By Amlan Tumusiime
President Museveni has survived many storms largely because of his political astuteness, strong character, conviction and personality. Yet each time, there is contentious legislation in Parliament, opposition charlatans make a lot of demagoguery and noise which crowds out President Museveni’s supporters and create the impression that the indefatigable man from Rwakitura is finally finished.
And I’m here to assert that the controversy and bad publicity that was created for Uganda and government over the just-passed Sovereignty Protection Bill, wasn’t the first time our dear President was enduring such hostility and demonization.
I recall in 2005 as the term limits’ removal debate raged, I and journalists like Charles Odongtho travelled to EAC Secretariat in Arusha where Col Nuwe Amanya Mushega was the Secretary General.
While at Arusha, we briefly met Mzee Amanya Mushega at Arusha International conference center. Amanya Mushega was very bitter why the Parliament of Uganda was removing term limits to enable our dear leader President YK Museveni to carry on as President. I stood up. I told him that in Bunyoro where I come from, people were very happy because removing the term limits from the Constitution would give President Yoweri Museveni chance to contest again and that is what Bunyoro wanted
Amanya Mushega was not happy with my submission. He asked me to leave and wait for my colleagues from outside. I moved out. But my heart was happy because I had spoken my mind. When we came back to Uganda I wrote an article about this in the New Vision. Today, I see people calling themselves NRM cadres happy because Uganda is still under Mzee Yoweri Museveni. This has only been possible because NRM cadres who were in the 7th Parliament disregarded noise from the opposition and did the right thing, namely removing term limits.
The question is, supposing the then Parliament had not removed the term limits where would Uganda be without Mzee in charge??? During the removal of age limit [2017-2018], Gen Kayihura who was IGP then called and assigned me a duty to handle noisy young people in Kampala. He rented for me a house in Kazo Kawempe and introduced me to AIGP Frank Mwesigwa, currently the now Director Operations in Uganda Police Force to help me here and there.
We used to meet in some Kampala hotels with the chief promoter of the age limit then, who now is the Local Government Minister Raphael Magezi. With him, we used to meet and engage with some noisy opposition youths. These saw our point of view, converted and helped a lot. Yet I know some of the so-called NRM cadres who were blindly following those opposing the age limit removal. Actually 27 such feeble-minded NRM MPs voted with the opposition favoring retention of age limit in the Constitution. Now supposing the age limit was not removed, how would Uganda be without Mzee in charge?
Fellow NRM cadres please style up. You are easily falling into the opposition traps. Now what is wrong with this sovereignty bill? It’s suicidal for you to believe it’s a bad bill simply because people from the opposition are saying so to serve their populists agenda. They dupe you into blindly following them! What type of NRM cadres are you?
Now regarding the Sovereignty Protection bill: Is there any country world over that puts laws in place to hurt their own citizens? If Yes, Uganda under President Yoweri Museven is not among them.
A few years ago, I saw on social media and even inside the caucus some of the so-called NRM cadres joining the opposition on coffee bill. They blindly followed because the opposition knew how to make deliberate noise, which is diversionary to instigate public resentment. This is because opposition believes in populist politics yet our NRM cadres just follow. The coffee bill was in the best interest of the common coffee farmer.
Yesterday NRM did not spend a single coin to influence own MPs and the independents affiliated to it but the opposition spin doctors quickly crafted a kibaaluwa/kiro kitwala omunaku [anonymous letter] claiming that it was from NRM, indicating how each MP had been facilitated with Shs100m ostensibly to pass the sovereignty bill. The opposition did this to blackmail NRM MPs before the public well knowing it was not true.
Within no time, our own NRM cadres started circulating this same fake document on social media platforms believing that it was true and from NRM leadership!! So sad for NRM cadres to be unsophisticated and this gullible. It’s all shameful, dangerous and indeed bad for our NRM party. It’s something the top leadership must consider mitigating against or else our party will gradually get destroyed. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
