By Our Reporters
Tuesday this week, NRM Secretary General Justine Kasule Lumumba called a meeting of the top NRM Secretariat bosses and urged them to emotionally prepare for any eventualities because she is in no doubt that the impending cabinet reshuffle will also affect office holders at Plot 10 Kyaddondo road.
The Lumumba message was meant for top party bureaucrats like Rose Namayanja (Treasurer), Kenneth Omona (Deputy Treasurer), herself and Deputy SG Richard Todwong. Also equally affected is NRM EC boss the very belligerent Prof Odoi Tanga and members of his Commission. Equally affected is Dr. Hassan Galiwango the long serving Director for Finance & Administration at the Secretariat.
“Members were so heart-broken many even left unceremoniously without telling anyone good bye. Some developed high blood pressure and had to check into hospital over the very shocking news. Some said that would absolve ex-SG Amama Mbabazi and amount to betrayal on the part of Party Chairman YK Museveni on whose instigation elections were abolished and powers to appoint were placed in him,” a knowledgeable source tells Mulengera news.
Quoting one of the distraught top bureaucrats, the source added: “One of them said this will be very unfair and treachery of the highest order because we had our MP seats and were duped to resign them to concentrate on doing party work. How does the appointing ponder doing such a heartless thing to us? Wasn’t Mbabazi after all right when he and his wife Jacqueline warned us of catastrophe in 2015? This is a clear case of using and dumping colleagues at the convenience of the chairman.”
It will be recalled that Lumumba’s fellow top bureaucrats all had MP positions as of 2015 when Museveni, who had just fallen out with long-time ally JPAM, posted them at Kyaddondo promising they would rejuvenate the party and make it very active. JPAM was painted as a spoiler who was a very inaccessible SG in whose hands the party had become a laughing stock.
The new team were praised as the young energetic and very accessible cadres who would once again make the party membership proud of their political organization. Namayanja was woman MP Nakaseke, Omona was MP Kaberamaido County, Todwong was MP Nwoya County and Lumumba was the long serving woman MP Bugiri. The idea was to make them full time and have total devotion to doing party work without being distracted by constituency pressures.
Knowledgeable sources say whereas the Secretariat purge might obliterate everyone else including the indomitable Odoi Tanga, SG Lumumba might be the only one of the old guard to be spared but be given a totally new team. We couldn’t readily establish what the source of Lumumba’s information (that Secretariat would be reshuffled along with cabinet) was. (For comments, email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
