Victoria Nyeko misunderstood Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba
I have read Ms. Victoria Nyeko’s maligning comments against General Muhoozi Kainerugaba in an opinion titled “Gen Muhoozi, Covid-19 is the enemy we should be threatening right now” published by the Sunday Monitor of 29th March 2020.
In the opinion, Victoria attacks Muhoozi for taking off time (amidst the Covid 19 pandemic) to tweet about the contribution of Gen Yoweri Kaguta Museveni towards ensuring a secure Uganda for her citizens. This tweet which Victoria calls “bizarre” was posted on Thursday 26th March 2020 and reads; “General Yoweri Museveni, the most successful revolutionary in African history. I pity those who think they can defeat him”. As an ardent follower of General Muhoozi Kaineruga, I would like to respond to Victoria and those who think like her as follows;
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This so-called bizarre tweet, by the time I wrote this, had attracted over 1,850 comments (95% positive), over 740 retweets and a whooping over 5,000 likes. If Victoria had only been keen and analytical, she would have understood that the likes alone that this tweet attracted reflect the extent to which Ugandans agree with Muhoozi on this particular subject. In fact, upon further analysis, I noticed that it also has over 270,000 impressions which reflect the number of people that have seen it over different social media platforms.
The argument that Victoria was trying to put forward is to the effect that Muhoozi had no right to post or boast about Uganda’s military capacity under the stewardship of Gen Yoweri Museveni. She went ahead to actually quote a bible verse hoping it would help her drive her misguided point home, unfortunately, or fortunately, she failed.
In Romans 13:4, the bible says “For he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” As clearly said in this verse, President Museveni has over the last 5 decades exhibited exactly the same, he defeated Idi Amin, he defeated Obote, he defeated Kony and many more internal insurgencies and indeed because of his revolutionary and Pan Africanist character, he exported peace to Rwanda in the 1990s (a sacrifice Rwandan leaders have greatly abused), South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Somalia to mention but a few. Isn’t such a record worthy of praise, isn’t that military might worth the approval of the over 5,000 Ugandans that liked Muhoozi’s tweet?
As I got into writing this response to Victoria and those who think like her, I took off some time to review her timeline, what I found is what is actually bizarre in the true sense of the word. She lacks the charisma to think and create the content of her own, her timeline is full of retweets of other authorities and none of her own initiative. Therefore, the fact that there is no single tweet originally posted by her to at the very least encourage her over 3,000 followers to wash or disinfect their hands as is being advised by Government and World Health Organisation takes away every right she would have to attack Muhoozi over Covid-19.
It shocks me that as Victoria prepared to attack General Muhoozi, she fell short of basic wisdom to review his timeline to indeed ascertain whether he had made a comment about Covid-19 or not. On 19th March 2020, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba tweeted thrice, summarily informing Ugandans about how dangerous the coronavirus is, and encouraging them to follow Ministry of Health guidelines while being each other’s keeper and above all dedicating our dear country in the hands of God who has hitherto delivered us from various challenges.
Let me also say this for the clarity of Victoria and all her ilk. General Muhoozi Kainerugaba is a military officer of high ranking, who sits in the National Security Council and has access to high-level intelligence briefs which puts him in a privileged position to know quite a lot regarding our security threats more than many of us. Therefore, his assertion should not be misunderstood or taken for granted at the very least, it is highly possible that he tweeted against that background to warn all our adversaries that amidst the Corona Pandemic, Uganda has not let her guard down and shall definitely defeat any attack from anyone be it a neighboring country, a disoriented rebel group or terrorist organisation.
In a nutshell, I beseech all of us to allow Government through Ministry of Health and all other Government Ministries, Agencies and Departments to continue leading us in the fight against Covid-19 by following their basic guidelines while at the same time allowing our military to protect our sovereignty through all possible means just like was the case in 2002, where the Ebola epidemic (which I actually think was more dangerous than Covid-19 as per current statistics) never stopped UPDF from persuing and defeating Kony in Northern Uganda.
The writer is a Manager at Government Citizen Interaction Centre (GCIC), Ministry of ICT and National Guidance.
