M7 changes strategy on Bobi Wine, answers him through 3rd party
After a marathon of exchanges between MP Kyagulanyi and president Museveni that paused last week with Bobi Wine, publicly exposing shameful errors in Museveni’s missive, the NRM camp has changed strategy to avoid putting Museveni direct into the firing squad.
NRM and Museveni have been defeated hands down on social media with 80% of responses on their own social network portals critical and abusive of the system.
The yellow camp strategists who seem not ready to be defeated in the cyber war and want to maintain their presence amidst predominantly disgusted users have turned to a second person career for their message to Bobi Wine and the young generation.
Being spread now on social media by NRM’s social media activists is a letter released today by an obscure “concerned citizen” in which the same usual NRM message of war threats, referring to the past–ignoring the future, making negative compulsions, intimidation, defending evil etc is packaged in the same tone as all ‘official’ NRM document
The letter, can easily be dubbed a “Museveni’s response to Bobi-Wine’s last letter. In the direct response the “concerned citizen” adopted a status lowering tone as used by MP Kyagulanyi in his last letter as he pinched Museveni for publishing an error full letter-which he linked to his governance failures.
The letter is visibly generated by strategists whose interest is to answer back and belittle Kyagulanyi while protecting Museveni from social media activists.
Using the ‘unknown’ concerned citizen as writer, the regime is playing its usual mind games, hiding as it pitches citizens against each other while creating an impression that someone is fighting for Museveni
The letter [With notice] :
Mr. Wine, as you obviously prefer to be addressed! I have followed with bated breath your social and print media messages.
I am at once happy for you but disappointed in you more.
For lack of a more descriptive phrase, I shall say you are a solipsist – “One who adheres to self-absorption
It is clear from your posts Mr. Wine that you are not alive to the adage, ” you don’t know where you are going until you know where you have been”!
You are suffering a triple tragedy of selective amnesia, a lack of grounding and loss of identity and this partially explains the adoption of “your names” – BOBI WINE! You are a true representative of a lost generation of Africa that glorify everything Western.
And so it is important for the consumers of your messages to understand that your thoughts are informed by your mentality. You need to know where you are, where you want to go and who you want to take with you.
That you have the platform in itself to freely express the uninformed views you hold are a manifestation of where we are as a country, never mind that you have deliberately or otherwise exhibited a total ignorance of where we came from.
You own bustling career as a musician is testimony to the fact that you live in a country where when you work hard with dedication and purpose you get rewarded.
I congratulate you on that. You must recall however that artists like you were prior to 1986, an endangered species in this country. [Though dictatorship breeds musicians as it was in apartheid South Africa, Mubutu’s Zaire etc, best artists in Uganda were before 1986, Philly Lutaaya, Jimmy Katumba etc and none was killed by any regime]
The list of those before you that paid dearly with their lives when they spoke out against the governments of the day is illustrious and almost a who is who of Uganda’s history of entertainment art.
Most notably Byron Kawadwa the father of performing arts in Uganda who was dragged out of the National Theatre WHILE IN REHEARSALS and murdered by Idi Amin’s soldiers.[In the same way parliament is besieged when there is no armed rebellion against the regime, just imagine Amin who had M7 waging an armed war against his regime]
Many fled the country after that gruesome incident.
Today you Mr. Wine can go to your studios and compose a song that is deeply critical of the government that has given you the voice to sing, produce that song and hold shows to popularize your song and drive home in the dark BUT SAFETY of the night, in the full knowledge and confidence that you will not be persecuted for it. [Rest in peace producer Kamapesa–for your information if you didnt know]
You proudly reproduce the lyrics in your messages and broadcast them today and all you get is an undeserving intellectual reproach from the Head of State. [Intellectual enough to forget the parliament or court siege?]
That, Mr. Wine, is freedom unprecedented. The paradox of freedom and democracy is that it’s greatest beneficiaries are often it’s most virulent critics.
I would expect Mr. Wine that instead of spending time destroying tax payers’ property in Parliament and posting clearly ignorant messages, you use your privileged positionto encourage our fellow young people to do as you did and tap into their wealth of talent to prosper just like you have.
If you do understand economics and management of public affairs as you do posture to, you would know that the critical role of any government is to create and maintain an environment in which talent like you and many others can and should thrive.
Indeed as you rightly state, as young people we should be asking not what our government can do for us but what we can do for our country and indeed ourselves.
Never in the history of post- colonial Uganda have we witnessed the magnitude of investment in public infrastructure like we have in the last 31 years.
Between 1962-1986 for instance, the total distance of roads tarmacked by ALL the colonial and post- colonial administrations
By contrast, between 1990 -2017, the total distance of roads now under tarmac is over 4,000kms, first class murram is almost double that.
The government of Uganda is investing a record- breaking $11bn in modernizing the railway network under the Standard Gauge Railway project.
