Lately, President Yoweri Museveni is under a hellish of fire for directing a double-edged ban on adverts in the private media. Media owners are up in arms currently, over Museveni’s renewed move to deprive them of income. This, after he did the same to the Wafula Oguttu group while they were still in charge at the Daily Monitor.
Although the Oguttus shouldered on while under that ban, today’s media owners aren’t ready to suffer locally. Already, the media owners plus their employees have vowed to place a ban on covering and carrying government news. But they are also in the same vein, plotting a petition to the constitutional court.
This position, to challenge Museveni’s infringement on their economical rights and for discrimination against them. Most terrifying, the civil society, critics of the government and the opposition have since exploited the blunder by Museveni to the maximum. Those groups have since the ban was leaked, been saying all sorts of bad things against the president and his government.
Museveni appreciates the trouble he and his administration are in. Yet he is not someone who would easily accept to be blamed for anything. For that matter, what the president is being expected to do is to find a few fall guys who he is going to blame for that mistake. One among the possibly potential fall guys, is his Finance PS, Ramathan Ggoobi. It’s Ggoobi who issued that ban on the boss’ instructions.
But as they say the boss is always right, Ggoobi must brace for possibly being the one who is going to take the blame on his master’s behalf. Even if he miraculously escapes being turned into a fall guy, the president is mostly going to blame anyone else for his blunder. Those may possibly include the media owners themselves. This guess, for allegedly failing to tap into the numerous government wealth creation opportunities. And also for lack of patriotism on their part.
The fall guys might include the West for cutting off aid to Uganda. And URA for collecting less taxes and for failure to widen the tax base. Museveni might also blame the opposition and the civil society for allegedly being intellectually bankrupt and for working for interests of the imperialists. Going back into history, when Museveni was being blamed for selling off Uganda Commercial Bank, he repulsed the blame to IMF. He asserted it was IMF’s people themselves who had purportedly enticed him to give away the people’s bank.
He said those IMF people had purportedly lied to him how giving away the bank was going to stop the leeches from fleecing it right, left and center. But which, he said, never materialized. For two, when darkness hit the country in the past over unreliable and inadaquate power. The old man from Rwakitura blamed that on Dr Kiiza Besigye’s wife, Eng Winnie Byanyima and her group in the sixth parliament. Museveni asserted it was that group who were to be blamed. This stance, since they had allegedly fought his efforts to build a dam at Karuma falls for purposes of enhancing the availability of power in the country.
Yet even after Byanyima had left parliament, power outages continued to be experienced by Ugandans regularly. When John Patrick Amama Mbabazi left NRM to vie for power, and blamed NRM and the government for the mess that was prevailing in the country at that time, the president instead blamed him for not having utilized his many years in the party and NRM government to clean the mess that he was now talking and complaining about.
When Dr Kiiza Besigye slammed the military over the alleged junk military outfits that had been purchased from Belarus, President Yoweri Museveni answered back that Besigye should take the blame he himself. This stand, since he himself was allegedly the one in charge of procurement and logistics in the military while that deal was being negotiated and sealed. But never mind that that deal was negotiated by someone else as opposed to the relevant authority. So many examples can be cited from the past on this issue, but those will suffice.
Author Profile
- Mr. Stephen Kasozi Muwambi is a seasoned crime investigative writer, majoring in judicial-based stories. His two decades’ experience as a senior investigative journalist has made him one of the best to reckon on in Uganda. He can also be reached via [email protected]
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