonist).
Bobi must be a lucky man. He has not put in so much to gain that world fame, after all, his friends and nemesis in the music industry have always referred to him as a ‘local’ artist whose music doesn’t cross Busia, Katuna or any other border. May be it is now time Bobi re-launches his music career on this platform.
From the look of things, fans he has won, and it seems Bobi was wasting away in music, instead, he should have joined politics long time ago and by his age of 36 years, he must at least have shown something he has done in public service beyond building a beach at Busabala, buying a boat and his Magere mansion. We should probably have seen his fellow artistes in Firebase crew also driving the latest escalades like himself. Buchaman should never have left him, who was the vice president of their music group over disagreements in revenue sharing.
Nubian Lee would be an established artist and not in Bobi’s wings for a decade now, that he now has to cross over to become his political aide de camp and by now, you might have heard other artists emerging from Firebase if Bobi was a builder and not a self seeker.
But well, Ugandans are in love and nothing for now can be questioned of their darling.
Like many people, I was heartbroken seeing the late Yasin Kawuma, shot dead by an equally barbaric trigger happy security official in Arua before Bobi and others were rounded up in the catastrophic and regrettable operation.
However i watched in disbelief that a man reportedly who took ‘Bobi’s bullet’ was living in abject poverty and that way he died. When you’re a rich man, it’s how you treat your lowest worker that shows how big you are. Yasin was a poor man despite being one of the top aides of the Bobi the ‘successful’ artist turned politician. Yasin’s wife, i mean the main one, regretted that her husband was killed in Arua when he told her he was going to Bugiri. It’s possible Yasin didn’t even know the program before he left his home.
Bobi has not held a public office long enough to be judged fairly… But he has lived in the public eye long enough for his personal attributes to be evaluated.
That’s why Gen Kayihura’s peak, jail, release, and no ‘friends’ showing up says a lot of Ugandans. Kayihura whose public service has been under scrutiny for more than two decades might be judged harshly but from the list of beneficiaries of his largesse we have read about in media spaces, but the vultures have now run to another carcass, says so much of us.
I would imagine that Bobi be built to become the leader we want instead of godifying him. For needs more mentorship from across the political spectrum before we declare Freedom.
Bobi needs to listen to Kayihuras of this world and so would be his associates, to pick lessons in Leadership. Kayihura might be a loathed man, but he also needs our empathy… For he was a man with his own weaknesses.
At the end of it, what Bobi and Kayihura need to teach us is the virtue of humility when you are seemingly at the top of the world. And courage to forgive when the adoring crowd, takes away its cushion and ululations.
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