WHO IS TOM VOLTAIRE OKWALINGA?WHY HAS THE UGANDAN GOVERNMENT FAILED TO GET HIS REAL IDENTITY
For nearly 8 years Ugandans and the government of Uganda hqve been wondering about TVO,a character on Facebook that has been spilling and exposing sensitive information about the government. He has frustrated the government to the extent that one day,a one by the name of shaka robert was arrested and jailed in anticipation that he was thetrue identity behind the Facebook's TOM voltaire okwalinga(TVO).there has been lotsa speculation about who this TVO may be or how he gets information. Many people refered to TVO as:
Charles Rwomushana:i think that, this man can never be TVO.
Tamale Mirundi:The fearless motor mouthed journalism legend can never be TVO.what i like about tamale is straightforwardness and the hatred he has for the mafias in government and with this hatred for them,they would work had to unearth him so that museveni goes against him.i think he also canot afford to hide for all the 8years for he may forget and tell m7 that "he is the real TVO".
Others speculated to be TvO included kizza besigye,ssejjussa,,amama mbabazi,kayihura,ssekandi,kainerugaba muhozi...its shocking that others believe that he/she is a GHOST,OMUCHWEZi and " software "!!! Despite all the above speculations, the mysterious man or woman remain unknown to the government.
Many have been saying that the gorvt failed to get him but to me its like the girvenment has been failed to get this TVO.the bigget question to the government should now be:how does he get the information. There was a post where he stressed that he has informants who use specialized technological equipments for spying but i do not think this true for he only wants to divert the government from coherent investigations about him.he only must be having big and rich people within the government system who provide him with the info.with the present bribery,corruption and love for money in Uganda, why couldn't anyone who supply him with the info surrender his identity for a much pay from government? The clean answer for this is that TVO deals with Rich and influential people in the government.
Again,from how i see his profile, it was created mainly to dispose government info and he knew the repercussions behind that,and thats why he hide all his contacts like email and phone number.TVO profile was not created using ugandan phone numbers, if it was so,the phone number would have been scrutinized and got,and would be matched with the profiles through the " recover my account" link,this option may also not be fully useful even if it was to be since most Ugandan numbers are not always registered in their real names and i think a character like TVO would have not used a simcard registered in his real names.most importantly, the case of lawyer Muwema versus facebook on the TVO case globalised the awareness of Facebook's administration on the privacy and security of TVO after citing the conditions Robert shaka underwent when he was arrested in anticipation that he was TVO and as of now TVO's facebook account is highly protected from any sort of attack.
I have always been wondering at the likes of Andrew mwenda and titus seruga who once said that they had unearthed TVOs real identity. Do these guys think they are better than the government?if TVO was known physically, the government would have got him using the sophisticated systems it has now.if Uganda has managed to track down Bashir Mukulu,how would it have failed to get TVO?it only some goons in government hindering the ability to get his identity. The government may be anticipating alot of people who may be real TVO or who give him info but the government cannot rush to avoid the same saga as that of Robert Shaka.
Lastlt,if you look at TVO followers between 2014-2017,he witnessed rapid increase in his followers but by mid2017 the increase in his followers,those who liked,commented on his posts had reduced drastically.this was because he nolonger had sensitive timely information, the unreality of the proclaimed "april revolution". He even lost relevancy when he started a crash with the one he termed" ESO boy" who also refered to him as capital lettered guy.many followers especially those with mature political mind started looking at it as a fight for followers and wondering if really there were ready for the change they talk about.The recent break away of Mugisha muntu from FDC and TVO's merciless attack on him made many wonder if TVO himself was a serious political ideologist or a museveni hater.the coming of other social media personalities like Stella nyanzi,Charles rwomushana,tamale mirundi,bobi wine,seruga titus who all were against museveni or injustices in gorvenment took away the attention from TVO.in the next two years TVO may loose relevency on social media but it will still be impossible for the government to get him