Immediately after losing the FDC Presidency to Patrick Oboi Amuriat (POA), Gen Mugisha Muntu conducted himself in a way that indicated to a lot of people it was time over for him with Uganda’s biggest opposition party. He announced countrywide consultation meetings to seek views on how to move forward. His crusade, aimed at demonizing POA, was embraced with enthusiasm by a larger section of FDC MPs and other elected leaders. It was even rumored that some MPs had stopped making the monthly contributions to the FDC and were now channeling the money to Gen Muntu’s underground organization to facilitate the acquisition of office space in the Bukoto neighborhood. With the countrywide consultations not being talked about anymore, we hear that many of the MPs that were initially enthusiastic about the Muntu project have since coiled and are working towards ensuring the new POA administration doesn’t replace them from the lucrative parliamentary committee assignments and other roles. The MPs are apparently back and are once again working well with the new administration at Najjanankumbi. The likes of Semujju Nganda and Paul Mwiru (that was considered a key pillar in the Muntu project) are back to Najjanankumbi actively participating in the weekly news conference always held on Monday. Few of the MPs, if any, would like to carry the burden of going into starting and funding a new party at this point in time. It’s financially very constraining as the likes of Dr. Abed Bwanika and Beti Kamya have previously advised. Gen Muntu himself is once again actively participating in FDC party activities as was recently seen in Rukungiri by-elections where he was seen campaigning for Betty Muzanira who is facing Winnie Matsiko of the NRM. “The truth is that talk of party formation is a hoax and even Gen Muntu has never told it to anyone. It was a fiction created by media speculation. The truth is we might be having reservations with the way the POA-Salaam Musumba-Nandala trio is running the party but we aren’t going anywhere. We shall remain in FDC because it’s the party for which we have all sacrificed for all these years,” said an influential FDC NEC member who is also close to the Muntu scheme of things. Is this sufficient to prove that the idea of Muntu forming a political party (the so-called 3rd force) is finally off the table? Your guess is as good as ours. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
