Desperate old guards at Vision Group attempted to stop Don Wanyama’s appointment as replacement for Robert Kabushenga but the with the inevitable happening, most have been gripped by anxiety as they fear the likelihood of major overhaul of the staff setup.
A joke at First Street, Industrial Area, goes that if you asked a random senior manager or editor the past tense of a word, they are likely going to chuckle awkwardly and deny being tense at all.
And that would only confirm the reality — the mood is thicker and heavier than a nimbus cloud hanging over Lake Victoria during el-nino season as tension grips the workforce.
Sources at Vision Group say the old guards are particularly affected as they ponder their fate in the wake of Don Wanyama’s appointment as chief executive of the country’s biggest media empire.
Wanyama, who until last week was senior presidential press secretary, has replaced the ‘retiring’ Robert Kabushenga. Aged just 41, his appointment is expected to herald a new era that is most likely to be driven by the youthful workforce.
“The thing is that, in this place, there are old guards who had long expired but were kept going in obscure and often overlapping roles,” a source who preferred anonymity in order to speak freely told this website.
“Many managers have tried to side chat Don to figure out what is coming but he is not giving any hint,” the source added.
“The timing is bad; the mood is bad and everything is bad. That’s how the old guards see it,” admitted one of the senior editors at the New Vision.
Wanyama’s appointment, recommended by President Museveni first-hand to the Vision Board, comes on the back of the head of state openly expressing disappointment with how the newspaper was running its affairs.
Mr Museveni took serious issues with Vision Group over its coverage of the 2021 presidential election after the state-owned media outlets for both print and electronic gave his main challenger Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, a lot of coverage.
Initially taking Bobi Wine for another passing cloud, Vision took to minting from his celebrity status to sell copies but as Bobi Wine’s influence became clear, Mr Museveni took a strong stand.
The New Vision heeded the warning but Kabushenga appears to have left Bukedde, a Luganda tabloid, to continue with its editorial stance. Mr Museveni and his ruling NRM party suffered a chastening defeat in Buganda at the hands of Bobi Wine’s NUP party, with all his ministers, including Vice President Edward Ssekandi, suffering humiliation in the polls.
The President then lashed at Baganda, accusing them of sectarianism. As he promised to fix things, Vision Group became the most obvious target and Kabushenga had to go.
“Don is young and genial. Most people here will like him. That’s definite. But his appointment is not clear. I mean, we don’t know what assignment he has been tasked to execute in terms of human resource changes at the company,” the editor said.
Finding themselves in a dark tunnel, Vision old guards cannot help their anxiety as they wonder if Don’s immediate task would be to clear out dead wood and reinstall a younger generation of journalists and managers with more passion in their veins.
The fear of the assumed impending changes is not helped by the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic has left the economy reeling, making it a tough time to be sent into early inflation.
Desperate attempt to circumvent appointment
Meanwhile, this website can exclusively reveal that as lobbying for the CEO job went into overdrive, the old guards learnt that their worst fear had been set in motion.
That fear was that Wanyama would replace Kabushenga and what initially looked like a bad joke owing to the former Daily Monitor chief sub editor and managing editor’s youthfulness and apparent inexperience running such a big organisation, was bound to happen.
The anxiety worsened when it was revealed that Wanyama had been recommended to the board by President Museveni, meaning the board would merely ceremoniously oversee the transition in accordance with the President’s wish.
Knowing that it was just a matter of formality, a section of some managers made a last-ditch attempt to stop this from happening. The only man who can make President Museveni change his mind in such matters is his brother Gen Salim Saleh.
But Gen Saleh was too taken up with his duties in Gulu and when he tried to understand the issue at hand, he is said to have immediately dropped interest in the matter, paving way for the board to make the announcement.
