By KT Reporter
A few days ago, the abusive Kampala youtuber Dean Lubowa Saava realized it wasn’t possible to be in hiding forever-and he turned himself in at UCC headquarters of Bugolobi.
He had been in hiding for weeks following a late evening raid by UCC enforcement officers on his TV10 Mazima offices at Kakeeka in Lubaga near super fm. Saava escaped and narrowly survived being arrested by the UCC enforcement team.
In his absence, the enforcement officers dismantled his broadcasting studio and took away all the communication equipment. Since that day, Saava has been operating on defiance whereby he was bringing videos recorded from unknown places without his exact location being known.
His humble worker Jackson Jakko Walukuba also fled and abandoned him to go and hide in his village in Busoga-fearing to be arrested. Saava had tried running to Gulu to intimidate the regulator but UCC stood its ground.
Salim Saleh realized it was going to be hard for government to clamp down on other abusive online broadcasters if Saava got protected and was allowed to continue with his abusive content and without the UCC license.
That’s how Saava, who is already facing more than 100 defamation cases in the high court, ran out of options and realized that those things of abusing Nyombi Thembo the UCC boss, weren’t going to help him for long.
Sources close to the abusive blogger say that Saava got some airtime and called on the UCC landline pleading for forgiveness because life had proved to be unbearable for him as a fugitive in hiding. He made it clear that he was ready to surrender and apologize to the country and those he has been abusing.
He is also ready to apply for the UCC license and stop illegal broadcasting. This will bring him under the direct control and regulation of UCC because its to them that whoever gets abused reports.
Saava is now in secret negotiations with UCC to find a way of ending his fugitive life. Its clear he has realized you can’t continue illegal broadcastings of abusing people as if there are no laws in Uganda.
He hasn’t posted videos on his TV10 mazima channel since reaching out to UCC and he can only continue after his problems with the regulator have been solved. There is hope that within the coming week, both parties will go public and bury their hatchet.
There is no way government would have any moral authority to clamp down on other abusive tik tokers during this campaign time for as long as Saava remained untouched. This explains why UCC has been very firm on Saava this time around.
Pastor Bujjingo is a stronger supporter of the government but his worker Full Figure, who is very popular with her Omusunsuzi programme, has also been blocked because she uses the programme to abuse people and spread hate speech every morning.
Saava has abused more people and even his channel is illegal broadcasting because he refused to apply for UCC license. But still Full Figure hasn’t been tolerated to continue abusing people.
The government values Bujjingo more than Saava but UCC still hasn’t spared Full Figure, which means there is no way Saava can be allowed to continue with his illegal broadcasting-however much he thinks he is too big to be touched in a country of laws which must apply equally to all people.
Kin Karisa is also big and a more powerful supporter of Museveni and NRM but his Uncut Sabula Kalakata on NBS was closed by UCC because presenters were using it as a platform to abuse and defame people.
The regulator closed it after getting many complaints and still Karisa didn’t use the big people he knows in government to intimidate Nyombi Thembo like Saava has been trying to do.
So, its clear there is no way Saava was going to keep getting away with it for long without UCC coming hard on him-however much he claimed to be a good friend of Salim Saleh, Mathias Mpuuga and the speaker Anita.
It’s not going to be easy for him because even if UCC which the government and big people in government can try to control forces the original complainants to forgive him for the hate speech, because the hundreds of defamation cases in the high court are going to remain active on him. He will need millions of shillings to hire lawyers to defend him when the trials finally begin.
Each case he loses in court, he has to pay money and these days judges award hundreds of millions for defamation cases to serve as a deterrent because they know even themselves are not safe and can be destroyed by bloggers like Saava.
Many who know how these court things always go are predicting that Saava is going to end up very badly and declared bankrupt like Teddy Seezi Cheeye of Uganda confidential news because there is no way any of the big people in government is going to pay for him those damages from high court the day it begins raining in his world.
It’s also very likely that no good Kampala lawyer is going to ever waste his or her time defending him in the high court on those defamation cases for free. He will have to pay and a lot of money.
