By Mulengera Reporters
On Tuesday, the NBS presenter Simon Kaggwa Njala ably hosted and moderated a morning talk show between Buhweju MP Francis Mwijukye and Kasese Municipality’s Robert Centenary. During the show, the two youthful legislators subscribing to the different tendencies in the FDC party discussed a number of things including the efficacy of the newly formed People’s Government and it’s regional assemblies. Centenary, who is increasingly under pressure from FDC diehards in his own town, was vague and lukewarm in his support for the People’s Government in which three of his Kasese counterparts serve as Ministers. A renowned supporter of Gen Muntu’s new ANT party, Centenary was like pressed between a rock and hard place. On a normal day, he would characteristically be full of praises for Gen Muntu while bashing the Kizza Besigye school of thought which Mwijukye represents. However, Centenary had to be very calculative to avoid being recorded by FDC rivals in Kasese wanting to use his coldness towards Najjanankumbi to decampaign him so that he doesn’t keep the FDC flag for 2021. Seemingly it was Mwijukye’s task to push him hard so that he goes on record condemning FDC and more so Col Besigye whose popularity remains high in Kasese because of his historic contribution towards the restoration of Obusinga Bwa Rwenzururu in the late 2000s. It was restored in 2009 but many in Kasese believe it was because of the pressure Besigye mounted as early as 2001 famously promising to revive the same on the day he is declared President. So Mwijukye was aware Centenary, a leading critic of the defiance strategy and PG, would be uncomfortable bashing Besigye on TV when the next election is around the corner when he will have to face voters and accounts for his actions and inactions. Centenary said he was non committal on PG because it’s a subject he doesn’t adequately understand. This prompted Mwijukye (a renowned wordsmith) to belittle him wondering what sort of leader he was failing to understand something so basic that even ordinary FDC supporters in Kasese deeply understand. Mwijukye said Centenary was either not being truthful or he simply isn’t interested in FDC anymore. Centenary then said he was uncomfortable his party FDC could be swallowed under the PG arrangement adding that it’s alien to the FDC ideology. Mwijukye didn’t even allow him to finish what he was saying. He immediately responded telling him participation in the PG was something backed by an FDC NEC resolution reached during a meeting his own boss Gen Muntu chaired. This revelation greatly disarmed Centenary leaving him with almost nothing to say. He then said he had limited knowledge about PG because he was never appointed to any ministerial position therein. Mwijukye immediately took him on eloquently arguing that one doesn’t need to be a minister in PG or any other political formation for him or her to know one or two basic things about the same. Mwijukye wondered why Centenary, who was in meetings the PG head Col Kizza Besigye had with MPs aimed at deepening their understanding of the same, can speak as if there was never such engagement opportunities to understand basic things. He likened Centenary to one who chooses to be a spectator even when there is an opportunity for him to be part of the 11 players team on the pitch. He said in Uganda today, clearly two governments exist-one against oppression and another that sees no problem with exclusion and marginalization of the majority. “My colleague clearly speaks for the other government and not the one that speaks for the voiceless majority in which I and his other colleagues from Kasese serve. Let him be bold enough and speak for the government whose interests he is comfortable serving,” Mwijukye said. There was also discussion about who is stronger between Bobi Wine and Besigye to which Centenary contributed saying much as KB had done a very good job courageously leading the opposition and in the process mentoring many including himself, there comes a time when someone better has to take the mantle. Careful not to alienate himself from Besigye diehards, who are very many in his Kasese backyard, Centenary said as a medical doctor KB knows what happens to a drug or medicine combination against which the disease successfully develops resistance. He implied such medication has to be changed or abandoned and replaced by a more efficacious medicine combination. He also belittled KB’s PG saying it’s only existing in the abstract or theory without any consequence in the real world. “I think it’s a virtual structure,” he said. He also claimed many of the people in PG were against the victorious FDC MPs taking up their positions in the 10th Parliament, something Mwijukye dismissed as deliberate distortions of what the party’s post-2016 position was. Mwijukye said what the PG stands for is very clear and basic and can be understood even by an ordinary man on the street and insisted Centenary was merely a dishonest man who still lacks guts to publicly embrace “the other government he is comfortable speaking for.” Mwijukye said the existence of UPC and DP MPs like Betty Nambooze and Allan Sewanyana was proof there was nothing FDC about the PG. Sounding very unsophisticated, Centenary said he sees the PG as something trying to outshine and overshadow the LoP Betty Aol and her shadow cabinet in Parliament. Saying he shouldn’t be demonized even if it were true he had a soft spot for Muntu’s ANT & Bobi’s People Power, Centenary said this practice was started by Dr. KB when he said in Kyadondo East by-election campaigns in 2017 that independents Bobi and Nkunyingi Muwadda were as good as Apollo Kantinti who was the FDC flag bearer in that race. Centenary said the way Besigye (who he expected to outrightly condemn Bobi & Muwadda) spoke in that campaign created an impression it was okay for any FDC member or MP to fraternize with anyone as long as they are anti-NRM. Besigye famously said he would be happy if his candidate Kantinti won the election but would “equally be in business if Bobi Wine wins.” To Centenary that justifies any FDC MP cooperating with any other politician as long as that person isn’t NRM. For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755.
