On February 5, 2017, journalist and publisher/businessman Andrew Mwenda messaged me on Messenger to say he had been reading a “thread of arguments” about his Facebook posts criticising former presidential candidate Kizza Besigye, and he was impressed by my comments.
That was almost a year after President Museveni, whom Mr Mwenda supports and works for as an advisor/consultant, had won re-election. Dr Besigye, who was Mr Museveni’s main challenger, insisted and still insists, without providing incontrovertible evidence, that he won the election, and Mr Museveni stole it.
Mr Mwenda had launched a blistering attack on Dr Besigye, which not only shocked but also angered Dr Besigye’s supporters. It was unprecedented and seemed almost sacrilegious. Popular Opposition politicians in Uganda are uncriticisable.
Since I do not support any politician and I have never voted (and will probably never vote), I found Mr Mwenda’s criticism of Dr Besigye fair and justifiable, as did some in the Opposition. (In January 2017, for example, DP president Nobert Mao, writing for this newspaper, had this to say: “Mwenda’s criticisms are valid.”)
So when Dr Besigye’s supporters started hitting back and made Mr Mwenda the target of cyber-bullying, I wanted to meet him and ask questions about many allegations levelled against him, the main one being a paid regime propagandist who will stop at nothing to make Mr Museveni’s rotting and stinking administration look nice.
Mr Mwenda (who is not a friend) and I had agreed to meet over coffee, but the meeting never happened due to unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances.
Musaazi Namiti – monitor.co.ug
