A year ago the pretentious opposition groups were reported contemplating an alliance to defeat the NRM, but perhaps more precisely dislodge President Yoweri Museveni, whose thirty-four years on the throne gives them itchy pimples. It is also two months since general elections concluded with NRM and President Yoweri Museveni’s triumph leaving the opposition shedding tears of deceit. While 333 incumbent MPs including 38 ministers fell, overall NRM retained overwhelming majority in the forthcoming house, 337 out of 523 seats.

The US, European Union, their new idol Robert Kyagulanyi the failed presidential contender have woven a conspiracy of blackmail against Uganda government institutions and officials, but fortunately they are not as yet getting far in the scheme. Since mid 2018 Kyagulanyi has driven a narrative that Uganda under President Yoweri Museveni is a dictatorship worth starving of US and European support and should be removed by force if necessary.

Reports of alleged kidnaps, torture, illegal detentions and disappearances are mostly false alarms but they are nevertheless embarrassment to the well-established track record of the NRM government and must be stamped out immediately. Every person arrested by security agencies must be accounted for in accordance with established procedures and laws of Uganda, offenders punished. Even cases of false alarm and mischief by people who go underground only to surface later must be dealt with.

Robert Kyagulanyi a.k.a. Bobi Wine who entered parliament on a bye-election ticket in 2018 has been a gashing wind turned a violent storm that steamrolled the old opposition parties of DP, UPC, CP, Jeema, and belligerent Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) forcing the four time presidential contender Kizza Besigye off the road. NUP will now take the leader of opposition in parliament, and EALA slot from for the opposition, and most local governments in Buganda.

The general election results is slowly emerging showing the extent of the humbling, if not humiliating defeat of the boastful foursome of FDC party, Norbert Mao, and two retired UPDF Generals Gregg Mugisha Muntu and Henry Tumukunde Kakurugu. Muntu and Tumukunde are former President Yoweri Museveni’s surrogates seen by many in both the NRM historical lenses as having been rushed through the ranks with favours whose raw ambition made them diabolical turncoats.

The just concluded election was tough in many respects starting with the Covid-19 pandemic that has reshaped everyday life, and people accustomed to large political fanfare of crowd size couldn’t quickly adjust. The results, now getting behind us, and losers softly absorbing their loss, has given President Yoweri Museveni and NRM comfortable margins throughout the country although it also points to protest votes in Buganda and Busoga hitherto stronghold which the NRM must quickly deal with. 

The sun is setting on election campaigns slated to end on Tuesday next week and Ugandans vote Thursday January 14 to choose a president, most certainly Yoweri Tibuhaburwa Kaguta Museveni and majority MPs from NRM going by all the credible opinion polls conducted so far. NRM already has fifteen MPs-elect declared unopposed by the Electoral Commission because opposition parties failed to field candidates against them. 

The very difficult year 2020 dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic that greatly suppressed the local, global economy and everyday aspects of life is finally behind us. In Uganda we have so far registered fewer deaths although cases of infections are rising and worrying.

Calm down, a Bobi Wine presidency of Uganda is not going to happen anytime soon, and there is ample evidence readily available for those who care to analyse Uganda’s current political terrain. We have seen these charlatans and yellow dog-gangsters before who stoke fears with claims unsupported by any evidence but they eventually fade away, sometimes into oblivion. 

Next to my office on Plot36 Nile Avenue is a door that has remained ajar, that of a hitherto friend of many years, and former Deputy Executive Director, Col. Shaban (Sebastian) Bantariza who died on October 27, 2020 from the Covid19 he apparently acquired during many of his official public engagements. At his military burial in Mitooma district mourners including his close family could only painfully watch his coffin being lowered into the grave from a safe distance of thirty meters away.