{UAH} WATCH YOUR FOREST. ANITE IS HANGING THERE ON A TREE BY THE BALLS - IF SHE GOT ONE

Anite is a foreigner, fellow MP charges

News

FRIDAY, 02 MAY 2014 00:08

WRITTEN BY DEO WALUSIMBI

8 COMMENTS

Evelyn Anite

As fight for Koboko seat gets nasty

Evelyn Anite, the NRM Youth MP who championed the controversial Kyankwanzi resolution, has picked a nasty fight with Margaret Baba Diri, the Woman MP for Koboko (NRM). Anite is believed to be eyeing Baba Diri's seat at the forthcoming elections, and the incumbent is not taking it lying down.

An angry Baba Diri has escalated the feud by claiming that Anite is a "foreigner" sowing "confusion" in Koboko and NRM. Referring to the resolution that  made Anite famous, Baba Diri accused the Youth MP (Northern) of moving a "wrong motion in a wrong forum."

The Anite-inspired resolution passed by NRM MPs during their retreat at Kyankwanzi in February declares President Museveni sole party candidate in the 2016 elections. However, Baba Diri is determined to foil Anite's attempt to ride on her new-found fame to grab her seat.

"I know that Anite wants to contest in Koboko, but I am not worried;

she cannot unseat me because she is not a resident of Koboko," Baba Diri told The Observer at Parliament on Monday.

She claimed that Anite has made customised T-shirts, plastic cups and plates, which she is distributing to churches in Koboko.

"I hear she is making some posters, but I think it is illegal because it is not yet campaign time and even the president told us that everything has its time," Baba Diri protested.

"I have discovered through my research that Anite's grandfather came from [DR] Congo in a place called Mingoro, to settle in Uganda, Vurra county, in Arua district," she charged.

"Then her father was given a name, which is similar to Lugbara; he then became a pastor and was transferred to Vurra."

Baba Diri advised Anite to consider seeking election "in Arua, where she is born, and in Nebbi where her husband hails from, but not in Koboko where she has never been."

Baba Diri, who has been in Parliament since 1996, first as a representative of persons With Disabilities, accused 30-year-old Anite for using the Kyankwanzi resolution to undermine her. Anite should not think that she loves Museveni more than other leaders, Baba Diri said.

"She uses the Kyankwanzi resolution as her strategy to win an election because she is the one who introduced it at the retreat, and she wants to show the president that she is more active than us," Baba Diri complained.

"If you look at the resolution carefully, it was wrongly brought by a wrong person, at a wrong time, at a wrong forum," she added. Baba Diri recalled that in 2003, when she and others were planning to have the president stand in the 2006 elections, despite the term limits, they began at the grassroots before taking the mobilisation to top echelons of the party.

"But this [Anite] resolution was brought from the top and by MPs," an emotional Baba Diri pointed out.

Nevertheless she warned Anite against using the resolution as her weapon.

"She might think that she moved a very important motion, but she did the wrong thing at the wrong forum and time, which has brought confusion between the prime minister and the president," she said.

Baba Diri noted that even the perceived beneficiary of the resolution might not be happy.

"I remember even the president himself saying that these youths are jumping up and down like this. This resolution should have come from the bottom, upwards."

Asked why she signed the resolution, Baba Diri said: "I had no choice because all MPs had signed and to me, I thought it was the president who requested them to move that motion; then I said, if all MPs and ministers have signed, who am I not to sign?"

Reacting to Baba Diri's outburst, Anite said she's campaigning in Koboko to "relieve" her "mother" Baba Diri of the burden of "hectic politics".

On her foreign roots, Anite said:

"It is common knowledge that all people in the north are Congolese and everybody knows that we have just celebrated 100 years since we joined Uganda. I am a Kakwa, and my grandfather comes from Koboko."

On using the Kyankwanzi resolution to portray herself as more NRM than others, she said she had no apologies.

"If anyone accuses me of being more NRM, she is very right because my blood is not contaminated with any other political blood; I have not seen any other party, DP, UPC and others because by the time NRM came to power, I was only one year old. So, I am a real NRM supporter, not a pretender."

walusimbideo@gmail.com

___________________________________

Gwokto La'Kitgum

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