Our capacity to generate electricity has more than tripled. Investment in the energy sector is unparalleled.
We are in the advanced stages of signing off a $4bn refinery project and in advanced negotiations with regional governments and investment partners to embark on a $9bn pipeline project.
Oil production will start- all factors being constant, by 2021. In the meantime, the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) with Phase is in progress.
In this phase, over $20bn will be spent and the requirements for talent – engineers, builders, welders, accountants, doctors, lawyers, bankers, planners, teachers, drivers, chefs, and even musicians like you to entertain these folks after a long day, is more than we can satisfy.
And so your argument that our fellow young Ugandans are jobless, while true, is also ignorant of what is going on in the country.
As an MP, you should instead of spending valuable time on social media and foreign airwaves bashing the very government that made you what you are, be helping your constituents and those you want to take with you on your journey, to build their individual and collective capacities and benefit from all the above investments that your government has done it’s part to make.
Mr. Wine yes it is true that Uganda has the world’s youngest population and the levels of unemployment are fairly on the high side, but the rapid population growth is a factor of stability and prosperity–in more stable and prosperous periods, most nations experience population bursts especially when the stability and prosperity immediately precedes a turbulent past.
But as a legislator now and if you do understand any basic economics, you ought to know as well what is called “the demographic window” It is part of a larger concept called “the demographic dividend”.
Simply put, it’s that period of time in a nation’s demographic evolution when the proportion of population of working age group is particularly prominent.
This occurs when the demographic architecture of a population becomes younger and the percentage of people able to work reaches its height.
In order to reap the dividends of this window, that percentile of the population must take advantage of what I have enumerated above that our government has done and is doing.
The government has done its part, now ask what part is ours!
Mr. Wine, by 1986, the number of children, out of every 1,000 births in Uganda that died, stood at 196.
In 2016 it was 43.
The number of children dying of immunizable diseases was a national shame, the number of our mothers out of every 100,000 that died giving birth in Uganda stood at 900 in 1986 and 336 in 2016.
We are not where we want to be yet but we know where we came from, where we are and where we want to go. The government is saving lives and we have a healthier more productive population.
The HIV prevalence rate in Uganda was reduced by half MOSTLY without medicines but with the resilience and persistence of President Museveni whose leadership and personal commitment on the subject many of our fellow young people may not know, but was singularly most instrumental in posting those gains.
President Museveni cannot be the devil you paint him to be. He has been a savior of lives. Mr. Wine you are painting with a very wide and black brush!
Mr. Wine, you ignorantly and negatively dig into the UPE program.
Like most critics, you employ the art of demagoguery and impress those who are impressed by such an art! But it is clear from reading your posts that the greatest dangers of all is the offspring of little knowledge.
You exhibit and seem to possess that in great measure.
Again, the UPE program is not perfect and I don’t know if a perfect education systemexists anywhere in the world. Everyday is a learning and improvement curve. What is your policy alternative??
Just like those before you, you offer none. Those of us young people that look up to you in positions of leadership, expect that when you identify a weakness and criticize, you offer an alternative so that we can compare policy proposals.
Yes our critics are most times our best teachers and criticism is welcome but criticism for the sake of it is counter-product
Mr. Wine I hope you know that there is empirical evidence that for every year of schooling by especially the girl child, increases the chances of survival of their offspring at the stage of motherhood sevenfold.
And so while you may hold a very linear and mechanical evaluation of the dividends of schooling by limiting it to the ability to add up sums as you do in your latest post, there is more to schooling than just arithmetic! [This paragraph intonation is rhetoric of our president]
You haven’t understood Mr. Wine, that a child’s earliest years present a window of opportunity to address inequality.
Nothing in this world we live in is more equalizing than education. Just look at you in the mirror and you will better understand my point!
The deliberate policies and efforts of the government of President Museveni is to make sure that as best it can, no child should be left out or left behind. It is not perfect but with all its imperfections, we are on the right trajectory.
Uganda was before 1986 a pariah state and long written off as a failed one too. Today we are country looked up to in conflict resolution, women emancipation, youth empowerment (you are a great example!), child protection, disease prevention, security and rollback on international terrorism etc.
That isn’t by sheer happenstance. It is all the deliberate and decisive leadership of the President you demonize.
We still experience challenges but no task ahead of us is too daunting to tackle.
You Mr. Wine and your ilk only show that while we have overcome most of our critical challenges, the old monster of division and ignorance still rears its head. We shall overcome you with good! [the use of WE in this paragraph is Museveni’s typical way of speaking]
I urge you therefore my fellow young citizen Hon. Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi, to think deeper,engage more, build consensus and research. Avoid your knee-jerk impulsive statements and actions.
As the old adage goes, it is better to keep quiet and people suspect that you are a fool than to speak out and confirm their suspicions!
Let us together work for a better united and stronger Uganda.
For God and My Country
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