The unfortunate death of a former Bobi Wine associate, a one Micheal Kalinda in a motorcycle accident last week has quickly turned the focus to the strategy the People Power organization and how it intends to use the media as we head towards the 2021 general elections.
Bobi Wine only recently declared his intentions to run for the top office amidst much fanfare on international Television just two years since he won a parliamentary seat and joined active politics. The singer initially stood on a premise of representation of the lower people in society commonly known as “Omuntu Wawansi”.
So what explains this departure from this noble socialist political stance to the hard line, right wing radical political movement he has established?
Typical to his showbiz background, the singer and his crew have since changed philosophy to that of power hungry, gang of vultures ready to pounce on a perceived political carcass.
During the by elections of the Arua Municipality seat, Bobi Wine and his crew got involved in well documented skirmishes that led to their eventual arrest and arraignment in court.
However what is important here is how the group used the media to concoct a narrative that they had been tortured to near death and that in fact he, Bobi Wine had lost a kidney. Fast forward and the legislator appeared on all manner of media houses (with missing kidney intact) spreading harmful propaganda on the behavior of Uganda’s security agencies across the globe.
He and his group seem to have got a Eureka moment from then going forward. Their recipe for success was to take advantage of unfortunate events like the death of Yasin Kawuma, his driver at the time and turn it into political capital. On the same issue of the late Kawuma, Bobi Wine promised on different platforms to take care of the deceased’s family but only recently, the families of the late appeared in the media seeking for support that never came forward after all the posturing.
The strategy of the People Power group to use tragedy to drive relevance should worry their youthful supporters for this reeks of a case whereby they shall be so easily sacrificed at the media altar for selfish benefit.
The hard line insistence by this group that the late Kalinda died as a result of torture is very regrettable. However as time will always tell, they will be exposed and just like the boy who cried wolf, no one will care any more about what they say and the inevitable fall from grace will ensue.
We have come to accept nothing more from this group. However taking advantage of the masses to raise a quasi revolution based on anger and emotions can only be a disaster not only for the nation but also for their supporters.
