This has been a massive week for Ugandan opposition politics and it seems the opposition is no longer on the offensive but largely on the defensive side of things.
Let me take you back to the day that a note allegedly from General Caleb Akandwanaho circulated on social media forcing the Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago on the defensive. I am not sure it left him the same.
The no smoke without fire group would not be won over entirely by his ferocious outburst intended to divorce himself from the contents of that note.
While many were dismissing the note and questioning its authenticity, I did the logical thing to check on the kinds of people who first released the note and run it on their social media accounts. I noted that some of those are very unlikely to publish content said to come from that source were it to be fabricated unless off course the General has sanctioned the said fabrication.
After all, they have means of knowing first hand if the note bears any semblance of authenticity.
That out of the way, there was this interview I landed on given by the leader of opposition Mathias Mpuuga in which he wondered why in the middle of a struggle to dislodge a dictator, there was a mini or major fight over the position of leader of opposition.
One day I shall come back to the small matter of who even made a case of forming an opposition government at the time when some were into the idea of ‘We won the election,’ and therefore there is no need to form an opposition govt that would legitimise, ‘our loss.’
Remember the views that 'if Bobi is not president I won’t go to parliament?' Anyway that I shall one day return to that later.
Now what we know is that there is a war inside NUP over the LoP position.
I cannot say I saw why after that revelation came from the fact that Mathias Mpuuga made a trip of Bulange, Mengo with his principal Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine. We can be of the view that the two are purely unconnected.
A source tells me that Mathias Mpuuga was at that meeting but he did not last in it long. I am not making any suggestions here. I am just revealing what my source says. It could be he was rushing to some other engagement that was critical so he excused himself.
That closed door meeting and its resolutions we won’t know save for the “Obukakamu” that we heard being called for. In comes the blockbuster release of Allan Sewanyana the man and Muhammad Ssegirinya Mr. Updates.
From absolutely no where, the state has no objection to the bail application. But before we even get there, the Chief Justice had threatened and or rather issued a directive to the judicial officers dealing with the case of those two to either have them charged or freed. It left me wondering why CJ Alfonse Owiny-Dollo spoke up at that particular time. What did he know that the general public did not about the status of their cases?
Right now we do not know where the long detained MPs who were released are. We only hear from their family members that they need time to recuperate from their year long incarceration.
Yet their close associates were left with egg on face when they camped at Kigo waiting for them only for the Spokesman for the prison service to speak boldly on NBS Live at Nine that they were not inside the facility where those outside were waiting. They refused to believe that which later turned out to be true. Now there is a new one.
That there are sections inside the opposition that sat on a large table; we don’t know if that table had refreshments or not. What we are hearing is that there was a sitting and by the end of that sitting a deal was struck.
Strangely there is very little excitement in opposition circles over the release of Allan Ssewanyana and Muhammad Ssegirinya. Many in NUP seem more concerned about how they obtained their release than that they are out. How they got release is what is sending a wedge inside NUP.
I am not sure if the family members of the two care about the how. They have their loved ones back. Dr.Abed Bwanika spoke of the need to sit at a table to negotiate and then he was scoffed at.
Now that the release has happened in the way it did, where does this leave the battle of the job of LoP in a party that says it won the election and wants to dislodge the same man who would only release its own fighters through a negotiation?
I imagine many in NUP must be wondering how they expected the legal process to work when its leader has claimed that all judicial officers in Uganda serve Mr. Museveni? So what did his Party want? Was the confinement of more political value than the release of these two?
Fighting Mr. Museveni is not very easy. Many times you are left on the back foot largely on the defensive not knowing what to react to or how to react.
Did you even notice that all of a sudden we have no interest in NSSF and that probe this whole week. May be that is just a coincidence.
Have a good day.