By Mulengera Reporters
As Personal Assistant, Mariam Zandya was charged with doing research and overseeing the preparation of written speeches for her Principal Norbert Mao at the Justice Ministry. However, Mao proved to be such a difficult boss because quite often, he resorted to overlooking the written speech and instead preferred to always make unscripted speeches.
This is something Mao has often bragged about saying he doesn’t believe in written speeches. That he wants and prefers to speak from his heart as opposed to being restricted to something someone else has written for him. That’s how he ends up digressing into anti-regime rhetoric even when he knows very that such makes a lot of fellow Cabinet Ministers uncomfortable. It equally makes Gen Museveni, his appointing authority, regret his decision to have made him Minister in the first place.
Sources say that Mao feels dispirited that many of the things he believed Gen Museveni would let him do have ended up not happening. He was very outspoken about the need to establish a truth & reconciliation commission and also the Constitutional Review Commission. He used these and others related to political transition to justify why accepting a slot in Museveni’s cabinet was about Uganda and not him as a person.
However, Gen Museveni threw him under the bus when he rejected both commissions on grounds there was no money. He equally contradicted him on the transition talk which he said had never been part of their negotiations with Mao’s DP faction. This didn’t stop Mao from using the platform given to him to remain outspoken against stuff like torture and human rights violations in the country. Mao’s things have made headlines in the media and in the process humiliated the NRM government in which he serves.
Colleagues at the Justice Ministry have often been put to task to explain why their boss keeps criticizing government yet continues to be part of it. In many cases, they have had nothing to say in defense of Mao. Many even inside the Justice Ministry agree that Mao’s criticism of the NRM government even at functions, where he is invited in his capacity as Minister, is simply unjustifiable. One time, Kiwanuka Kiryowa was busy speaking at an EAC forum trying to sanitize and defend the regime’s human rights record.
As he spoke, Mao was in Kampala attending a Chapter Four event at Golf Course Hotel where he said many things criticizing the NRM government over human rights violations. He said he was feeling embarrassed about the excesses of especially the security forces. This was being streamed live and Kenyans at the event KK was speaking from used Mao’s clips to contract what the AG was saying.
As more and more actors mounted pressure complaining about what exactly was Mao’s problem, supervisors at the Justice Ministry turned the heat on Mariam Zandya, the PA who is supposed to guide and advise the Minister besides having the last word on the contents of his speeches at such public events. The lady PA was confronted by several in government from within and outside of the Justice Ministry. They kept demanding to know why she was failing in her duties-namely advising her Principal on the red lines he shouldn’t keep crossing as the Justice Minister while delivering public speeches. The lady explained herself that she had tried her best but Mao had proved to be inadvisable as he always disregards written speeches prepared for him preferring in order to deliver unscripted speeches which often are full of anti-NRM rhetoric.
She tried to engage more while explaining to her Principal about the extent to which his unscripted speeches were angering people in government and would soon cause the President to crack the whip-to his own detriment. When Mao refused to deescalate, Zandya signaled her supervisors that she was no longer able to continue in the role and requested to resign from being Mao’s PA so that she gets deployed somewhere else. Indeed, she was let go and Mao had to take up someone else as PA.
Zandya was also concerned about alleged general contempt and mistreatment by Mao’s wife Beatrice Kayanja. That whenever she comes around at the Ministry to check on her husband, which happens often, Beatrice Kayanja demands to be showed respect whereby all staffers have to demonstrate respect for her by standing up as she walks in. Those who decline are reprimanded besides being reminded that the person they are overlooking could be Uganda’s next First Lady or First Lady in waiting. For now, she controversially prefers to be recognized and respected as the ‘First Lady of the Justice Ministry.’
