An angry Abed Bwanika has since loudly taken his grievance to the airwaves. In an appearance on the CBS Saturday Political talk show, Parliament Yaffe, Abed Bwanika never tried to hide his disdain for Kyagulanyi. Below we reproduce the slightly abridged interview.
You have been one of the praise singers for People Power and now you are at the forefront of criticizing it…we saw you in Luweero bashing the pressure group yet Kyagulanyi was in Magere announcing coordinators, What’s the problem?
The country knows that I was not in Magere (Bobi’s home) but part of our team was there. Two of them were appointed as coordinators but I’m not one of those appointed and many others on my team are not coordinators.
Lubega, Mabikke, and Mao are all not on the list. This is how I look at what happened at Magere. First, People Power, which I know, is the power of the people chosen to go back and bring about change in the country. What was at Magere where coordinators of different groups were announced is at variance with what we have been building as People Power. We may not have understood what we have been building or maybe we have been building something different from what our colleagues have been building.
We had had several meetings and one of which I attended we were with Bobi Wine, Mukaaku, and Mabikke. It went up to 8pm, the day before they announced the coordinators. So we were aware of what was going on.
For almost one year, People Power as a movement has been the leading challenger for the presidency. By the time they went to Magere, for us who do evaluation, People Power was number one, NRM number two, FDC/people’s government was number three.
However, by the time they left Magere, NRM had reclaimed the first spot with People Power in second position and FDC in third. I don’t think President Museveni has ever had a better week than this since he was elected in 2016. He has not done anything but he is back at the top.
Why is that?
Because what was at Magere is very different from the People Power we have been building. We thought that this movement was going to be the grand coalition for every party. What happened at Magere is no different from forming a political party. Parties that had joined are going to run away.
That’s why some people have started denouncing the appointments because they have understood the consequences. I thought the People Power I have spent time working for will allow people in our villages to elect their leaders –instead of someone appointing leaders for them. What we have is individual power not people power. By the time we left Magere, People Power had been diluted because of these appointments.
Not only did they try to start a political party, they also came up with a campaign team. We thought that in People Power all parties would join. There was no doubt that the DP-Block would come in, we had meetings with Jeema and convinced them to join People Power, we had meetings with the Alliance for National Transformation. We have also been having meetings with FDC; all of them asked for a memorandum, which we came up with that would help us.
But that has been broken. When you build a campaign team – one and half years to the general elections, by December this year, 70 percent of all appointees would have been bought off. When you show Museveni your campaign team, he will finish them because this is what he has been calling for. When you show him the target, you will have made his job very easy. Now they have collected all the people for him to destroy. If we don’t rectify this issue, NRM is going to massively win in 2021.
It is going to be easy for them?
Sure, because if we remain in this confusion, our people who had mobilized are not going to vote. The other thing is that these parties that had started working with People Power are going to break away.
I think the team that is working with Bobi Wine has been infiltrated by opportunists. When I saw the appointment of some people, who I know never participate in anything where there’s no benefit for them, I was taken aback.
Who are they?
I will tell you later but when I saw their names, I right away knew that we have to build our team afresh. These people don’t think about anything else but returning to parliament. I know one of them who paid Shs 10million for him to be put on the list.
Did he pay Kyagulanyi?
Kyagulanyi is in captivity…For us we believe we can give life to this project as DP-Block. Mao put out a document that captures our views. We need to sit and agree on what we should put in People Power. We are not opposed to coming together but we need to agree on what should be put into People Power.
You said it was you who made decisions in People Power….
I wonder now that Betty Nambooze is one of the people speaking for People Power. When a lion isolates an antelope from others just know it’s going to eat it. The war that Nambooze and her team have been on is to isolate Bobi Wine. Now they have put him in a box where they are going to cut him to pieces.
I told Bobi Wine when he was going to meet these people that they have outmaneuvered him and that he should be very careful with them. That Kasangati team is not easy. Now they have delinked him from the DP-Block because they know it’s practically impossible to outmaneuver him when we are around. Bobi Wine, this country believes in you as a presidential candidate; they can’t accept anything less.
But it’s you who has been saying people should unite to defeat Museveni…
That’s true but we must have mechanisms for us to come together. Our thinking is, we should come up with a special purpose vehicle or an umbrella in which we should all work. But as we were working on the umbrella, someone has divided us.
Bobi Wine has been attending our rallies without knowing where we get people from. When he first came to our meeting at Makerere University before anyone ever thought of him as a presidential candidate, he didn’t bring anybody. When he came to Jinja, he asked us where we get people; that’s what they call DP-Block. Bobi Wine, we request you to go back and re-evaluate this People Power project.
We have not changed our views on working together. We are going to meet you and your team and we agree how we are going to move forward. All parties with presidential hopefuls should come and we go to the people to decide who is to be the presidential candidate for People Power.
They say Abed Bwanika is a double player working with Chameleon to undermine Bobi Wine
I was publicly chased from People Power after what happened at Magere. I know now where the problem comes from. But Chameleon is interested in being the Lord Mayor.
bakerbatte@observer.ug
