Kenyans protest for Uganda’s jailed Bobi Wine: How now?

Outside the big things like East African Common Market, the East African Community and other grand regional ideas, we always knew that there was a “Wananchi’s East Africa”.

Wananchi’s East Africa is all over the place but hard to describe. To borrow a phrase from US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who, in explaining what hard pornography was said “I know it when I see it”, that East Africa is like that. You know it when you see it.

A few days ago, we saw it when Kenyans, on social media and the streets, rallied to demand that Ugandan legislator Robert Kyagulanyi, more popular by his musician stage name Bobi Wine, be free. The hashtag #FreeBobiWine was top trending in Uganda and Kenya simultaneously.

Kyagulanyi came to Parliament as an independent in the southern constituency of Kyadondo East in June last year, in one of the most dramatic House races in a long time.

HIP-HOP ARTISTE

President Yoweri Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) threw everything that wasn’t nailed down at him but Kyagulanyi, who cultivated an image as the common people’s hip-hop artiste and called himself “President of the Ghetto Republic”, still triumphed.

Even more remarkable, the popular opposition figure of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and long-time Museveni foe, Kizza Besigye, also pitched tent in Kyadondo East to root for his party’s candidate — unsuccessfully.

All the three men were again campaigning for their candidates in the northwestern town of Arua on August 13 when a car in Museveni’s convoy was stoned. The presidential guards later swept the town, shooting Kyagulanyi’s police guard dead and arresting the MP from his hotel room — although it was a distance away from where the pelting had taken place.

COURT MARTIAL

Kyagulanyi and another legislator were bludgeoned, and the soldiers alleged that they had found guns in his hotel room — and hauled him (allegedly on a stretcher) before a court martial.

Days later, President Museveni issued a statement saying he had no broken bones or major injuries. Kyagulanyi’s wife and lawyers, however, insisted that he was so beat down he couldn’t walk, he could barely talk and his face was so swollen he was unrecognisable.

PROTESTS IN KAMPALA

Needless to say, the Kyagulanyi-backed independent candidate, Kassiano Wadri, won the race — news he received while in prison, as he was also arrested in the Arua clampdown.

On Friday, FreeBobiWine protests erupted in Kampala, turning parts of the capital into a ghost town. The security forces responded in familiar steely fashion.

What was unfamiliar were the pro-Kyagulanyi protests by Kenyans at the Busia border town, who blocked Uganda-bound trucks, demanding that their man be released.

There were #FreeBobiWine protests in South Africa and other places in Africa and even in the United States. A photo posted on Twitter revealed a banner in an Accra mall demanding the release of Bobi Wine.

All this has been developing right under our nose. There is a new cast of pan-African stars — footballers, musicians, Nollywood, online activists, vloggers, bloggers, fashion designers and artistes. Some have a cult following, which has been made possible by the internet and social media.

INCREASING MIGRATION

In addition, there has been increasing migration and travel around Africa. Consider, for example, the number of young Kenyans who have studied in Uganda over the past 30 years. They must number more than 200,000. And none of this is curated by establishment mainstream political and social institutions or the media.

A friend in Nairobi used to tell me that her son would not leave the house in the morning to go to school until she had bribed him with “Wale Wale”, his favourite video by Ugandan musician Chameleone (with an “e” at the end!)

But to really appreciate how much Nairobi and Kampala are on the same street, consider what some mechanics in the Ugandan capital used to do.

SINFUL CLUBS

You’d take your car to them on a Monday morning, they’d check and see that they’d have to get the broken part from Nairobi (they wouldn’t tell you) and promise to have it ready on Thursday. Then they’d get on the night bus to Nairobi.

They’d return to Kampala on Tuesday with the parts, fix the car on Wednesday and deliver it to you, on schedule, on Thursday.

The mechanic, and his fixer on Nairobi’s crazy River Road who gets the parts for him, have one thing in common: They met in the sinful clubs of the Half London suburb of Kampala when the latter was a student in Uganda. And the soundtracks of their lives were by Bobi Wine and Chameleone.

Mr Onyango-Obbo is publisher of Africapedia.com and explainer Roguechiefs.com. Twitter@cobbo3