Bukenya speaks out on PM Mbabazi saga

Mar 16, 2014

Former Vice President Prof. Gilbert Balibaseka Bukenya has said Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi is suffering the consequences of his sins.

By Moses Mulondo

Former Ugandan Vice President Prof. Gilbert Balibaseka Bukenya has said Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi is suffering the consequences of his "sins" in the ongoing hostility he is facing for allegedly secretly scheming to stand against President Yoweri Museveni.

In his letter over the weekend, Bukenya said: “For Jackline Mbabazi [Mbabazi’s wife] to cry foul of how the president was getting doctored intelligence reports and recordings against their alleged clandestine mobilization against him, was the most interesting of all, and it exposed their extreme hypocrisy.

“Why call them doctored now, yet the same were used not many years ago, by her husband's security apparatus to malign some of us and falsely tell of how we were mobilizing Baganda army officers, Cardinal, clergy and entire Catholic flock to build power bases against the President?” asked Bukenya.

The Busiro North MP, who has repeatedly announced he will stand for presidency in 2016, faulted Museveni for pampering and shielding Mbabazi despite several indications that the latter had been sowing seeds of acrimony in the party through blackmailing NRM leaders.

‘President listens without panic and emotion’

“I will never forget a scenario when Hon Mbabazi and his sister-in-law Hope Mwesigye unfairly and without shame, accused me before the President with purely made-up stories,” said the legislator.

He went on: “That while on my prosperity for all tours in kigezi, in my capacity as Vice President, I only visited homesteads of Catholics and that I was sleeping at the Catholic bishop's residence for night political campaign meetings.

“I watched in utmost disbelief Hon Hope Mwesigye and Hon Mbabazi both boldly tell blatant and cooked up lies to the President in my presence. Fortunately President Museveni listens and does so patiently without panic and emotion. Otherwise he would have sealed off my fate there and then as a treason suspect,” Bukenya narrated.

On the position of Secretary General, Prof. Bukenya wondered why Mbabazi has refused to relinquish the office as it had been resolved in a 2010 NRM NEC that the office bearer should not be part of the executive except for the position of minister without portfolio.  

Museveni’s former deputy stated that the contest for Secretary General between him, Mbabazi, Kahinda Otafiire and others was massively rigged by Mbabazi’s family members who had the control over the voters’ register.

“It's indeed laughable to hear Mbabazi and his people bragging that he defeated us,” he said.

“The fact that myself as well as Otafire who contested for Secretary General then with him, chose not to speak against the shameful and glaring fraud at Namboole, didn’t mean all was well or even fair. Not at all.

“We chose to keep quiet, concede all that had taken place for the sake of our party and the circumstances of electioneering we were in. We didn't want whatsoever to divide our supporters as we entered the general elections,” Bukenya explained.

Having determined who becomes a delegate, Bukenya said, Mbabazi would have won even if he had contested with President Yoweri Museveni.

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