Bidandi will never be our president
Jan 23, 2006
<b>By Matayo Kyaligonza</b><br><br>Former minister Bidandi Ssali has formed a political party. This is a welcome idea. It shows that there is freedom in the country. However, he claimed that he fundraised and recruited for the NRA during the bush war (1981-5). Bidandi has never done any of these t
By Matayo Kyaligonza
Former minister Bidandi Ssali has formed a political party. This is a welcome idea. It shows that there is freedom in the country. However, he claimed that he fundraised and recruited for the NRA during the bush war (1981-5). Bidandi has never done any of these things and if he did, it was not with the knowledge of the NRA.
I was at the pulpit of recruitment and in charge of clandestine operations of NRA bush war. Anybody coming to the bush or getting out, say to come to Kampala, had to go through my unit called Mwanga Unit based in Namugongo. It was later renamed a task force which became the famous Black Bomba operating in Kampala. When we were liberating Kampala it became the Seventh Battalion.
While in Namugongo in 1982, we had a problem with contacts because we were in concealment and we did not want our location identified. So we had to get a discreet contact and Hon Eriya Kategaya came to my unit to do exactly that. He mentioned Bidandi Ssali, who was Secretary General of Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM), as one of the people with whom they were agreeing politically.
I proposed that Kategaya writes a letter and my couriers, the late Ssozi and Capt. David Kibirige, took it to Bidandi in Kiwatule. But he was so enraged and asked, “Why are you people following me yet when you were going to the bush you never contacted me?†He warned us to leave him alone and immediately leave his area. We shifted that night from Namugongo to Janda and the place was attacked three days later. We associated that attack with him.
He was again referred to me by the chairman of NRA (President Museveni) in 1983. We were in financial problems. I was advised that UPM had some funds on bank accounts and that Bidandi was aware of this. I contacted Hon. Kasaija Matiya to let me know where Bidandi was. Kasaija said some of the funds had been left with him and were kept by his wife. He said the money could not be given to me until Bidandi, one of the signatories, endorsed it. I went to Bidandi and he dismissed us. He said he was not responsible for finances.
So when he talks of helping the struggle financially, I get puzzled. What kind of finances? As a person we are looking at as our future leader, since he says his political party will take power in 2011, we need him to first name the people he recruited into NRA. He should also say how much money he helped to raise.
I am looking at Bidandi’s future in Uganda’s politics as opportunistic. Naturally Bidandi is growing old and five years down the road he will have definitely degenerated in terms of output. He will not be the same smart Bidandi when he was the manager of Kampala City Council football club. The vigour and activity would have gone. I am looking at the next election because now he is not participating anywhere. I don’t know whether his party has been registered but if it has, it will become active after five years. So you can see that 2011 is too far. I am looking at him becoming our president in 2016 or 2021 because by 2011 his party will not have hit the ground seriously. I see he is only gambling to show that he is still around.
Bidandi is a very interesting fellow. He was telling the President that he was going to spoil his legacy and the confidence people had in him would wither. Same thing is going to happen to Bidandi.
I would look at him as a respectable old man who has had it all well because he has been in every regime. I would have wished him to retire honourably without going into these hustles of politics because this is why I am attacking him. It is because he has exposed himself and gone into the hustle of telling lies.
The writer is Uganda’s High Commissioner to Kenya
As told to Charles Etukuri
Former minister Bidandi Ssali has formed a political party. This is a welcome idea. It shows that there is freedom in the country. However, he claimed that he fundraised and recruited for the NRA during the bush war (1981-5). Bidandi has never done any of these things and if he did, it was not with the knowledge of the NRA.
I was at the pulpit of recruitment and in charge of clandestine operations of NRA bush war. Anybody coming to the bush or getting out, say to come to Kampala, had to go through my unit called Mwanga Unit based in Namugongo. It was later renamed a task force which became the famous Black Bomba operating in Kampala. When we were liberating Kampala it became the Seventh Battalion.
While in Namugongo in 1982, we had a problem with contacts because we were in concealment and we did not want our location identified. So we had to get a discreet contact and Hon Eriya Kategaya came to my unit to do exactly that. He mentioned Bidandi Ssali, who was Secretary General of Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM), as one of the people with whom they were agreeing politically.
I proposed that Kategaya writes a letter and my couriers, the late Ssozi and Capt. David Kibirige, took it to Bidandi in Kiwatule. But he was so enraged and asked, “Why are you people following me yet when you were going to the bush you never contacted me?†He warned us to leave him alone and immediately leave his area. We shifted that night from Namugongo to Janda and the place was attacked three days later. We associated that attack with him.
He was again referred to me by the chairman of NRA (President Museveni) in 1983. We were in financial problems. I was advised that UPM had some funds on bank accounts and that Bidandi was aware of this. I contacted Hon. Kasaija Matiya to let me know where Bidandi was. Kasaija said some of the funds had been left with him and were kept by his wife. He said the money could not be given to me until Bidandi, one of the signatories, endorsed it. I went to Bidandi and he dismissed us. He said he was not responsible for finances.
So when he talks of helping the struggle financially, I get puzzled. What kind of finances? As a person we are looking at as our future leader, since he says his political party will take power in 2011, we need him to first name the people he recruited into NRA. He should also say how much money he helped to raise.
I am looking at Bidandi’s future in Uganda’s politics as opportunistic. Naturally Bidandi is growing old and five years down the road he will have definitely degenerated in terms of output. He will not be the same smart Bidandi when he was the manager of Kampala City Council football club. The vigour and activity would have gone. I am looking at the next election because now he is not participating anywhere. I don’t know whether his party has been registered but if it has, it will become active after five years. So you can see that 2011 is too far. I am looking at him becoming our president in 2016 or 2021 because by 2011 his party will not have hit the ground seriously. I see he is only gambling to show that he is still around.
Bidandi is a very interesting fellow. He was telling the President that he was going to spoil his legacy and the confidence people had in him would wither. Same thing is going to happen to Bidandi.
I would look at him as a respectable old man who has had it all well because he has been in every regime. I would have wished him to retire honourably without going into these hustles of politics because this is why I am attacking him. It is because he has exposed himself and gone into the hustle of telling lies.
The writer is Uganda’s High Commissioner to Kenya
As told to Charles Etukuri