by Otuma Ongalo
I’m not going to talk about the royal wedding for what happens in England’s Buckingham palace doesn’t affect me. As England’s own William Shakespeare would have written in his days, it was much ado about nothing safe for royal worshippers.
In journalism class, students are told that one of the key determinants of news values is proximity. What happens near you is of much concern than what happens thousands of miles away.
As many Kenyans yesterday glued their eyes on television to witness the pomp and glamour of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding, my mind was on events in Uganda.
I was seething with anger after replaying, repeatedly, the video clip of opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s tribulations in the hands of Uganda police — the very face of President Yoweri Museveni’s iron fist regime.
When Museveni shot his way to power in 1986, he came as a saviour of Ugandans after years of dictator Idi Amin’s reign of terror. The world readily welcomed him and hailed him as a beacon of hope in Africa’s tainted leadership.
To his credit, he established law and order in what had been a chaotic country and put it on the road to economic recovery.
Twenty-five years later, Museveni the saviour has become the tormentor and it won’t be long before he surpasses the excesses of dictator Amin. As the wave of revolution against despots gains momentum across the continent, we are watching meekly as a tyrant emerges insidiously in our midst.
Today, Uganda is virtually a police state and the people of a country once described as the pearl of Africa have been revisited by the nightmares of the Amin era.
Dr Besigye’s tribulations represent the woes of thousands of Ugandans who suffer silently but the Press is not always there to cover their sufferings.
Besigye is a besieged man for having the audacity to question the regime and nursing ambitions of wresting power from a man who thinks that he will rule Uganda until he drops dead.
Despite the many odds against him, he is Museveni’s foremost challenger and Ssebo is afraid, very afraid. When Besigye walks across the streets of Kampala Museveni shakes to the core. When he drives through the capital, Museveni sees a revolution. He has vowed to humiliate him and he has kept the promise. To crown it all, he had been barred from flying out to seek treatment in Nairobi after his henchmen assaulted him.
He has done to Besigye what Robert Mugabe has not done to Morgan Tsvangirai despite their famed animosity.
Whatever private scores he has to settle with him following fallout during their days in the bush, Besigye represents the face of democracy and change in Uganda.
Fighting and humiliating him is not just tormenting Besigye the man. It is trampling on democracy and the popular will of long suffering Ugandans.
The man who shot to power on the platform of democracy and progress has made Uganda stick out like a sore thumb in regional politics. He has made democratic elections a sham and suffers from illusions that Uganda cannot survive without him.
Virtually all his challengers are living in fear and many of them have been rounded and locked up in cells.
Museveni’s thirst for power is gradually spreading beyond his country’s borders and Kenya seems to be his soft landing. After grabbing Migingo, his men are said to have moved to another Kenyan island this week.
As the world unites in condemnation of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s atrocities against civilians, Museveni is the lone voice that has backed him. There has even been media reports that he has pledged asylum to the embattled leader should he choose to flee.
It is a high time he fled himself. As John Major famously remarked when his term came to an end in Britain: "When the curtain falls, it’s time to leave the stage."
Museveni has hung on long after the curtain fall. He is like the proverbial dancer who remains on stage long after the audience has lost interest. Yes Ssebo, you must quit.
—The writer is Senior Editor, Production and Quality, at The Standard
