Kategaya has exposed FDC’s fragile position

Jun 01, 2006

THE acceptance of Eriya Kategaya to return to cabinet and serve the ‘third term’ he vehemently criticised and opposed, and was ‘greatly’ praised for being a “statesman” only months back has kicked up contradictory political storms, which will not subside soon.

THE acceptance of Eriya Kategaya to return to cabinet and serve the ‘third term’ he vehemently criticised and opposed, and was ‘greatly’ praised for being a “statesman” only months back has kicked up contradictory political storms, which will not subside soon.
So, when the Director of the Government Media Centre, Robert Kabushenga issued a political treatise on the recent cabinet appointments I thought it was a trifle because the president’s prerogative to appoint had not been questioned.
The treatise reminded me of former US President Richard Nixon who said, “Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them, and politicians should use rounded words because they can return to hurt them.”
I believe it is the public’s unbridled constitutional right to question the president’s wisdom in these appointments and to hold the nominees accountable to their previous and future actions, especially when there have been controversies.
President Yoweri Museveni is also right to get vexed if he thinks that his critics are not “broadminded,” in questioning him, and as an elected leader the only choice is constant explanation to the public, but not to shut the debate particularly by those in the executive arm of government.
I agree with Seezi Cheye’s reasoning in his article “A lesson from Kategaya’s return,” published on May 30 that for meaningful ideological struggles there ought to be “Think Tanks,” on either side of the divide, and if Kategaya’s return represents such a depth, that is good for the NRM and Uganda.
Mr. Cheeye, those of us who publicly and strongly disagreed with Kategaya did not do so because he was old but because his view that we should change both the captain and the ship at the same time in the middle of the high seas was not strategic and we are happy to have won and he is now our side. And Cheeye is also right that for the FDC whose leaders have been working through secrecy, intrigue, subterfuge, and sometimes criminality are at a loss in this huge abandonment.
It was not surprising that FDC spokesman Wafula Oguttu was so enthusiastic in his rebuttal to Kategeya’s move that he gave the public and the NRM more than we could have bargained for. Yes, it is official, and Wafula testified that Kategaya led a three-man team, which included Augustine Ruzindana, and Oguttu to a two-hour meeting with the then President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa to market the FDC, and hopefully undermine Museveni’s government.
Oguttu’s outburst betrayed the level of the political immaturity within the FDC leadership and is proof that they are a bunch one should never trust because they will spill all the beans at the slightest provocation and it is a warning to those that may dare disagree with them in future.
It is all sour grapes when Wafula claims “Kategaya will not be missed much in the party as his contribution was minimal,” as if leading FDC to meet Mkapa as Tanzanian president was trivial.
In meeting Mkapa, the FDC whose leadership under Dr Kizza Besigye has been tainted with allegations of links to internationally blacklisted terrorists ADF and LRA and hostile neighbouring governments was the most important drive to whitewash its public image and couldn’t have been “very minimal contribution,” as Wafula wants us to believe.
And it would not have been a “very minimal contribution” if Kategaya had travelled to South Africa for the first FDC NEC meeting with the then self-exiled Besigye because the FDC had picked those thought as their “best and biggest”.
after all, we still remember how the FDC sang that Museveni had been abandoned by his long-time childhood and political friend since primary school days!
But as a blessing in disguise it would also be good if Wafula could publicly disclose the criminal contacts the Reform Agenda or the FDC have had that have abandoned them especially after James Opoka’s death in the ADF and LRA hands instead of the perpetual denials. While it is no secret that Kategeya encouraged the merger between the RA and PAFO into FDC, it was his right to withdraw when he sensed a dubious political programme or criminal mischief both of which the FDC seems to be vigorously pursuing.
Indeed, when Kategaya declined to travel to South Africa to meet Besigye, then a fugitive, and even avoided him on return, FDC leaders should have “smelt a rat,” as the saying goes because as former internal affairs minister, Kategaya chaired the National Security Committee, and was privy to the extent of Besigye’s alleged involvement in criminal activities including the treason charges he is facing today!
And herein lies the dilemma in the FDC because it seems many posturing as leaders may be knowing too little within, and when their party turns into a burial cart, they have to weep, wave cannon, and sing, “Oh the sun that never sleeps!” So the cry about Kategaya’s ‘U-turn’ sounds more like publicly challenging an officer who has abandoned his men in battle to look a frontline soldier in the face if he has any courage.
Ends

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