The National Unity Platform (NUP) deputy president in charge of Buganda and also the Butambala County legislator Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi has revealed secrets why former Prime Minister John Patrick Amama Mbabazi declared never to work in president Museveni’s cabinet since his dismissal in 2015.
Highly placed State House sources revealed to this investigative website that after the 2021 general election, President Museveni reached out to Mbabazi to help him on shaping his new government after development partners especially United Kingdom, United States, member countries of the European Union deserted him and some even declined to congratulate him for retaining his position as the President of Uganda.
Sources allege that Museveni was ready to appoint Mbabazi as his Vice President or Prime Minister.
However, Mbabazi declined to take the offer but assured his longtime comrade that he will be available whenever he needs his services and as a result Museveni appointed him as his Special Envoy and allocated him a juicy monthly salary and allowances.
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Before the end of the talks, sources said that Museveni asked Mbabazi to propose to him names of people who he thinks can help him to run the government.
Among the names he proposed included the current Vice President Jessica Alupo who was defeated in the 2016 parliamentary elections because of supporting Mbabazi. This was after a move by Museveni to sweep away all Mbabazi political allies from his government then.
Kivumbi insists that he was not shocked by Mbabazi’s decision of not taking Museveni’s ministerial offer explaining that after his dismissal, he reached out to him when he was still a member of the Democratic Party to support his candidature as a presidential candidate fronted by the forces of the opposition under the Democratic Alliance (TDA).
Kivumbi divulged that Mbabazi’s proposal placed him on a rock and hard place and he had to put him to task to explain the cause of his departure from Museveni.
“Speaking from the bottom of his heart, and I observed his pain, Mbabazi narrated to us how Museveni is a betrayer, a man who cannot keep his word and only wants to die in power,” Kivumbi claimed.
Kivumbi disclosed that after the deadly 2011 general election, Museveni summoned Mbabazi and assured him that he was going to retire in 2016 and wanted him as his replacement as the next president.
He even advised him to start preparing his government by placing people he thinks will help him in government positions, that is why he chose 70% of the people who made it to the 2011 Museveni cabinet.
However, he was shocked when he saw Evelyn Anite the current State Minister in charge of investment in the Ministry of Finance and other youths kneeling down pleading with Museveni to come back and contest as president in 2016. These alleged youths also proposed to President Museveni that he should stand unopposed in the party. Mbabzi was sure that Museveni was going to decline the offer but he was surprised when he accepted. Kivumbi narrates that at first Mbabazi thought that Museveni accepted because he wanted to make Anite and her group happy, but he was surprised when he went ahead with the plans to stand again.
Kivumbi disclosed that Mbabazi kept on driving his political preparation even though he started receiving information that Museveni was not happy with him.
In 2015, an angry Museveni summoned Mbabazi at State House Entebbe and accused him of fighting him internally and dividing his government.
Mbabazi according to Kivumbi denied the allegations and reminded the president that he promised him that he was not going to contest in 2016.
Museveni openly told him that he had cancelled the arrangement he made with him and he was going to contest again which shocked Mbabazi
The president told him that he will schedule another meeting to explain why he took the said decision.
The next day, Mbabazi received information that the president is going to announce his dismissal from his cabinet.
He didn’t believe the information at first since he had promised to call him for another meeting. So he thought that he will invite him and inform him of his decision before publicly announcing it.
“Mbabazi told us that he was shocked to read from the social media that Museveni had dismissed him and replaced him with Ruhakana Rugunda. When he contacted Rugunda, he confirmed to have talked to the big man who communicated to him the development. Mbabazi told us that from that day, he discovered that Museveni is not a man of his word,” Kivumbi said.
State House sources said that Mbabazi was humiliated in the last meeting before his dismissal from cabinet.
Museveni summoned him and told him that their meeting was going to take place at 11am at Entebbe State House but he was shocked when the guards ordered him to move out of the car so that he is checked on reaching the gate of the State House which he protested because for years it had never happened to him.
Sources said that Museveni was in the window following whatever was going on at the gate insisting that he was the one who gave the directive that Mbabazi be checked at the gate and his phones be confiscated before going into the meeting with the president.
“As Mbabazi was quarrelling with mean looking Special Forces Command (SFC) Commandos, Museveni sent his assistants to inform him that he has cancelled their meeting and that he should come back the next day. Given that Mbabazi was aware of the bad blood which had developed between him and his boss, he realised that the President was the one who issued the directive that led to his humiliation at the gate and the next day, when he came, he surrendered whatever he had and allowed to be checked.”
Kivumbi assured all the people working with Museveni to know that he doesn’t have permanent friends but deals with people because they are working for his interests.
He was supported by Democratic Party national vice president Fred Mukasa Mbidde who said that in the coming general elections, Museveni’s interests are on youths and many people of his age are going to be dropped in his bid to make the youth happy.
