By Mulengera Reporters
It’s evident that DP President Norbert Mao took note and got deeply hurt recently when Odongo Otto drove to NBS TV studios and proclaimed him a pauper who had no option but to join NRM to prevent himself from dying of poverty.
At the DP headquarters on Tuesday, Mao addressed a news conference and one of the things he talked about at length were the claims that he was in the Speakership race in order to blackmail Museveni into giving him an even bigger cabinet slot than the Justice Ministry he currently heads.
Mao said he has never been greedy for or in a hurry to serve in Museveni Cabinet because the current slot he holds had been dangled and made available to him more than a year before Gen Museveni publicly announced his name. All that delay for one full year was because Mao preferred to take his time, consulting.
He admitted that being Minister is a well-paying job but he was never in a hurry taking it up because he wasn’t motivated by just money and other groceries that come with it.
He sarcastically admitted to being a poverty-stricken politician but clarified that poverty can never be something to guide his decision-making because he has endured the same since childhood. He said he is sure poverty can never kill him today when he is an adult in Kampala with so many qualifications, if it indeed didn’t kill him decades ago as a struggling young boy growing up in rural Acholi-land where he lived life of extreme deprivation.
He didn’t specifically name Odonga Otto but referred to a very talkative politician who recently attributed his entry into Museveni’s cabinet on the need to overcome poverty and materially lead a better life. Journalists present construed this to be a veiled reference to the former Aruu County MP.
Mao said he sympathizes with such politicians who selfishly and maliciously seek to trivialize his speakership bid and promised to also become personal on them one day and put out their dirty secrets.
He sarcastically said that the day he does that, hanging that specific politician’s personal dirty secrets on the highest point of Kololo’s Summit View hill, the likes of Odonga Otto will be filed with shame while looking for the tall grass to hide in. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
