By Mulengera ReportersBesides being President Museveni’s brother, Gen Salim Saleh is many other things and a key pillar in the sustainability of the Ugandan state, and the ruling NRM regime too. He has excelled at doing many things including helping his physically and emotionally exhausted brother to keep managing the opposition. In the following reporting, we illustrate how Gen Saleh has helped Museveni to keep deflating and shrinking the opposition movement in Uganda. It has been through Gen Saleh that Museveni has been able to find something to keep the noisy Tik Tokers busy and engaged. Many of these originally flocked with NUP under Bobi Wine. As of today, many of them have been engaged and facilitated to be doing PR work to amplify publicity for government programmes. It’s a large group coordinated by a veteran musician (names withheld) who always travels to Gulu to pick their facilitation whenever there is a big national event or activity in which NRM and Gen Museveni have interest. For an event like the just-ended National Conference of the Movement at Kololo, not less than Shs350m will be released to facilitate hundreds of Tik Tokers and bloggers to create some online publicity. This generous facilitation of bloggers & Tik Tokers, who these days share hundreds of millions per event (e.g. the Musevenomics conference) on which URA can’t even levy any taxes, has all been enabled courteousy of Gen Saleh (Uganda’s Co-President) whose directive can’t be questioned by accounting officers at government MDAs. Each individual blogger or Tik Toker can make between Shs5m and Shs10m per such event as the Shs350m lumpsum has to be shared depending on one Tik Toker or blogger’s influence and traffic online. They get the money in advance to return home very happy and with less incentive to be angry and abusive at government. They no longer want to hear about Bobi Wine or his NUP messaging. This facilitation given to them by MDAs per event, at the instigation of Gen Saleh, has diminished the anger such young Tik Tokers originally had towards the government and Gen Museveni’s perpetual Presidency. The veteran musician has rightly portrayed to Gen Saleh that these young people (bloggers & Tik Tokers) have bigger audiences and deeper influence than all the mainstream media houses combined. This has caused Gen Saleh to require accounting officers at government MDAs to re-focus publicity spending away from conventional media platforms in favour of such bloggers and Tik Tokers who don’t only operate informally but are also never taxed. This isn’t good economics for government but enables the regime shield itself from harsh online scrutiny. In fact, much of the media budget for many government MDAs is these days expended in a manner that prioritizes these bloggers and Tik Tokers while alienating conventional media platforms who are these days perceived as less consequential than the bloggers and Tik Tokers. This is how many such Tik Tokers and bloggers are these days able to abuse whoever they choose, including senior government officials, who refuse to give them money upon being recommended by Gulu. The attack will be presented as a genuine legitimate contribution to the broader fight against corruption. The aggrieved official will instruct a lawyer to file a complaint at Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) whose head Nyombi Thembo won’t do much either for fear of offending Gen Salim Salem or for fear of being personally attacked and abused by that same Tik Tokers. The UCC ED will be portrayed as siding with the alleged corrupt official. The blogger will be summoned and refuse to show up while threatening to drive to Gulu to notify Gen SS about this UCC official who is shielding the corrupt. In the end, the regulator will do nothing because Gen SS can determine who becomes the next CEO at the Bugolobi-based Commission! This is how many eminent citizens, upon being character-assassinated by these bloggers and Tik Tokers, often end up with no other option apart from filing civil defamation suits at the High Court where matters take forever to be heard and concluded. All this self-serving institutional inefficiency and inaction is bad for the country but the relationship between Gulu and the rampaging bloggers is one Gen Museveni needs for regime survival in this era of social media. It enables the Musevenists to have an army of motivated online warriors always on standby to counter millions of Bobi Wine’s self-motivated foot soldiers operating online within Uganda and globally. SALEH DOING MUCH MORE:Yet managing the Tik Tokers and bloggers (who he finds more manageable than the self-important and high-demanding musicians and promoters because they are willing to accept much less), Gen Saleh is managing even more complicated aspects of the Ugandan political elite in order to diminish sources of headache for his brother. He is the reason FDC founder and former Go Forward ideologue David Pulkol is no longer spitting fire on TVs in Kampala making the case why Museveni must go and why Uganda deserves better. Any TV journalist will today struggle to get Pulkol accept to come to the studios to discuss politics. He perhaps fears to contradict himself on the criticisms he has spent more than the last 15 years making against the establishment on radio and TV platforms in Kampala. He currently works as the Chief of Staff and Executive PA of some sort to Gen Salim Saleh. Indeed, he spends much of his time in Gulu and he is always within spitting distance away from Gen Saleh. That’s how he was able to act like the adult in the room and shut up Andrew Mwenda during that memorable verbal exchange with the German Ambassador and other EU diplomats. Pulkol is these days guarded, loaded and chauffeured though he prefers to keep in the background. He earns well off Gen SS’ classified budget kitty which Gen Museveni keeps replenishing through Hajji Yunnus Kakande who is the Secretary Office of the President. Gen SS also has the last word on all the billions coming under OWC, which is one of the few government populist programmes that were allowed to remain standing as others were wound up (some of them inappropriately) to enlarge the pool of financial resources (trillions) available under PDM. Counsel Saverino Twinobusingye is another ex-fierce Museveni critic who Gen Saleh has rehabilitated, made busy and diverted away from regime change politics. As recent as 2016, Saverino was a very eloquent critic of Museveni’s leadership style as he and others propped up Amama Mbabazi under the Go Forward platform. Along with Fred Muwema, Saverino used to storm Electoral