By John V Sserwaniko
Until 2008, Moses Kalule Kasujja merely existed as a leading mobilizer for President Museveni in Mukono town. The youthful outgoing Kasujja combined that with being a political talk show host on 100fm Radio Star where he also held some management position. He was also doing some freelancing work with Uganda Media Center which is only separated from Radio Uganda/Star by a road/Nile Avenue. His colleague at Radio Star in hosting political programs was Kaloli Serugga Matovu (aka munnakyalo) who does Kabinkano program on Bukedde TV. When Nambooze, using lawyer Erias Lukwago, trounced Peter Bakaluba Mukasa in the Supreme Court, a by-election became inevitable. Kalule Kasujja was among those NRM youth activists in Mukono who believed Bakaluba was hard brand to sell. They had a lot of personal problems with him and in fact, to many of them, Nambooze was better than Bakaluba. They went around the constituency publicly saying as much about Bakaluba. Ronald Kibule, who actually defied the party and backed Nambooze, was among those who believed Bakaluba wasn’t good enough to continue being their MP. Kalule Kasujja, whose father Mzee Kagodo (of Kagodo feeds) was a key funder of Museveni’s NRA war, wasn’t comfortable backing Nambooze even when he would publicly confess she was better than Bakaluba. He was among those who believed they could only support Nambooze if she came as an independent candidate as opposed to carrying the DP flag. He offered himself contesting against both Bakaluba and Nambooze as an NRM-leaning independent.
M7 WEIGHS IN;
Museveni, who was desperate to stop a Nambooze win, acted nervously days to the polling day. He rang Kalule Kasujja very early in the morning and asked him: “Mutabani wange lwaki olwanyisa NRM? Ye bani abo abakukozesa?” It means: “My son why are you fighting NRM? Who is exactly using you?” After exchanging pleasantries, Museveni asked Kasujja to travel to Rwakitura for talks about his possible pull out in the race to avoid splitting the NRM vote. Kalule Kasujja, who was attacking Bakaluba more than even Nambooze on the campaign trail, was reimbursed with some of the money he had used in his pompous campaign and reluctantly pulled out for Bakaluba. Museveni, who had initially sent Janet Mukwaya to talk her protege out of the race but she refused because she was also disgruntled as at that time, also offered Kalule Kasujja a job. “We are opening up a diplomatic mission in Turkey and that’s where I’m going to post you as the pioneer Ambassador,” Museveni reportedly announced killing Kasujja with happiness. The outspoken radio presenter left the meeting room smiling with blessedness. Museveni required that Kasujja escorts him to the rally and retract many of the nasty things he had been saying about Bakaluba Mukasa. In the end, Museveni’s candidate Bakaluba lost prompting Kasujja to remind him his claim when he told him he was a better candidate than Bakaluba. And the rest as they say is history.
M7 VETOED
Officials at the foreign affairs ministry vetoed Museveni’s decision on making Kasujja full Ambassador. They proposed he starts as Minister Counselor which equals Deputy Ambassador. Their view was he was too junior and had less experience than required for the job. We are told the title Minister Counsellor greatly excited Kasujja a man famous for being pomp-loving. But with time reality sunk in and Kasujja painfully had to accept this position was actually below that of Ambassador.
FIGHTS OLWA
There was a lull before a full Ambassador would be posted in Turkey and for a while Kasujja was in charge overall. Reliable sources say that’s why there was chaos when Johnson Olwa (now of Moscow) was posted in Turkey to be full Ambassador over Kasujja. The flamboyant Musevenist from Mukono didn’t easily adjust to the new reality and for much of the time Olwa was there, the two were busy reporting each other to their superiors in Kampala. At some point Olwa wrote to Kampala demanding disciplinary action against Kasujja. There was some ganging up on Kasujja who felt he was being victimized by career diplomats in the service who are famous for being very contemptuous of political appointees. He several times petitioned the IGG’s office but didn’t get much help. Later on consensus emerged that Kasujja was in problems because Museveni’s assistants at State House misled him and created high expectations in him in the way they worded the letter announcing his appointment. Sources say that in that letter, the State House bosses offered Kasujja a position that doesn’t exist in foreign service. “Its true he has been a tormented man but the problem was those people of State House. Ambassador Mugume (ex-PS) tried sitting him down many times explaining to him the practical realities of the ambiguity that was created by State House correspondence but he refused to understand. He seems to think political connection to Mzee is enough but in public service things are totally different,” said one of the knowledgeable sources we spoke to for this article. It will be recalled that Kasujja’s active participation in the highly monetized presidential campaigns of 2011 increased his clout (and shareholding?) in the Museveni political establishment and increased his sense of entitlement. He was the one in charge of all publicity and media-related logistics and facilitation at the Kololo office that was superintended over by Specioza Kazibwe and Janet Mukwaya. These two Mukono-based political giants are like mothers to Kasujja whom they called in to assist them execute Museveni’s political assignment. That is the election during which Col Kizza Besigye for the first time lost his strong hold areas of Acholi, Lango, West Nile & Teso which he had previously twice won very resoundingly. Disputed analysts like Andrew Mwenda believe its the cleanest election Museveni ever won since 1996. So active participation in that electoral exercise increased Kasujja’s bragging rights inside Museveni’s National Resistance Movement. Sources say he changed and became proud and resented being supervised. Steven Mubiru subsequently moved in as Ambassador in Turkey (from Malaysia) replacing Olwa but still the relationship between him and Kasujja was very belligerent. We are told that having tried to seek remedy administratively and failing to get any, Kasujja tried reporting to the President but was denied audience. This only made him more frustrated given that even the IGG wasn’t of much help. “We checked his file, it had a lot of disciplinary cases meaning his hands too aren’t clean. His colleagues and supervisors had previously noted cases of misconduct on his file and there is no way we could help him,” said a senior source in the IGG office.
DEFYING ADVICE:
This is how/why the battle-hardened NRM cadre decided to lodge his complaint in court seeking the quashing of Patrick Mugoya’s decision to recall him from Turkey. But some sources say he should have taken advice by colleagues that he needed prior authorization of the Solicitor General before suing both the AG and the PS Patrick Mugoya. One source said the public service standing orders, which are parroted to all civil servants during induction, prohibit such a serving officer going to court without prior engagement with the Solicitor General, something Kasujja didn’t do. We are told this why Mugoya isn’t bothered about Kasujja’s suit. Mugoya considers it was defectively filed and its therefore a non-starter not warranting his response. He believes court will strike it out in the coming days.
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