WHY ZAMBIANS AND ALL YOUNG AFRICANS ARE KEEPING THEIR FINGERS CROSSED FOR A BOBI WINE WIN!
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By Mainda Simataa for the African Observor | Kampala Uganda | 12 Jan 2021
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On Thursday 14 January 2021, Ugandans will return to the polls for the umpteenth time to cast their votes in an effort to unhorse and dislodge an entrenched dictator, Yoweri Museveni, who’s ruled that country with an iron fist for 35 years.
Facing Museveni will be 38 year old Robert Kyagulani aka Bobi Wine, singer turned Politician, first as MP, and now as Presidential candidate and favorite to win in a country of 40 million people, the majority of whom are under 35 and are rooting for a Bobi win under the popular hashtag #weareremovingadictator.
However, Ugandans are not the only Africans who will be sweating and keeping their fingers crossed for a Bobi Wine win come Thursday 14 January. About 1,000 miles south of the Ugandan great lakes region, Zambians will be squaring-off against Museveni’s political protégé, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, whom they hope to remove on August 12, and replace with the favorite candidate to win, UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema (HH), who’s stood twice against Lungu, and has twice been robbed of an election using Musevenis tried and tested rigging formulae, among them, the removal of presidential term limits which Lungu has done thus far, forcing himself on the 2021 ballot.
Zambians will be hoping and praying that a Bobi Wine victory can give them a divine signal and an assurance of their own candidates pending victory, that it’s possible to ‘beat the system’ and remove a dictator through the ballot box though the escalation of violence and threats on HH will most certainly need him to wear body armor – a military-grade helmet and Kevlar bullet proof vest capable of stopping succesive AK47 rounds fired from point-blank range. HH survived an assasination attempt on 23 December 2021 which left two Zambians dead.
In a continent where poverty, hunger, youth unemployment and political violence is on the rise, and democracy and the rule of law is retreating on the back foot as elected leaders turn into bloody tyrants trying to cling onto power by hijacking all institutions of power – most of all the police, army, treasury, Judiciary, electoral bodies and the army; leading political think tanks like the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) have written that African opposition parties need charismatic leaders like Bobi Wine to also have a militant mindset akin to that of Julius Malema of the EFF in South Africa if there’s any chance of ousting leaders who came to power, or are holding onto power, through the barrel of the gun.
Though critics of Bobi and political analysts say he doesn’t have a clear cut platform message on economic policy apart from he’s clarion call for unity and change, the biggest concern for voters, supporters, analysts and sympathizers of Bobi Wine, is by what miracle and which God will a ‘boy musician’ and newcomer to the brutal reality of predetermined African elections outwit an experienced National Resistance Movement (NRM) guerrilla commander, Museveni, at a game he’s been playing and mastered before 85% of Ugandans were born, and when his opponent was only 2 years old?
Pollsters are predicting a rigged 55 – 65% victory for Museveni. The question is what will Bobi do afterwards? His predecessor opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye was arrested immediately after Museveni announced himself winner in 2016, and yesterday Bobi’s house was raided by Museveni forces.🤔
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The author is a political strategist based in Lusaka Zambia, and a contributing writer to The African Observor in Kampala Ugandan