By Mulengera Reporters
Controversial Church Minister Joseph Kabuleta says he has gone through a lot including being tortured and stampeded into a confession while in detention but he won’t be relenting. Renowned for taking no prisoners in his wildly popular Facebook rants, Kabuleta says his views on the President and Gen Muhoozi haven’t changed and he intends to continue his rants from where he stopped.
In a newspaper interview with The Observer’s Baker Batte Lule, Kabuleta says there is nothing that has happened warranting to change his views about the leaders and the governance systems he has previously criticized in his Facebook rant.
Denying personally hating Gen Muhoozi, Kabuleta says it’s his civic right and duty to subject all holders of public office to scrutiny. He says he hasn’t written about Gen Muhoozi because of who his father is. He says if that were the case, he would equally be venomous against the other children of the President. He says he even doubts if MK knows him personally just like he doesn’t know him that much.
He says he is convinced about the truthfulness of everything he ranted about and is itching for an opportunity to have his day in court and formally corroborate his claims. He says to prove what he said about the President, he will be relying on the proceedings of the American court in the trial of Chinese businessman Patrick Hoo.
Calling himself sober-minded, Kabuleta says there isn’t anything he ranted about by accident; these are all his deliberate views arrived at and posted after sufficient reflection. He is also angry that when he challenges people intellectually, instead it’s brutality that is unleashed unto him. Repeating the very point Olara Otunnu made in 2010s, accusing the NRM of leasing the lakes and disputing the nationality of some leaders, Kabuleta says he expects his repugnant views to be intellectually responded to because that is the minimum expected in any society that claims to have any semblance of democratic governance.
Saying he isn’t the best writer or orator in town, Kabuleta says he ordinarily expects the many well-funded regime spin doctors and online warriors (says including those using pseudo names to bash him on FB and twitter) to be the ones unleashed to contradict his points rather the security apparatus brutality being unleashed at him.
He says he still stands by the views he expressed about the mismanagement of Uganda’s oil and petroleum prospects adding that he is the best person to testify about this because he owns vast property (land) in Hoima near the place where the oil refinery is to be situated. Kabuleta, who some suspect might run for Hoima Municipality MP Seat, laughs off those who dismissed his oil-related claims as false and untrue simply because it can’t happen that way.
Kabuleta says there is no way a government that can circumvent stringent rules governing the printing of money by the central bank can fail to subvert anything contrary to common sense expectations. He implies people who are governing Uganda today have come to a level where there isn’t anything disgraceful that they can’t do. That they can do anything to retain their privileged positions of power and wealth.
He says he knows there will be a price to pay for trying to stand up against injustices in today’s Uganda but says he is ready for much worse than what he has endured so far. He suspects he is being targeted (doesn’t believe he has provoked the belligerent state response in anyway) because his activism and rabid criticisms of the regime as a pastor (building on what the FDC Pastor Ngabo started in 2016) is what is making many in government sleepless. He claims they are fearful he is going to inspire many Born Again Pastors to begin to denounce the regime like the Old Testament prophets did against the decadent kings of their time.
Kabuleta (who at times has been very defensive of Dr. KB) claims there are indicators clearly showing there is unstoppable gradual political awakening among the Pentecostal pastors and references on Ps Ngabo’s FDC-leading activism and Ps David Kiganda’s guts to invite Dr. Besigye to participate in his end of year (31st December 2018) prayers at Old Kampala School grounds.
Kabuleta also controversially defends his man Pastor Elvis Mbonye who he says isn’t a diehard Museveni supporter as some have previously painted him. He says Mbonye has previously made acidic criticisms of the regime in Kampala except that many in the public haven’t yet become privy to these views. He also refutes claims that Mbonye is guarded by SFC. Saying sometimes government forces its security on VIPs like Mbonye to spy on them, Kabuleta challenges anybody with proof that Mbonye is close to the Museveni system to step forward and present it.
He says Pastors like Kiganda and Ngabo showing some distaste towards NRM constitutes unprecedented actions that are the reason why the GoU is now using its print media outlets to disparage certain pastors to justify the enactment of the new law Ethics Minister Lokodo has been promoting. Kabuleta says that law is intended to cow many of the charismatic pastors who he knows have intentions to begin using the pulpit to bash the regime like he is doing using social media. He agrees majority pastors have been docile and very supportive of the Museveni regime but are finally prepared to begin calling the spade a spade and not a big spoon. (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at [email protected]).
