Opinion: Why Museveni is Bobi Wine’s chief campaigner

By Edwin Muzahura

The state machinery, in a bid to subdue and stop the ‘ghetto president’ are making a big mistake and instead growing his brand even within circles that never knew him or were never interested in anything him.

Humanity and Ugandans in particular hate unfairness and out right witch hunt.

I have personally supported one Political Party all my life which is National Resistance Movement (NRM) and indeed served it even at university.

But to have His Excellency, President Museveni rightly promote Bebe Cool’s show in Kiwatule and then have Bobi Wine’s show stopped doesn’t work well for the state at all.

In fact it hurts Bobi Wine financially with his promoters in the short run but hurts NRM more in the long run.

Before you know it, you will have made him so popular, so powerful, so loved that stopping him will be impossible or too costly for the establishment!

It gets even to those that were never interested in Bobi Wine attentive and as you keep cancelling his shows, actually appetite for them grows further within the population.

Even NRM leaning objective and fair supporters start picking empathy for Bobi Wine and finally start having a soft spot for him or his activities.

The damage the state institutions like Police or army suffer both online and other media is un imaginable.

The regime suffers a rough spate of Public Relations (PR) world over and will cost it in the long run.

Unfortunately there are very few people within our party and around the President that can even sit down to analyze such impact or tell him the truth. Most are cheer leaders looking for the next envelope or deal.

At the end of the day some of us who have invested our time in such a party and are still relatively young get weary and frustrated by these ego filled, careless, not so strategic decisions making the party more unpopular with in the population especially amongst the young majority. It hurts NRM more to stop Bobi Wine’s shows.

If I were in Police, I would provide security to Bobi Wine just like I would do to Bebe Cool. And if the state wants to draw more crowds to Kiwatule they can do that through Media support, transport etc but let Bobi Wine be!

In the long run the population will appreciate the fairness and hold Bobi Wine to blame if he insults any one at his shows but to simply keep stopping his shows unfairly is both unacceptable and counterproductive!!