TOLINA KYOTUGAMBA: ‘We Shall Not Eat Your Fluent English & Statistics’ – Stella Nyanzi to Bobi Wine

Academic, writer and activist Dr Stella Nyanzi has shredded Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine’s ‘shadow’ state of the nation address (SoNa).

To counter President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s SoNA, Bobi Wine issued a statement, giving his view on what the state of the nation is like, according to him.

Bobi Wine accused Museveni of plotting to make everyone a beggar so as to keep in power. He also called on the president to cut taxes on cooking oil and wheat.

The singer-turned-politician further castigated the president for being out of touch with the Ugandan populace, wondering how the head-of-state would tell the ghetto people, who he said largely depend on rolex and kikomando, to eat cassava.

But Nyanzi, currently a scholar under the Writers-in-Exile Program at PEN-Zentrum Destschland, said Bobi Wine’s address was disappointing and that it lacked the sting and didn’t speak to the aspirations of Ugandan revolutionaries.

“Watching Bobi Wine’s sad State of Nation Address (SoNA) left me dry, low and disappointed. There were neither solutions for the local masses nor guidance about how to free ourselves from the escalating prices amidst the dictatorship’s extravagance,” reacted Stella Nyanzi.

“There was neither fire in my ka-blaza’s oration nor in his speech! The only ka-bit of fire was in his reference to chapati, kikomando and rolex – the wheat-based foods of the urban poor masses. But even then, ka-blaza was appealing to Museveni’s kakistocracy for solutions instead of igniting the people-led revolution of freedom.”

Nyanzi, who lost to Bobi Wine’s National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate Shamim Malende in the 2021 parliamentary elections, called on Kyagulanyi to ditch suits and good English speeches, and embrace the revolution.

“Listen up, Ka-blaza! Take off that suit, tie and pin-stripped white shirt. Put on your overalls instead! Unfold your diplomatically clasped hands humbly held as if you are praying the Mirembe Maria saala. Raise high your defiant fist, exposing rebellious under-arm kaweke hair. Stop combing your trimmed hair and instead grow again your dreadlocks,” the activist continued.

“Whoever cut off your dreadlocks and imprisoned you in those constricting colonial suits played a Samusooni-ne-Delilah on you! Whoever took the song, the fist and the dreadlocks away from you, castrated your boluzi. Uganda’s liberation struggle does not need another suitsman speaking suavely in Englishth to the hungry smelly masses. We need the creative rebel artist back on the streets and in the hearts of the masses. Abantu bawunya; tebakyasobola kugula sabuuni na mafuta! Abantu bayala; emmere yabuseere! Weyambule obusuuti, funyulula obukono bwo, mwana tujivuge… Ggwe nno ka-blaza teleera!”

This is not the first time that Nyanzi, an FDC and pro-Besigye activist, is telling off Bobi Wine. Weeks ago, Nyanzi, accused Bobi Wine of betraying the struggle by refusing to join Besigye protests. (Read Story Here).