Muhoozi tweet helped me reconnect with Besigye — Gen. Saleh
“When I went to the hospital, I found my friend almost dead in prison. My first action was to take him from the prison to a proper medical centre where he is currently being attended to. It's the same bed I would be in myself if I were under intensive conditions. Besigye was promptly taken to the Joint Clinical Research Centre, which he helped to establish in the early years of the war,” the decorated General revealed.
Gen. Saleh (R) said he has since been in touch with Besigye (L) and they are reflecting on how they separated, tracing back to 1986 and later to 1999 when Besigye wrote his political paper and he wrote his own paper on poverty.
NAKASEKE - Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho, popularly known as Gen. Salim Saleh, has explained how a post by Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba on social media X helped him reconnect with his old friend, Dr. Kizza Besigye, whom he described as an “old friend.”
Speaking to Parliament Committee Chairpersons, regional parliament whips, zonal whips and members of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Budget on Friday in Kapeeka in Nakaseke district, Gen. Saleh said he received the tweet on August 25th from the PLU leader saying Besigye's problem was his problem.
“He (Muhoozi) didn't know that he had given me a very, very good opportunity. Because of those politics, I had lost touch with KB completely,” Saleh, the Chief Coordinator of Operation Wealth Creation, revealed on Friday (October 30) during an interaction with a cross-section of legislators from the Parliament of Uganda.
Saleh who is also a senior Presidential Advisor of Defence, revealed that in his move to engage Besigye recommended his transfer from the hospital at Luzira prisons to another facility.
“When I went to the hospital, I found my friend almost dead in prison. My first action was to take him from the prison to a proper medical centre where he is currently being attended to. It's the same bed I would be in myself if I were under intensive conditions. Besigye was promptly taken to the Joint Clinical Research Centre, which he helped to establish in the early years of the war,” the decorated General revealed.
CDF Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba
Gen. Saleh said he has since been in touch with Besigye and they are reflecting on how they separated, tracing back to 1986 and later to 1999 when Besigye wrote his political paper and he wrote his own paper on poverty.
“So, I said I'm going to let him stabilise in the hospital, and then I will ask him. So I have been in touch with him. All the newspapers are talking about peace talks, but that's where we are," he said.
He added that the engagement is not about the peace talks being reported in the media, but about reconnecting and ensuring the younger generation does not inherit their generational quarrels.
“The moment I got that tweet, I said, now God has helped me to reconnect with an old colleague. And we are working out, I hope, in the next maybe six months or maybe three months, to have a combined outlook of the Uganda we want to move. So that you don't inherit our generational quarrels. So don't ask me whether we are in peace talks or not,” Saleh said.
The OWC chief was hosting over 100 legislators on a working visit to Liao Shen Industrial Park (also known as Kapeeka Industrial Park) located within the Namunkekera Rural Industrial Centre in Nakaseke District in Greater Luwero Triangle.