President Yoweri Museveni’s son, Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, is in the spotlight over the alleged torture of award-winning writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija. The celebrated author’s alleged crime was to insult Muhoozi, which earned him a raid by 20 armed men and a month-long incarceration at various detention centres. By the time he got out, Kakwenza’s body was riddled with torture marks.
Kakwenza says Gen. Muhoozi, the commander of UPDF’s land forces and a presidential advisor on special operations, masterminded the torture. In an affidavit to court, he even claims he met Muhoozi thrice during his ordeal. And that Gen. Muhoozi personally bought him some clothes after the ones he’d been wearing had got torn while he was being beaten.
Gen. Muhoozi says he didn’t do it. In fact, he had never heard of Kakwenza before the media started writing about him. And he has no desire to meet him. Ever. Except that he just needed to check with his uncle in Kigali if the writer, who had run off to exile by the time Muhoozi shared his thoughts on Twitter, had been spotted in the city of a thousand hills.
With Kakwenza now on the run, it will take a while for us to hear a verdict from Uganda’s Courts on who of the two is saying the truth and who is lying.
However, in the court of public opinion, there will only be one winner. And that winner won’t be the four-star general.
You see, Muhoozi has probably fought many battles to earn his rank of General. But he’s never had to fight a war where the odds are stacked against him the way they are in the social media spat that he got sucked into with Kakwenza – especially with the pen warrior wearing the torture marks that he displayed before his escape.
And it can only go downhill from there, as evidenced by the recent Twitter spat which he had with Bobi Wine, forcing the decorated General to share some choice expletives, as well as when the First Son bullied the NTV journalist Olivia Komugisha for a comment she made on his account.
Gen. Muhoozi’s reactions are probably understandable, given his background. As a son of a sitting president of the last 36 years, Gen. Muhoozi has lived a largely sheltered life, in which he has never had to take a punch to the chin, literally or otherwise.
While the likes of Brig. Noble Mayombo (RIP), Brig. Felix Kulayigye and other soldiers from his generation were engaging in robust public debates on radio with the likes of Col. Kizza Besigye, thereby sharpening their intellectual abilities, Muhoozi was largely kept sheltered from such under the guise that he was not interested in politics, only military affairs.
Even within the opposition ranks, the likes of Ssemujju Nganda, Betty Nambooze, Muwanga Kivumbi, etc, began to face the rigour of political debate at a fairly tender age, falling short on occasion and taking the punches that come with debating more senior politicians until each of them found his or her footing.
In that case, therefore, Muhoozi, who has recently exposed his thought process and ideas to public scrutiny through his tweets, is a little late to the political party. He has found that even the common man on the street has found a voice through the democratization of public engagement via the various social media platforms.
Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms are not a public rally where you invite people to listen to you, after which you drive off in your SUV, leaving the wananchi to discuss and debate among themselves as they walk home the import of your message.
On social media, which is Gen. Muhoozi’s chosen mode of communication, he should expect people to respond to him and challenge him, sometimes in ways that are unpalatable to him. For, in the heat of the moment, one can use some words that may not be civil (just like the good General did when he insulted the NTV journalist and then unleashed his army of human Twitter bots on her).
So, as Gen. Muhoozi comes out of his shell to engage with Ugandans, he should not expect a walk in the park. The social media streets are brutal, and it would help him a great deal to take some of the feedback in his stride. If he is not yet ready for that, it would probably serve him well to retreat for a bit and draw fresh public/social media engagement tactics.
While on a Twitter holiday, it would do Gen. Muhoozi no harm to look around the NRM stable for individuals who have weathered public/social media storms during their time in public service, like the Head of the Uganda Media Centre, Ofwono Opondo.
As many will know, for more than a decade now, OO has had to face some heavy insults and public shaming due to the alleged theft of an Uchumi underwear, the shooting of a suspected criminal, and some of the statements he’s made in defence of the government.
Somehow, OO has held his own and – whether you like him or not – you will agree that he has grown such a thick skin that he now seems immune to the insults. You could even say that he now has the highest grudging respect of some of his greatest adversaries.
So, invite OO for a beer, General, and pick his brains on how he has managed to keep his head up amidst the relentless public criticism that he’s faced over the years without bringing guns to a war of words.
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