Bobi Wine is most likely not to win. The election will be badly rigged in favour of President Yoweri Museveni. We can wish all the best we can for Bobi Wine, but President Yoweri Museveni, known as  M7, set aside his inauguration funds the last financial year. 

He is probably right now in the State House of Uganda, his home, supervising the counting of votes as his tailor does the final touches of his shirt. Uganda Decides!

All pre-election indicators show the election will be compromised to return the dictator to power again. 

The pre-election violence, mostly instigated by state agents against the opposition, is enough to declare a state of emergency. Bobi Wine’s supporters are mostly the youth who have been using the internet to rally support for him. Their access to the internet is already denied as the government has brazenly shut it down.

If violence erupts in Uganda following a disputed election, Ugandans may go ahead and butcher each other. However, America, and the UN, are not going to intervene, for the same reason that they did not stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 when they could stop it and knew that it was ongoing.

Uganda is a landlocked, resource-poor, lackluster, third world country that the rest of the world can easily forget about if it were it not for its troubled history and stubborn strongman, President Museveni, who once in a while reminds us that there is a country called Uganda by his gaffes and eccentricity.

The bulk of its exports is agriculture products, and it mainly exports to fellow East Africa countries like Kenya, DRC, and Rwanda. They buy only to maintain the comity among nations in the East African region.

It is not a tourist hub, a talent haven, an international transit point, or a mineral-rich country. Its cultural heritage is yet to capture the East African community’s imagination, leaving the global community alone. 

Its notoriety in international news mostly owes to repression, scandal, disasters, poverty, and such. It is as uninspiring as uninspiring can be. 

Thanks to this cultural, economic, and political destituteness, America has little to no national interests in Uganda. The same holds for all major world powers. And international organisations.

Now, while America may hold itself out as an altruistic arbiter of peace that wades into regions rocked by conflict to restore calm, it is, in reality, a self-seeking, opportunistic, and sly entity that would not waste its peacekeeping resources where its interests are not threatened. 

It has no national interests in Uganda to threaten, just as it did not have any national interests in Rwanda in 1994.

That is why America has been the most significant enabler of Yewori Museveni’s repressive reign, even as it touts itself as an exemplar of democracy. 

Western powers will not hesitate to intervene in Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, DRC, etc. But not in Uganda, Gambia, and such other obscure African countries.

The only way forward for Uganda is for the East African community to use the military might removing President Yoweri Museveni like how President Idi Amin Dada was removed with the tacit support of the Tanzanian President Julius  Nyerere, the Ugandan Diaspora, exiles, and funding through the British government. 

They installed Milton Obote as leader after  ‘removing’ President Idi Amin Dada, until later when the revolutionary guerrilla leader Yewori Museveni also removed Milton Obote and has since been in power for more than three decades. 

However, sadly, none of the leaders has  President Nyerere’s courage. Yoweri Museveni will win again by hook and crook. In Uganda, this election is a  charade, especially when dealing with a mad man who has outlived his purpose, so there cannot be a free and fair election.

President Yewori Museveni can run down Uganda all he wants. Ugandans are on their own. Keep in mind that America presently has no election observers in Uganda.

By Alagi Yorro Jallow