BLOGS | KYAGULANYI | JOURNALISTS 

KAMPALA - Recent presidential loser, the sensational Robert Kyagulanyi, who pulled out of his election petition in the Supreme Court, has gone to the court of public opinion and called for protests to supposedly ‘reclaim’ his stolen victory.

Clearly, Kyagulanyi is in a meltdown trapped in his psychodrama, treading on a rat path previously used by Kizza Besigye and Kenya’s Raila Amolo Odinga.

So far, the public countrywide has ignored him, even when he took his crocodile tears to Parliament on Thursday.

The announcement that Kyagulanyi would be sworn in as ‘president’ of Uganda on March 17, while being a laughable false hope to his easy-to-fool followers, is a disguised distraction from the Supreme Court ruling expected on March 18 over his petition withdrawal.

Kyagulanyi has declared war and left the planning and execution “to whom it may concern” hoping that the freebooters will invite him when all is over.

This type of war plan, or lack of it, isn’t new, remembering Dr Andrew Kayiira’s spectacular failure in 1982, when he raided Lubiri military barracks or Besigye when he lost the presidential election in 2001 and took a four-year self-imposed exile in South Africa.

In both cases, many fighters were left on their own to face danger when failure struck. In the case of the Uganda Freedom Movement, 68 died and the wounded were hunted down by the Uganda National Liberation Army from hospitals and killed.

Kayiira, the adventurist, only returned to Uganda in 1985 after president Milton Obote was toppled by an internal military coup.

Kayiira made a 7,000km withdrawal from Kampala to the US while Besigye fled 5,000km to Pretoria in soft life with occasional visits to his family in Washington DC.

Kyagulanyi’s war plans come four months after he airlifted his family to safety in the US and acquiring an alleged bullet-proof vest and vehicle.

Like Besigye, Kyagulanyi has been making unsubstantiated claims of winning elections with 54.18% of the vote, only showing piles of papers without strict scrutiny to the falsehoods being peddled, including the alleged 4,000 supporters who have disappeared at the hands of the state.

Journalists know the truth but have conveniently chosen to play along propagating falsehoods.

Yet, Kyagulanyi has twice since substantially revised the figures to 375 without any logic and hasn’t explained his party’s low performance at Parliament and local council elections.

With Besigye, it was a disguised effort at armed and civil rebellion which didn’t go far because of the adequate and effective preparedness of the state alongside peaceful democratic engagements with citizens.

Up-to-date, Besigye hasn’t made full accountability of those he led to death needlessly in the thick jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo like his former political assistant James Opoka.

We believe, from evidence available, that Kyagulanyi is being a copycat of Besigye, stoking provocation through use of rough language, open belligerence, soliciting foreign support and hoping to exploit the discontented, especially the unwashed urban youths to spark violence.

National Unity Platform (NUP) activists continue to wage a media campaign laced with lies, falsehoods, and well-calculated propaganda intended to incite hate and violence along tribal sectarian lines.

The trails show Kyagulanyi and elements in his NUP party are a dangerous, adventurous and myopic group, planning widespread violence to bring Uganda to a standstill and collapse civil governance.

It will certainly end in tears if not restrained early.

Going by the violent events of November, security agencies need accolades for neutralising heinous threats before they disrupted peace, stability and the economy.

NUP created a new radical wing dubbed Bali Bali comprising hardcore criminal elements from the rough of the underworld of urban markets and Kampala slums currently circulating baseless rumours, leaflets and recorded video messages urging people to stockpile foodstuffs to last weeks if possible.

In addition, Bali Bali is in early rehearsals with a futile hope to disrupt President Museveni’s swearing-in ceremony in May and there is cash going around for the purpose.

However, knowing most Ugandan journalists are quite gullible, Kyagulanyi is vacillating from overt hostile to civil in posture with claims his group is seeking peaceful protests yet he hasn’t informed the Police as required by law.

In military speak, this is a shaping operation, hoping security agencies will lower their guard, striking when law enforcement is not prepared as with last November.

As an amateur, Kyagulanyi perhaps doesn’t know his incitement of his supporters to march on the Electoral Commission offices demanding their purported victory betrays his sinister motives.

In all this, the media and journalists covering his stunts have played professional incompetence, ignorance or complicity to his evident treachery.

Some journalists are very active in this tomfoolery. Now, after ordering the battle to begin, Kyagulanyi is rushing to the rear, leaving presumably dedicated junior fighters to command his brigades.

My warning is when the bitter taste of defeat fills their mouths, the angry fighters will hunt down the absent commander and sort out the issue of command permanently.