Yesterday, I received a YouTube link to a speech Barbie Kyagulanyi gave at the Canadian Diaspora Conference a few days ago. There is no doubt that this speech was terrible and I think she should work on her public speaking skills if she plans to give another speech in the future. However, I blame those who insulted her for this – insults are unnecessary when someone makes a mistake – instead you just correct them.
I really sympathize with her plight because public speaking is not easy. My first public speaking experience was in early 2000 when we had a family meeting at Kiggundu’s house in Kololo Suleiman. Everyone was asked to give a speech – I was nervous and kept looking at my former principal, Al-hajji Abbas Kawase, for validation.
I nearly choked up when Barbie said: “Museveni is a thief. Museveni started stealing in 1980. I will tell you how to steal. He is the deputy chairman of… hahaha(She laughs).
Then she continued: “” It’s like y’all don’t know Museveni…he is a thief because during Paul Muwanga’s time Muwanga was defense minister. … They had an election between Museveni and Sssomoghere, and Sssomoghere won the election and the electoral commission called Sssomoghere to congratulate him. Then Mwanga, with Museveni’s help, went and told the European Commission to stop what they were doing. Balabala…”
First, Paulo Muwanga never served as defense minister, while Museveni had nothing but a UPM/FRONASA candidate in the 1980 elections. According to what I read in Sam Njuba’s book Betrayal, after Godfrey Binaisa was removed from office, Paulo Muwanga occupied He holds the office of the President and makes executive decisions for the country. The “Presidential Council” headed by Salo Musoke has no power at all.
The term used at the time was “Committee of War” rather than Council of Defense (Barbie’s term). The late Sam Njuba further argued in the book that Museveni was incompetent as deputy chairman of the six-man military council. So how could a powerless person steal? Barbie is talking nonsense. There is more nonsense to be used against Museveni now than there was in the past.
Njuba also said the UK has identified Oyite Oyoke as Obote’s successor in case the latter is rejected again. Apparently, they never envisaged Museveni coming to power because he is not popular anywhere in Uganda.
1980 election rigging
Museveni never collaborated with Paul Muwanga to deny the Democratic Party’s “victory” in the 1980 elections. Museveni was one of the presidential candidates in the 1980 elections. He has no connection with the electoral commission led by Kiria and has no power to influence anything. Anyway, if he had the power, he would affect his own equipment, not the UPC’s.
While in exile in Tanzania, Obote wrote to Paul Muwanga, then a cabinet minister in the Binaisa government, asking him to do everything possible to return UPC to power, even if it meant staging a coup. The letter is a public document that can be seen by anyone in various textbooks and is dated June 2, 1980. Muwanga, Rwakasisi and others implemented this plan in July 1980 and overthrew President Binaisa through a “coup”.
Before the 1980 elections were held, Muwanga began laying the groundwork for rigging the 1980 elections by writing letters to UPC militants, who rewarded him handsomely. Muwanga’s letter is also public property to those who want it (read Francis Bouwenye’s book).
The appointment of the Electoral Commission was also an important part of the rigging of the 1980 election process. First of all, the Military Commission was filled with people from the UPC, and the people who appointed the Electoral Commission (EC) – just like the current EC is filled with people loyal to NRMO and Museveni.
The few anti-Obot voices in the military council, such as Yoweri Museveni, could not change anything. Secondly, the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Kosea SM Kikira, was appointed by Muwanga and is a powerful UPC cadre.
The UPC did many things to rig the 1980 elections, but the most embarrassing was that Muwanga prevented electoral officials from announcing the results and instructed him to announce the results and announce the elected candidates alone. When he realized that UPC was losing to DP, he took full control of EC. Obote refuted this in his memoirs published in the Monitor before his death, but for a full-time politician like him this was to be expected. Muwanga released the revised results to the European Commission 18 hours later and asked the commission to announce them on Radio Uganda.
Public relations after 1986
Barbie also said ignorantly, “When Museveni came to power in 1986, his only duty was to go to the leaders of Western countries, especially the United States, and visit Ronald Reagan’s office—he went there every year for three years and hired Reagan’s His son’s father-in-law helped him purify them in America”.
From the day Museveni came to power and subsequently won the election, his agenda has been to control the narrative because once you control the narrative, you control the people.
Since this is a historical issue, I don’t think Museveni hired any PR agency between 1986 and 2000. I don’t know where Barbie Kyagulanyi gets her information. Reagan’s son was not involved in Museveni’s PR campaign.
As far as I know, Besigye gave Museveni a nosebleed when he was in exile in South Africa. So Museveni hired Hill & Knowlton, a London-based public relations firm, to help neutralize his international image.
In 2012, the government paid Irish firm Glenevin Operational Risk and Safety Consulting Sh2.3 billion to clean up its image. This comes after a walk to work protest led by Besigye.
Mercury International-USA was hired in 2014 after the U.S. government announced its first substantive sanctions against Uganda over its anti-gay bill. After the 2021 elections, Museveni hired Mercury International UK Ltd again to cleanse the bad image of the 2020-21 elections.
Apparently Barbie doesn’t know much about Ugandan politics, but I think her agent should prepare speeches for her in the future. Lucky for her, she mostly talks to “nkuba kyeyos” (diaspora) who don’t take these things seriously. She is yet another example of people being completely brainwashed by false propaganda and blindly loving Kakulani. Cognitive dissonance seems to be quite common (and frustrating) these days, which leads people to think that it is bad for opposition politicians to lie, but that it is somehow justified if their own side lies.
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