By Mulengera Reporters
This Thursday, relatives and friends gathered at Kololo to celebrate the memory of late Eria Kategaya, the fallen former deputy prime minister, who grew up and went to school with Gen Yoweri Museveni. He actually was his best and for long accepted to be his defacto number two inside the Movement.
He was for decades considered to be Museveni’s best friends until the mid 2000s when they bitterly fell out over the removal of term limits. Kategaya was a strong believer in term limits whereby Museveni had to be president for only 10 years and not in perpetuity. He was to do two elective terms each of 5 years (1996-2006).
It was Kategaya who forced Museveni to write in his 2001 manifesto that this was his last term meaning he would leave the seat in 2006. Museveni went against this and had his NRM MPs change the constitution in 2005 to enable him get 3rd term in 2006. Kategaya strongly opposed this move and ended up being dropped from cabinet by Museveni.
In 2006, Kategaya briefly joined FDC and Kizza Besigye was his candidate but because he had been in government for too long, he couldn’t manage hard life that comes with being in opposition. He one time had his vehicle run out of fuel in the middle of the jam on Kampala Road and this demonstrated how he had fallen on hard times.
Museveni took advantage of this financial destitution to lure him back and the media for long described this as the biggest U-turn in Uganda’s political history.
Kategaya was rehabilitated and given back the cabinet job of being the deputy prime minister in charge of East African Community exactly what Rebecca Kadaga holds today.
He was given EAC because he resented a position which would require him to engage in aggressive politicking against the colleagues he had hobnobbed with during his brief stint in the opposition.
Museveni allowed him that soft landing to enable him keep accessing state groceries to escape the humiliation similar to what he endured when his vehicle ran out of fuel in the middle of jam on Kampala Road. He lived on that until when he fell sick and died of thrombosis in a Kenyan hospital and was buried in his birth place of Rwampara with full honor.
During their fallout years, Kategaya published his memoirs titled “Impassioned by Freedom” in which he gave his views on how his childhood friend had veered off the original objectives of the Movement. One time as he campaigned against Museveni’s 3rd term, Kategaya during a public debate at Makerere and said he felt betrayed by Museveni’s decision to cling on power.
He called the thing a ‘sad term [trying to trivialize those campaigning for 3rd term]’ and made it clear that in his native Ankole, an old man of Museveni’s age “only turns in his bed” and never “on his word.” There was junior Minister Prof Ssemakula Kiwanuka from Mityana who distinguished himself as a leading defender of what Kategaya termed the ‘sad term.’
Prof Ssemakula Kiwanuka, who many thoughts would become Vice President being a Catholic, those days had distinguished himself as a leading sycophant of Gen Museveni and was making headlines in newspapers. So, one time the two met for a public debate on deletion/retention of terms limits in the Constitution and Kategeya belittled Semakula Kiwanuka by contemptuously referring to him as “this professor of history but who has no sense of history at all.”
This was in a bid to demonstrate how bad politics, of seeking to rule for life and leaders having to be bombed out of power, as opposed to vacating when still popular, had been responsible for Uganda’s turbulent political past. Kategaya’s view was that the ‘sad term’ would create turbulence reminiscent of what had characterised Uganda’s past regimes. He expected Ssemakula, having been a history Professor at Makerere, to reflect on the country’s history and join them in pressurizing Museveni to leave after two terms as opposed to clinging on.
Back to Kololo: so at the memorial event at Kololo, Sir Richard Kaijuka, another eminent Ankole elder who joined the Kategayas and many others to unsuccessfully push back against life presidency in 2005-2006, was asked to speak on behalf of the deceased’s friends.
He didn’t disappoint. The super rich Kaijuka, who deals in minerals and managed to remain rich even after politically falling out with Gen Museveni upto this day, demanded that Museveni honors his childhood friend by considering to voluntarily retire as opposed to being President for life.
Speaking with respect for the veteran leader from Rwakitura who has been graceful to him even when they politically disagree, Kaijuka asserted that this would be the best way to honor Kategaya whose wish it was to see a free & fair election organised for Museveni to hand over power to someone else. As can be expected, Museveni uneasily turned in his seat as Kaijuka fearlessly drove his point home.
Museveni, who was guest of honor and also unveiled widow Joan Kategaya’s book (titled Reflections of Resilience) at the same event, must have felt insulted but didn’t vigorously push back on this provocative and controversial demand by Richard Kaijuka.
ERIYA KATEGAYA WHO?
Eriya Kategaya Tukahirwa was born in 1945 and hailed from Rwampara in Ntungamo district and had the previledge to closely study with Museveni right from P1 at Kyamate Primary School, Ntare High School and later on at Dar es Salaam University in Tanzania where he did law at Uganda’s future did some other not very prestigious course.
Along with Museveni, Kategaya relentlessly participated in the struggles against bad governance in Uganda starting with Amin in the 1970s and later on against Milton Obote in the 1980s (his UPC past notwithstanding). He was a member of the NRM external wing whose members concentrated on publicising the cause for which NRA was fighting. They also did a lot to coordinate fundraising efforts and recruiting good will globally.
When NRM took power in 1986, Kategaya was only 41 and was initially made Minister of State before eventually becoming deputy Prime Minister and later on NPC and head of the Movement Secretariat. He later on also served as Foreign Affairs Minister and put his diplomatic skills to work.
In the early 2000s, he led an internal revolt against Museveni from inside within the Movement and this was aimed at opposing what he called the ‘sad term.’ He was part of the PAFO crusade which in 2005 metamorphosed into FDC under the leadership of Dr. Kizza Besigye.
This showed how principled Eria Kategaya was-opposing and taking on his childhood buddy YK Museveni who for decades had christened him his defacto number 2 inside the Movement through allocating him the resistance number-two-inside the hierarchy of the political high command.
Until when he succumbed to thrombosis on 2nd March 2013 in a Kenyan Hospital, Kategaya was known as Resistance Officer R002 under the NRM hierarchy. Museveni, who won the 2006 elections during which Kategaya’s candidate was Kizza Besigye, learnt of the destitute life he was living (one time called him lazy) and lured back to the Movement and once again made him Minister.
This U-turn (namely going back to Museveni) he famously made angered many colleagues in the opposition especially the FDC, which he had joined, but his sympathizers praised and defended it as an act of political pragmatism namely that much as he had contempt for Museveni’s life presidency ambitions, the alternative (synonymous with Besigye’s promised Tsunami) was even worse if not less certain. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
