"I have only come to define Uganda's story to the world. I was earning more at the BBC than what is being offered at Media Centre. I am here to tell the Ugandan story." — Alan Kasujja, Executive Director, Uganda Media Centre
If you've never met a giant clown, here's your chance.
Alan Kasujja spent 13 years at the BBC World Service hosting flagship programmes and by his own framing
"telling Africa's story with credibility and depth."
He came home, took the government job, and the first thing he offered the public was a salary comparison and a saviour complex. Not a story. A résumé.
Here's the irony that should embarrass him into silence:
While Kasujja was busy positioning himself as Uganda's great narrator, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba Uganda's Chief of Defence Forces took to social media to publicly claim that security forces under his command had eliminated 22 members of the opposition NUP, labelling them "terrorists," and expressed hope that Bobi Wine would be next.
The Same CDF, has abducted the fromer Lord Mayor and lead lawyer in the Besigye Case and bragged publically about it.
His tweets have triggered US Senate sanctions, a reevaluation of security partnerships, and a full-blown diplomatic crisis between Uganda and Washington.
And the Uganda Media Centre ,the institution Kasujja now leads, the one he left BBC money on the table for said nothing.
The man who declared "we cannot win in silence" chose silence at the exact moment Uganda's story was being written for the world in the worst possible way.
So what Uganda story exactly is he here to tell?
Because Muhoozi was out here writing it in real time in ALL CAPS, on X, for free ,
A journalist of Kasujja's stature would have something to offer if he were, say, building an African news organisation that tells Uganda's story on its own terms like what Al Jazeera did for the Gulf.
Instead, at the Media Centre, he'll spin stories to make the NRM happy.
That's the Monitor's words. Not mine. But they land.
You didn't leave the BBC to tell Uganda's story. You left the BBC to manage the government's feelings about Uganda's story and at a bigger fee
There's a difference. A giant one.