Dear friends
This morning a fake audio clip purportedly carrying the voice of Mr. Odrek Rwabwogo was sent to me. The authors aren’t just downright evil liars – for many of us who know and have worked with Odrek clearly know this is beneath him – but they are decidedly bent on pushing him into their rathole of hate. I am glad Odrek has not given merit to these diabolical lies even under intense provocation for to do so would give the haters the badly needed credence they crave.
However, there are three issues these kinds of hate propaganda videos show us:
1) That the gullible public which keep pursuing people like Tamale Mirundi who is a clear psychiatric case needing mental help, yet continues to occupy both garbage press and traditional media space, need to rethink their media values. The question is do we not have a responsibility to stop a man intent on killing himself with both alcohol and depression by restraining him from endangering both his life and the reputation of other people? If Mirundi lacks a family to tell him that he is “naked” in public by going on air while mentally sick, should we not as members of the public help him?
2) The second matter is what is the responsibility of the purveyors of these lies – stations like impact FM and Pearl who continue to air these diabolical lies without fact checking? Should they continue to hold licences when they abuse public airwaves? Do we do justice to Society change and growth when we all keep quiet about this kind of abuse?
3) Finally, I saw in the clip a chubby cheeked, fat face fellow appropriately named Lumbugu (Koch grass) – the type of garden weed that does not allow anything to grow, chest thumping and wiping his face, simply promoting lies and proudly pronouncing unrepeatable tribal chauvinistic statements.
All this done in the comfort of his seating room in Turkey and I was reminded of the promoters of radio mill Collin in Rwanda genocide in 1994. Lumbugu isnt just a coward but a pitiable fellow because that kind of negative energy kills the vessel that it lives in.
Should we be allowing and promoting hateful propaganda by listening to paid bloggers like Lumbugu who should be in prison or Dr Kiyingi, and his misdeeds of Buziga who escaped bail in the early 2000s and run to Australia and now writes under the pseudonym “Nathan Span”? Fortunately I am aware from experience that anything built on hate kills the hater and not who it is intended for, but should we not all as peace loving people interested in stability of the country, roundly condemn this behaviour instead of circulating these lies?
While I know Odrek forgives these criminals daily and moves on, should we not act responsibly- those of us who share these lies and simply delete them and take the purveyors to court?
If we accept lying as a political tool, we will pay a very price in future. It means we shall kill positive political discourse and replace it with sustained disinformation. This won’t be a society anyone wants to live in.
Thank you
The writer is a social-political analyst and NRM strategist
