Counter A4C with effective sensitisation

 

Besigye’s broadside shows do not offer a constructive opposition and rebuild itself for the future as a credible alternative. Instead, he is now led on rope by the Activists for Change a.ka. A4C like a local goat being taken to tether, and for that he ought to be embarrassed!

 

Alternatively NRM dares A4C to formally declare war on the Government instead of disguising under ‘civil disobedience’ because killing the Police officers on duty is totally un-acceptable.

 

The attempt by the Attorney General Peter Nyombi to ‘ban’, the A4C group using archaic colonial laws (Penal Code Act. 1950) from England is futile, un-necessary and counter-productive, and should be shelved because it simply gives A4C greener lights for populist defiance. It makes mockery of the Police that allowed and stood-by watching a ‘banned’ organisation holding its public rally at Kololo Independence Ground. The Police was right to ignore the AG’s ban.

 

 Instead, an effective and thorough-going political mobilisation should be conducted. The Police should be more effective in detecting, apprehending, investigating and causing the successful prosecution of the law breakers using A4C activities.

 

Firstly, Besigye forcefully promised so much during last year’s general election only to perform miserably at 26%, obtained only 34 MPs and four district chairpersons, countrywide.  Having lost all his former electoral strongholds of Arua, Acholi, Lango, Teso and Kasese, Besigye contrived a hollow plan, first to disorganise President Yoweri Museveni’s inauguration on May 12, 2011 with embarrassing and very native political antics against visiting Heads of States.

 

For a person passing for a ‘national leader’ of a serious political party, the FDC, Besigye seems to have lost all senses and now believes that the entire Uganda and population must go down with his failed political ambition.

 

And for starters, Besigye failed to bring his ‘tsunami’, to topple Museveni before 2011 elections, and hoped against hope that he could somehow scuttle Chogm in 2007. Buoyed by the return of Olara Otuunu from 37 years of self exile, Besigye hoped to cobble together a united front against Museveni and the NRM using Western European interests which failed awfully because the opposition parties and majority of Ugandans had seen the con political artist in him.

 

Having failed in that venture, Besigye then gambled with a Ganda tribal sectarian card of Suubi 2011led by former Buganda Katikiro Joseph Mulwanyamuli Ssemwogere, and helped by gullible sections of the partisan local media.

 

That gamble, drove Besigye and FDC into a deep political ditch from which it is clearly hard to see them emerge stronger electorally, and of good national repute. It is this despair, having been abandoned by the majority of opposition MPs including many from FDC, that Besigye jumped on the walk-to-work design, which failed to attract much credible and popular attention.

 

Opposition MPs disagreed with Besigye on the issues he was raising then, that the elections had been ‘rigged’, because the MPs feared it would discredit their own individual victories, and had they shunned taking up seats in Parliament, they would have lost monetary opportunities and other goodies that accompany MPs. In any case, the EC would have called by-elections in their respective constituencies.

 

So, taking a populist exploit of the then local economic meltdown mainly driven by global trends, Besigye high-jacked the genuine, but misplaced grievances of sections of peri-urban un-employed and in some cases un-employable proletariat to sow political mayhem.

 

As the economy calmed down, especially the foreign exchange rates, fuel, transport, and food prices, the walk-to-work lost steam, and in its place came the A4C being coordinated by Masaka Municipality MP Mathias Mpuuga himself an independent MP, having lost the Democratic Party (DP) flag. And so, Besigye is now on the payroll of the A4C ringleaders: Mpuuga, Ibrahim Semujju Nganda, Nabillah Naggayi Sempala, and the besieged Kampala ‘Lord’ Mayor Ssalongo Erias Lukwago who all know they may not return at the next elections.

 

The A4C as an offshoot of Suubi 2011 won’t achieve much except as a public nuisance, and Besigye has brought in his political charlatans like Ingrid Turinawe, Francis Mwijukye, and Sam Mugumya as brazen mercenaries who have nothing much to lose politically. Besigye’s latest calculation was to prevent a smooth Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) conference in Uganda just fell and he is on all four facing up.