{UAH} WANNUME KIBEDI AMOST BECAME PRESIDENT

KIBEDI NARROWLY MISSED PRESIDENCY
Joshua Wannume Kibedi, who has passed on in a London Hospital, was one
of the most popular and powerful ministers in their times. By the time
l grew up, he was Foreign Minister and l learnt about him during the
visit of President Siad Barre of Somalia and the signing of the
Mogadishu Pact.
Like many children born on January 25th and after, were named Dada, or
Amin or both, there were many that were named Wannume Kibedi, Wannume
or Kibedi, when they were not necessarily Basoga.
l knew two, one was my cousin, unfortunately he passed on early in
2008. My mother also named our he got, Wanume Kibedi.
This Amin's brother in law, an anti Obote UPC, was in collaboration
with the Museveni and Bidandi groups even before 1971 coup.
He was the defacto Prime Minister of Idi Amin, and was a super
minister. At one time, during the kidnap of Ben Kiwanuka, the then
Chief Justice, Kibedi was Foreign Minister, Justice Minister, and
Attorney General, just like Amama Mbabazi was at one time later.
Kibedi was one of the dreamers preparing to become President in a post
Idi Amin era and when they fell out, Amin expose all that. That was
the reason, to them,. Ben Kiwanuka was a threat.
According to Prof. Dani Wadada Nabudere, Amin wanted either Kibedi or
Onama to be President in 1971 but the British preferred him thinking
that he was stupid, he proved not.
WHEN POLITICAL ELITES LIKE KIBEDI AND KYEMBA FELL OUT WITH AMIN, HE
HAD NO REPLACEMENT, AND HENCE failed diplomatically to settle 1978
incident at Mutukula that led to his fall in 1979.
Kibedi , who was active in NRM external wing, resurfaced as Uganda's
Ambassador to US in 1986 and later USSR 1988 , then stood for one of
the Jinja municipality constituencies in a bye election in late
nineties, and Madhivani sponsored his opponent. MADHIVANI TOLD A
SENIOR JOURNALIST THE LATE Patrick Kisuule, that Kibedi was the
architect of the declaration of Economic War on 1972, and seeing him
in parliament could be seeing Idi Amin.
Yet according to Mzee Paul Etiang, the archidect of the Economic War
was the late Col. Khamis Safi, who died in 1994.
Uganda missed a President in name of Wanume Kibedi. His close
associate Henry Kyemba is still around and should tell us more than
what he wrote in State of Blood, 1977, and his testimony in the human
rights commission.
According to Simon Mwebe, in DP 30 years 1984 , Kibedi plotted the
elimination of Kiwanuka. When this was exposed by Munnansi in late
eighties, Kibedi took legal action and the paper was forced to close.
Akena Adoko, in his book, From Obote to Obote, 1983, also had no kind
words for the political elites, whom he called the Kibedis and the
Kyembas, comparing them to military elites, the Maliyamungus and the
Maleras, for legititimizing and consolidating Amin's coup.
RIP

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