{UAH} Museveni duped over defectors
|
5:36 AM |
No comments |
Museveni duped over defectors
Leader of NRM elders league among group alleged to have crossed from the opposition
The National Resistance Movement leadership in Bukomansimbi district was yesterday locked in wrangles over allegations of exaggerating its popularity.
It was alleged that in a bid to impress President Museveni, local leaders this week showed him avowed NRM supporters as people who had crossed from the opposition.
Museveni was in Bukomansimbi on Tuesday to commission works on a major local road and it was at the event that NRM officials in the district paraded what they called opposition defectors.
But there are now fairly credible claims that the president was conned. The so-called defectors, the leaders said, are known NRM supporters. Museveni visited Kitaasa Catholic parish to officially commission the construction of Villa Maria-Sembabule road. This road has been appearing in budget speeches for about a decade without any work on the ground.
The commissioning function turned political when the resident district commissioner for Bukomansimbi, Mukasa Kityo, and Peter Kagimu, Uganda's high commissioner to Nigeria, presented over 30 people to Museveni, claiming they had crossed from DP and FDC to NRM.
"We mobilized all these people from opposition parties such as the Democratic Party and Forum for Democratic Change," Kityo said.
Kityo explained that the group decided to join NRM because of the exemplary leadership of Mr Museveni. On Wednesday, however, a section of NRM leaders in Bukomansimbi, led by party chairman Iddi Kisiki Lubyayi, questioned the political authenticity of the defectors, claiming that Kityo had duped the president.
"We have evidence that all the people presented as defectors were staged-managed because all of them are NRM leaders at various levels in Bukomansimbi. How do you present Gabriel Kalungi, the chairperson Bukomansimbi NRM elders' league, Joseph Ssewava and Kizito Ssemukuutu as defectors yet they are already NRM supporters?" Lubyayi told The Observer.
Lubyayi said that as result, they are mobilizing signatures to petition Museveni to remove the RDC from Bukomansimbi. He said Kityo has split the party and created cliques in the district, contrary to the NRM constitution.
"We are disillusioned, we cannot move any further with this man who can deceive a head of state. If the president cannot remove him in two days, we are going to forcefully kick him out of Bukomansimbi," Lubyayi warned.
Salaama Nakandi, the deputy speaker of Bukomansimbi district council, accused Kityo of frustrating the monitoring of government projects.
"We wanted the District Education Officer Patrick Zziwa interdicted but he [RDC] disappeared with a probe committee report," Nakandi said.
Kityo told The Observer yesterday that it is not his role to verify whether the defectors are genuine or not.
"It is true I received the defectors and presented them to the president. Whether they are genuine or not, it is not my role to verify that. As the RDC, I was approached by these people who told me they were from DP," he said.
He said Lubyayi and his team could not force him out because they are not the appointing authority. In parts of the country, which Museveni has toured this year, several people have been presented to him as defectors from the opposition. Last week, according to news reports, hundreds of people in Lira crossed to the NRM from mainly UPC.
Yet in the political game where numbers matter, some analysts say it might not be impossible for some political parties to make up the numbers to show they are superior. For the NRM, it is not the first time that the authenticity of people crossing to the ruling party has been questioned.
In 2013, we reported that some political leaders in Rukungiri had taken 400 people to Rwakitura, who they claimed had defected from FDC to NRM. The group had reportedly been mobilised by Rukungiri deputy RDC Harriet Nakamya, a former member of the FDC national mobilisation committee, who defected to the ruling party in 2012. It later turned out that the 'defectors' had been picked from various parts of the districts and bused to Rwakitura.
MUSEVENI SPEAKS
Commissioning the road works on Tuesday, Museveni said Bukomansimbi should not lament over poor service delivery because they politically committed suicide when they voted for opposition MPs. Both Bukomansimbi MP Deogratias Kiyingi and Woman MP Susan Namaganda are members of DP.
"You voted badly and now you complain over poor service delivery. You committed suicide," Museveni said. "I regret giving you this district because you spend most of the time fighting," Museveni angrily told off Bukomansimbi residents.
Museveni said because Bukomansimbi voted for opposition, he does not meet their MPs to discuss issues affecting them.
Abraham Byandala, the minister for Works and Transport, said government has contracted China Railway NO3 Engineering Group Company Limited to undertake the road construction.
He said the project, which is expected to be completed in three years, shall cost Shs 239 billion, collected from Ugandan taxpayers.
http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/36576-museveni-duped-over-defectors
0 comments:
Post a Comment