In Uganda, there are people who have built their “big” careers out of either abusing the government or President Yoweri Museveni. This group includes politicians, journalists, activists from non-governmental organisations, and others.
They earn a lot of money from their insults against the government, and they have been able to take their children to school, pay hospital bills, buy food for their families, and earn a big salary at the end of the month because of Museveni.
The hauling of insults against the government has become so fashionable that those involved think it’s some kind of being “styled up” to haul these insults against President Museveni and the government.
Those involved may even try as much as possible to ignore the facts but use rhetoric and mobocracy, especially on social media, in order to either get their paycheck or political capital.
They usually start by calling themselves social and justice activists; they eventually become political activists and start spewing their hate and venom against the government. This is how Dr. Stella Nyanzi started: by first spewing obscenities and later became a political activist, but she has miserably failed and run into self-imposed exile.
This is the line cartoonist Spire Ssentongo is taking and is slowly getting immersed in these murky waters, which might end his career as an artist like Stella Nyanzi’s. People like Spire get consumed by false praise on social media and do things that threaten the social justice they claim to fight for.
He has been involved in social media campaigns intended to show the government’s poor performance in delivering social services, which is very okay. But when he wants to use his “celebrity status” to divide people and push tribal sentiments, then he loses the point.
There is also credible information that these activists are being paid to push certain agendas, and because of the money they are paid, they don’t care about the implications of the actions or things they post on social media.
In conventional media, there is gatekeeping of the information, but social media has allowed people to share information that is detrimental to society.
Someone close to Spire recently said that he has been receiving invitations from agencies abroad who don’t wish Uganda well to give talks, and he is paid handsomely. This is probably why he is taking that hardline stance, because of the money he is getting from his funders.
It’s not only Spire who is trying to use this kind of “activism” to get where he wants to go. Currently, if you listen to Kira Municipality Member of Parliament Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, he cannot debate or say anything without including the name of President Museveni or his family.
He thinks his political career is in jeopardy and thinks he can only survive politically by spewing hate against President Yoweri Museveni and his family. Naturally, President Museveni or his government make mistakes, but it gets boring when you personalise these attacks.
When Ssemujju is in parliament, he rarely contributes to the bills technically; he only stands up to raise procedural issues, points of information, and points of order, and he must comically and negatively relate whatever is being debated to President Museveni even when there is no relationship.
This type of advocacy will not result in the desired transformation since it is divisive and will instead produce more harm than good.
Spire’s activism, while well-intended, has lost its essential beliefs as the cartoonist has prioritised money over country, shifting focus away from national issues towards likes and retweets.
