By Raymond Baguma
and Rwambuka Mugisha

PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has said former Inspector General of Government (IGG) Augustine Ruzindana has a history of fleeing liberation struggles.

Ruzindana, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) flag-bearer for Ruhaama, is contesting against the First Lady, Janet Museveni, who is the incumbent MP.

Campaigning in Ruhaama on Wednesday, Museveni said Ruzindana abandoned the 1972 liberation struggle against Idi Amin.

“When we reached Mbarara, Ruzindana fled and abandoned us,” Museveni said. “He went to Dar-es-Salaam, while we continued with the struggle.

“When Amin was defeated, Ruzindana came back. I reasoned, ‘if there are few cooks and the eaters are many, there is no problem.’ So, I worked with him,” Museveni added.

He said: “When the Luweero bush war was launched in 1981, I thought Ruzindana would join the struggle, but he went to work with the board of international trade. After hunting my animal in 1986, I invited him to share the meat and I made him IGG.”

Ruzindana was the IGG from 1986 to 1996. He later became Ruhaama county MP from 1996 to 2006. When he fell out with the NRM party, he lost his parliamentary seat to Mrs. Museveni.

Museveni said it was wrong for opposition politicians to say projects such as tarmacking the Ntungamo-Kafunjo-Mirama road had delayed: “The road will be worked on just like the electricity was,” he said.

The President said when the NRM government came to power in 1986, there was no money in the national treasury and they relied on donors. However, over the years, the economy had improved.

NRM supporters in Kitwe complained that Ruzindana had denied them access to water for their livestock in Nshenyi, where he owns a private valley dam.

Museveni then promised to construct a valley dam in the area and another one in Nyabushenyi, as well as a gravity flow scheme in Ngoma.

He also urged the residents to embrace NAADS to boost their household incomes.

Museveni also said a number of schools in the district would be rehabilitated.

During another rally in Ntungamo municipality, the President revealed that he was once a close associate of Yona Kanyomozi and had co-founded Uganda Patriotic Movement party in 1980.

However, shortly after, Kanyomozi defected to the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) party. Kanyomozi is contesting for the municipality seat.

“UPC has failed twice in 1971 and 1985 with Kanyomozi there. Kanyomozi, you are old and with non-functional eye glasses,” Museveni said.