On May 3, 2011 with the country still reeling from the Dr Kizza Besigye-instigated walk-to-work protests, Robert Kabushenga, then chief executive officer of Vision Group was interviewed by BBC’s Akwasa Sarpong for his take.
This is what he said: “What has happened on our part is that Mr. Besigye did promise during the campaigns that this is exactly what he would do. And what we have on our hands is not a protest about the cost of living; what we have is the use of the excuse of the cost of living, which has justifiably gone up, to contest the victory and try and have the government removed by some kind of an insurrection, that is precisely what we are dealing with in Uganda.”
In the same interview Kabushenga claimed that Besigye’s group had bought two trucks of tyres which they planned to burn on city roads to cause further mayhem.
“He [Besigye] is responsible for the plan of action which includes the distribution of tyres for burning, organizing of stone throwing youths whom we now know have been paid to carry out these protests. So, what is being seen as a simple protest is actually an insurrection,” Kabushenga told the BBC, arguing his case articulately.
Thirteen years later, Kabushenga is singing a totally different tune.
Today, July 20, following the determination by security to block the July 23 March2Parliament protest, Kabushenga tweeted:
“If you don’t engage the rational youth, you will confront radical anarchists.”
“You refused dialogue with the opposition, you have ended up with NUP.”
“You sidelined progressive forces, you have ended up with sycophants.”
“You undermined experienced legislators, now you have Zaake.”
“You opted for populist elections, you got commercial transactional politics.”
“You asked for sleeping MPs who wake up to vote, now we have a house of thieves.”
“You deployed cadres now you are stuck with a dysfunctional public service.”
“You gave taxpayers money to private businesses, now we have investor conmen.”
After reading the above tweets, there are people who could be asking: What happened to the Kabushenga of 2011, one of President Museveni’s leading praise singers?
Kabushenga as “Saul”
Talking to those who have known or closely worked with Kabushenga for years, one gets a mixed picture about the former state functionary turned critic.
“Robert has always been independent minded only that in some instances he has had to suppress his views to protect his job. We used to have all these debates at the office and,” said a former New Vision journalist who worked with Kabushenga for more than 10 years.
Yet speaking to other people who have known Kabushenga, they appear shocked by the critical stance that he has adopted lately.
A former media executive agreed that the “younger and free-spirited” Kabushenga was independent minded. But as he grew older and started climbing the corporate ladder, the executive said, he embraced the government and did everything to appease Museveni.
He remembers speaking to Kabushenga in 2006 when as executive director of Uganda Media Centre, he decided not to renew the media accreditation of Canadian journalist, Blake Lambert who had been accused of reporting critically about government.
“You could have thought that Kabushenga had shares in NRM. I told him that what he had done reflected badly on him as someone who has worked in the media but he swatted me away. He was boasting that “our government” will not allow foreigners to dictate how we should govern,” the executive said.
A year later in 2007, Kabushenga was appointed chief executive of New Vision replacing William Pike who had departed in acrimonious circumstances.
Some say Kabushenga elevation to the top job at Vision Group was a reward for his loyalty and unyielding support for Museveni.
During the first eight years of his 14-year tenure at Vision Group, Kabushenga did whatever he could to prove that he was a dyed-in-wool NRM supporter.
When journalists Andrew Mwenda and Timothy Kalyegira wrote unflattering articles on the late Brig Noble Mayombo, in Daily Monitor, Kabushenga then just settling in as CEO came out guns blazing.
“Kalyegira’s public outbursts are not new and they have always been personal. Each time he would get fired from a radio station for incompetence, he would fill newspaper pages with articles trashing his former employers. Once this became evident, the more discerning editors simply stopped publishing the rubbish he was peddling as commentary on radio ratings. Now he has turned his malice to individuals in politics with whom he has an axe to grind… Mwenda for his part has turned Museveni-bashing into a personally beneficial trade. He cannot and will not see things any other way but this,” he wrote in The New Vision on May 10, 2007. Read the hard-hitting piece below.
https://www.newvision.co.ug/news/1165381/mayombo-mwenda-kalyegira-bashing
But as the years wore on, Kabushenga retreated and became less confrontational. Some say the fallout between President Museveni and his former prime minister Amama Mbabazi, in 2015, put Kabushenga in an awkward position.
It had long been rumoured in the corridors of power that Mbabazi was his ‘god father’ therefore when he fell out with Museveni, Kabushenga’s job came under threat.
From then onwards, he started treading a thin line.
“Kabushenga as Paul”
By 2017, Kabushenga knew he was a “dead man walking” as far as his position as Vision CEO was concerned.
Internally, there were fires to put out as some senior managers at Vision Group started to openly undermine him.
To make matters worse, the company financial performance started taking a turn for the worse.
In 2017 Vision Group made a net profit of only Shs 14 million (you read it right), a steep drop from the Shs 4.9 billion it had made in 2016. In 2015, its profit after tax was Shs 5.2 billion.
The alarm bells went off.
That’s when Kabushenga started to concentrate more on his side hustles notably his Rugyeyo Farm in Wakiso. By 2018, Kabushenga was actively promoting his agricultural ventures on all major social media platforms and doing media interviews promoting his coffee.
For those who could read the signs, it was clear that he had arrived in the departure lounge, waiting for a seemingly delayed flight.
The plane eventually appeared in the skies thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the pandemic battered the economy, Kabushenga decided to downsize the staff and to cut salaries by as much as 60%.
To be fair, he was trying to do everything within his powers to keep Vision Group afloat but many staff and President Museveni did not see it this way.
Sources have told us that in a terse phone call with Kabushenga, Museveni ordered that staff that had been fired be rehired.
From then onwards, his goose was cooked. In January 2021, Kabushenga was eventually fired via a phone call and given 90 days to organize a transition.
“I am proud of the success we achieved and the impact we have had in society. This was possible because we worked together as a team,” Kabushenga wrote in a short statement.
Sources say inside him, Kabushenga was burning with rage.
He told friends he had been treated shabbily. He retreated to his farm, fell back to jogging and went mountain climbing on the Rwenzoris, trying to find ways of staying in the public eye.
He also started a successful twitter space interaction forum #360Mentor where guests discussed various topics ranging from the politics to the economy.
Some say the “we are broke” statement he made at a public forum, where he criticized government for its economic policies that were impoverishing Ugandans, marked the point when Kabushenga became “Paul.”
“He had seen the light,” says the media executive quoted earlier in the story.
Increasingly and over the last two years, Kabushenga’s criticism of government and its policies has taken on a sharper edge. The evidence is laid bare on his X page.
He has attacked government (rightly so) about the misuse of public resources in the coffee sector and has been outspoken on the political direction the country is taking.
One of his friends of many years, a senior government official, told Bbeg Media that Kabushenga’s criticism of government could be “intentional”.
“Kabushenga is one of the most brilliant people that I know. He does everything for a reason,” the official said.
