D.To survive as an opposition politician in Uganda, you have to go on the campaign trail wearing bulletproof vests and helmets. You have to be ready for war. Opposition politician Robert Giaculani, also known as Bobby Wine, who became a Ugandan musician, discovered this when he decided to challenge the 34-year-old to strangle incumbent Ivory Kaguda Museveni in the January 14 election. When Kiagulani left for the campaign on the first day, he was wearing his pants over red overlays, which made him look like a prisoner.
“I don’t dress like this because I like it. I dress like this because there are people after my life. By killing me, they think they will get better at it. They do not know that it will get worse if I die, ”he told a crowd outside his home.
The curiosity of his message overwhelmed the abomination of his attire as the people of Uganda realized how terrifying the political environment was. Just a few weeks ago, a large number of people died in the worst unrest in years in Uganda. Many of these were young people who had come to protest the arrest of their candidate, Kiagulani. Others were roadside vendors who allegedly drove off in a vehicle covered in the ruling party’s yellow color. Police fired tear gas and fired live bullets, which killed onlookers.
When Kiagulani told Christian Amanpuri on CNN last week that no one in Uzanda was safe when asked why he continued to risk his life for the almost impossible feat of removing Museveni.
Museveni came to power after five years of guerrilla warfare. He carried out economic and political reforms to manipulate elections, prolong his stay in power, incite old regimes and bring stability and unity to the East African nation. He wants to remind us that he can sleep through the night now because of it.
I was born in 1986, the year Museveni came to power. My mother tells me about a long and difficult pregnancy during the war. She remembers one evening when the rebel soldiers came home from a fight. After sunset, when my mom and her nephews were getting ready to serve dinner, they heard gunshots. It was a familiar sound, their mark for fleeing to the bush. My mother, who was heavily pregnant with me, fell several times while running through the bushes and trees in the dark. Soldiers often raided homes, where they took food, seized money and raped women.
For my mother and her contemporaries, nothing is better than those old fights.
When I am grateful, I never sleep in the bush, except when I go to camp I wonder if the tradition of electoral violence I have witnessed in every election since I was born can be seen by my parents as a real new “bush” sprouting around us – a new challenge to the power of a bad state Ghettos that make up the generation.
Do they see hunger and despair in the eyes of Kiagulani’s supporters? Giaulani grew up in the slums of Uganda, first experiencing poverty and scarcity, and used his musical talent to escape. His most ardent supporters are young people from similar ghettos. They emerge to attend his rallies on an empty stomach, jumping over sewage rivers and capturing the gaze of their only hopeful man.
When they sleep in a one-room house after the only meal of the day, they dream of Uganda, where they have jobs, and their children get a better education, instead of half the lessons they now receive from the free schools in schools where teachers are often absent and classes are high. They move to the future Uganda, where they have better homes, better roads, and people are born on the sites of crowded hospitals.
For the people who support Kiagulani, Museveni’s campaign to “secure your future” is empty after many years of growth promises that have never been translated into a better life. Supporters of Museveni will quickly point out impressive economic growth rates over the years, making it difficult to ignore gap fluctuations.
For Ugandan people under the age of 35, like me, who make up more than 80% of the population, a ghetto president performs concerts on the lake with his Rastafarian friends, sings independent songs before each official address, and he openly surrounds himself with advisers to consult and talk, unquestionably “from above “It is a threatening political environment that is refreshing from the system and dominating our country.