Commission offices along Jinja Road with an army of reporters to declare Eng Badru Kiggundu the most incompetent human being under the sun. They would spit fire and assure Kiggundu how he would one day stand trial for conniving with Gen Kayihura’s Police to constrain then candidate Amama Mbabazi’s ability to hold rallies and freely campaign across the country. The Go Forward group always accuse Museveni of betraying colleagues by seeking to be President for life. No one ought to begrudge the silent U-turn the likes of Savwrino have since made because Ugandans preferred someone else and never bought their 2016 messaging about Uganda becoming a tired nation, working for the few and requiring urgent fixing. The other reason why the Saverinos shouldn’t be faulted is that their patriarch Amama Mbabazi has since switched sides, gone back on his word and returned to the Movement full swing. His wife Jacqueline Mbabazi, who used to shout at and argue with Museveni inside NRM CEC meetings while serving as Chairperson women’s league, has equally gone back full circle. She recently won Museveni’s endorsement to run as NRM flag bearer for the slot of MP older persons. Under that broader permission structure, normalizing the politics of going back to one’s word without having to account to anyone, Saverino has fallen into things at Gen Saleh’s palace. Besides the Karamoja University project he is spearheading with huge backing of Museveni, Saverino now serves as the Principal Legal Advisor to Gen Saleh who these days frequently delegates him to represent him at key public speaking engagements. Whatever fault one might find in him, Saverino is an intelligent and forceful public speaker. He speaks with so much clarity, its hard for anyone in the room not to understand his message. Like David Pulkol, he is generously remunerated and facilitated by Gen Saleh under the auspices of OWC. Prof Ogenga Latigo, the former Lop and founding FDC Deputy President for Northern Uganda, is another former regime critic who has since accepted quiet rehabilitation by Gen Saleh. He currently serves as a key member of the Council of Elders on Cooperatives, an assignment for which he gets facilitated in a manner that is activity-based. The members of this Council work as a think tank of some sort for Gen Saleh on projects like the revival of a strong cooperative movement in Uganda plus relevant institutions like the Cooperative Bank. Besides enabling them access facilitation and other groceries, part time engagements like this one make elders like Latigo less angry and to feel included in the decision-making process as opposed to total alienation. This also cushions the regime against future criticism by such actors and opinion leaders in case things go wrong some day. Those who have accepted capture of some sort or to be co-opted won’t have moral authority to make acceptable criticism in case something goes wrong or in case something doesn’t work out as the regime goes about implementing some of the decisions, they themselves were part of. The facilitation and inclusion that comes with being involved in such strategic decision-making also yields appeasement of some sort.Eminent political pundit Godbar Tumushabe, who not very long ago completed the purchase and acquisition of more than 600 acres of land in the Katosi area, also these days does some consultancy work for Gen Salim Saleh and gets generously facilitated for it. Others who the regime has kept materially happy and thereby depriving them of reason to make public angry outbursts against Gen Museveni, using Gen Saleh’s OWC, include Maj Rubaramira Ruranga who was one time slapped and publicly tortured by then Col Dick Bugingo who was heading the Military Police as of 2005. Rubaramira participated in a protest outside FDC headquarters along Entebbe Road. Protestors were demanding to know why the Electoral Commission was dragging its feet on issuing the new party with a registration certificate. They were also out to publicly thank then South African President Thambo Mbeki, who was driving past, for the exile time Dr. Kizza Besigye had spent in his country. Col Bugingo was here to quell the protest and, in the process, slapped fellow NRA fighter Maj Rubaramira Ruranga who ended up suing the state for torture. Today, Rubaramira, having eaten a humble pie and returned to NRM, serves as one of the Directors at OWC Secretariat in Kamwokya where they earn 8-digit figure salary per month without having to do much for the money. He has a Tundra, an office with staff, drivers and bodyguards. Clearly, life is so comfortable for him and he doesn’t regret leaving FDC and the entire opposition politics. Former rebel MPs leader Henry Banyenzaki of Rubanda West is another former regime critic who continues to live comfortably off the coffers of Gen Saleh’s OWC where he earns a good salary without having to be required to do that much work for the money. Much earlier on, it was through Gen Saleh that Museveni wooed former critics like Beti Kamya and Nakiwala Kiyingi into his Cabinet. Ramathan Goobi, the current PSST, also used to be a fierce critic of the regime but was cajoled to fall into things by Gen Saleh who used to engage him in public policy debates which metamorphosed into interventions like PDM. As a Mubs don, Goobi used to be very critical of the government. He always dismissed government officials for failing to understand and appreciate the need to practice economics of common sense. He had started out lecturing at Prof Badru Kateregga’s Kampala University from where Balunywa lured him to Mubs. Besides managing to woo back Gen David Sejusa, who had bitterly fallen out with the system over corruption and refusal to end the Kony war in the late 1990s, Gen Saleh is also credited with neutralizing and giving a platform to a group of hitherto cynical Makerere scholars who he these days closely works with under the effective coordination of the Cobams Principal Prof Elia Hisali. Such clandestine engagements by Gen Saleh, amplified by the iron hand with which VC Barnabas Nawangwe has led plus the infrastructural projects Minister Janet Museveni has enabled, partly explain why Makerere is no longer a bastion of opposition support as used to be the case. These days, Museveni supporters can roam around campus freely and don’t have to hide and pretend to either be independent or claim to be members of less threatening opposition groups like UPC or DP. They embrace Musevenism openly and it’s no longer risky to do so at the Ivory Tower. To be continued! Watch out for part 2.(For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).