The Bizonto troupe carry out at Theatre Labonita in Kampala, Uganda, on September 7, 2024.
(Picture by BADRU KATUMBA / AFP)
A packed Kampala viewers holds its breath as 4 self-styled “singing fools” in choir uniforms sure onto the stage for his or her newest daring satire of Ugandan politics.
The Bizonto comedy troupe recount the misadventures in a fictional village, dominated by an ageing chief and affected by a dire lack of fundamental providers and sky-high taxes.
The parallels with real-life Uganda — dominated for nearly 4 a long time by 80-year-old Yoweri Museveni — usually are not arduous to identify.
The troupe’s identify means “mentally unstable”, which they selected once they fashioned in 2020 within the hope it could present some safety from the authorities.
Nevertheless it has not diluted the sharpness of their satire.
“Our message means folks know we are literally not fools,” stated troupe member Maliseeri Mbambaali, 40.
The present “helps points raised by nearly all of the inhabitants,” he advised AFP.
Their buffoonish entrance has not all the time protected them.
In 2020, they launched a video sarcastically calling on Ugandans to wish for his or her leaders, together with Museveni, the police chief and the top of prisons, that shortly went viral.
All 4 members — Mbambaali, Julius Sserwanja, 41, Tony Kyambadde, 21, and Joshua Ssekabembe, 19 — ended up in jail, charged with “selling sectarianism” and dealing with as much as 5 years’ imprisonment.
The federal government was on edge on the time forward of 2021 elections, with singer-turned-politician Bobi Wine galvanising youthful opposition to Museveni’s regime.
With a comic’s exaggeration, Sserwanja describes how “50 males armed with 70 weapons, helicopters and sub-machine weapons” swarmed to arrest the quartet at a radio station.
However their time in jail was not so humorous.
“I assumed lots about whether or not we’re ever going to depart the cells — what’s going to occur to us?” Mbambaali stated.
They didn’t know that exterior, #FreeBizonto was trending on social media.
“We gained power and followers… our fan base grew,” Mbambaali stated.
The stress helped guarantee the costs had been finally dropped, however the episode nonetheless carried a darkish warning.
“It gave a sign that no matter we do, the federal government might be monitoring us,” stated Mbambaali, who vowed to take a extra “coded” strategy to future satires.
‘We by no means gave up’
Bizonto’s viewers stretches throughout the generations. Within the crowd at a latest present had been 72-year-old widow Miria Kawuma and her granddaughter Christine Nabaata Kamwesi, 29.
“The performers seize what Ugandans are going by means of like corruption, unhealthy roads, medicine missing in hospitals,” Kawuma stated.
“We pay increased taxes however they’re stolen by officers,” she added.
Uganda ranks a lowly 141 out of 180 international locations on Transparency Worldwide’s Corruption index.
Younger folks, infuriated by a string of scandals, took to the streets earlier this 12 months, solely to be met with a heavy-handed police response.
On the Bizonto present, cheers, shouts, and ululations make it clear that the comedians’ message is putting residence.
Their time in jail might have shaken them, however the troupe stays undeterred.
“We by no means gave up. We by no means stepped again,” Mbambaali stated. “We knew we had been on the appropriate path.”
© Agence France-Presse