{UAH} Uganda: Leaked Tapes - Kayihura, Amama Meet

Uganda: Leaked Tapes - Kayihura, Amama Meet

BY SADAB KITATTA KAAYA, 11 APRIL 2014

They have certainly met many times before, but this was no ordinary encounter between Uganda's police chief and its prime minister.

At a hurriedly-arranged meeting on Tuesday evening, Police chief Kale Kayihura tried and failed to make meaningful peace with the under-fire Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi.

Kayihura's leaked conversations with NRM youths from Buganda, carried in the media recently, have shone a bright light on Mbabazi's political activities.

But they have also exposed Kayihura to widespread accusations that he is acting more as a cadre of NRM chairman Yoweri Museveni than a head of the police. The subsequent arrests of Mbabazi-leaning youths at the urging of Kayihura have also angered the premier.

On Tuesday evening, Kayihura, accompanied by some police officers who included Grace Turyagumanawe (director for police operations), Charles Kataratambi (Special Investigations Unit commandant) and Fred Mirondo (head of media crimes desk) and a group of journalists went to meet Mbabazi at his Twin Towers office.

It appears that Kayihura had hoped to use the meeting to smooth the rough edges with Mbabazi, the man he likened to a biblical false prophet in one of his leaked conversations. A source familiar with Tuesday's meeting said when Mbabazi saw the journalists, he asked Kayihura why he had brought journalists to a private meeting.

The journalists were turned away. Mbabazi, however, invited his Private Press Secretary Josephine Mayanja-Nkangi to the meeting.

"My PPS (Private press secretary) should come in and record everything we are going to discuss but this [meeting] must be official," a source quotes Mbabazi as telling Kayihura.

The two-hour meeting majorly centred on Kayihura's meetings with youths reportedly allied to Mbabazi and contents of the leaked spy tapes carried in The Observer's recent publications.

"I am seeing a lot in the press [about your activities] and now the recordings, what are you up to?" Mbabazi reportedly asked Kayihura who denied having any ill-motive against the premier.

In one of the leaked recordings published this week, Kayihura, in a conversation with some youth leaders from Buganda, sounded deeply concerned that Mbabazi's political activities could destroy the ruling NRM, and possibly endanger the country. He warned the youths against working for Mbabazi whom he sharply criticized for failing to use his position as NRM secretary general to strengthen the party structures.

"We [Mbabazi and I] all draw our power from the president but I use my power to build the police force. I want you to ask him as secretary general what he has done to build a strong foundation. So, did the president refuse him to build a foundation for the party?" Kayihura is heard in the recording telling the Buganda NRM youth leaders.

During the meeting with Mbabazi, insiders say, Kayihura tried to be remorseful, pleading for renewed friendship with the Mbabazi family.

"I have always been a friend of Jacqueline [Mbabazi's wife], and my wife has also been her friend but I don't know what is happening," Kayihura reportedly said as Mbabazi silently looked on.

In the meeting, Kayihura did most of the talking and Mbabazi most of the listening. At one point, Mbabazi took issue with Kayihura for continuing to arrest and cause the prosecution of some NRM youth leaders believed to be promoting Mbabazi's undeclared 2016 presidential bid.

Two of the youths; Omodo-Omodo, the Northern region NRM Youth League vice chairperson, and his Kampala counterpart Adam Luzindana Buyinza, spent a week on remand in Luzira prison. They face charges of abuse of office at the Anti-corruption court.

"The arrests must stop, and charges dropped because the arrests are portraying the NRM and the country in bad light. The message you are sending out is that there is no democracy in NRM," Mbabazi said.

Having bragged before the Buganda youths that his actions were approved by President Museveni, it remains to be seen whether Kayihura will bow to this particular demand from Mbabazi.

Denials

Interviewed for a comment, an official from the prime minister's office who declined to be named, confirmed Kayihura and Mbabazi met on Tuesday but declined to talk about details.

Officially, police denied knowledge of such a meeting.

Turyagumanawe said:

"Who told you that? No I don't know, I did not attend any meeting with him [Mbabazi]."

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower