Why Kenyans should get off Museveni's neck

Perhaps the biggest news of the week, other than the Africa Union elections and the death of Kenya Kwanza ‘hero’ Wafula Chebukati, was Ugandan opposition chief Kizza Besigye’s ill health in incarceration.

The 68-year-old is on hunger strike to protest his detention at Luzira Maximum Security Prison in Kampala.

His wife Winnie summed up his situation, saying ‘the impunity is staggering and the humiliation endless.’

But strongman Yoweri Museveni spoke out on Monday, accusing Dr Besigye of ‘unprincipled’ blackmail. M7 thinks the opposition figure wants public sympathy. “Don’t lecture us,” the president told critics unhappy with how Uganda’s justice system is used often to muzzle dissent. 

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The Ugandan opposition leader was abducted last November in Nairobi in what was allegedly a joint operation by Kampala and Nairobi.

His trial – for whatever crimes under the sun – has since been transferred from military to civilian courts following a January 31 Supreme Court decree.

In Nairobi, there’s raw anger in the streets and online. Kenyans oppose Mr Museveni’s brashness. They want the octogenarian four-decade president to shut up and free Dr Besigye.

It was protests galore and strong statements by Kenyan activists like Hussein Khalid. Earlier, the Law Society of Kenya was chagrined when lawyer Martha Karua was denied a practising certificate to represent Dr Besigye.

Legal red tape has led to dramatic court moments. When a picture of a forlorn Besigye surfaced, local media splashed it, and came close to blaming Kenya for ‘betraying’ the opposition chief by aiding his abduction.

My buddy Clay Muganda joked that Ugandan police could easily visit the border towns and buy all copies of Kenyan newspapers critical of ‘Ssebo’ then set them ablaze.    

For the record, I am a keen admirer of Dr Besigye’s fighting spirit. When I first met him at a book launch in Nairobi recently, he summarised Africa’s dichotomy as a land divided between oppressors and the oppressed. The oppressors, he aptly said, drink the blood of poor citizens who cheer them on!

The medical doctor, who has single-handedly challenged Mr Museveni, shot straight from the hip: “Many shameless African leaders have taken away citizens’ right to speak through the ballot. They must be stopped by all means.”

He prays that someone someday delivers Uganda from the shackles of doom.

Coming to my big dilemma: Since when did Uganda’s problems become Kenya’s to the extent of warranting the tensions and heat witnessed in Nairobi this week over Dr Besigye’s bullying? While events in Kampala are quite disgusting, isn’t it up to Ugandans to confront their ‘elephant’ in the room?

Despite the fear of the all-pervading big man syndrome typified in Mr Museveni and other life presidents like Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Paul Biya of Cameroon and Congo’s Denis Nguesso, the Uganda leader usually has his way in everything. Why? It’s because Ugandans allowed it, and can live with it. Julius Caesar once said cowards die many times before their deaths.

Certainly, no one doubts Mr Museveni’s ability to always take to the political chessboard whenever taken to task on issues.

When he isn’t berating homosexuals and chiding the West over ‘colonial’ tendencies, he sees big trouble with the East African Community, especially on trade tariffs.

When donors halted loans to Uganda over a controversial anti-LGBTQ law and then a fuel haulage row with Nairobi erupted, the veteran leader wagged his middle finger at the west. He, likewise, told off Kenya for ‘abusing’ his spirit of Pan-Africanism. M7 forgets his nation’s age-old problems.

Methinks that so long as Ugandans are contented with their situation, we should let Mr Museveni be. Our involvement simply amounts to meddling and prying. After all,

EAC integration remains just an illusion. In Swahili wisdom, one would ask Kenyans: How does the chilly you haven’t eaten burn you?

That said, if real Ugandan patriots want change, let them speak up louder. Kenyans aren’t their spokespersons, and we aren’t doing their bidding. Get well soon, Dr Besigye.

-The writer is a communications practitioner