Veteran political journalist and also the Jinja city Resident City Commissioner (RCC) Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi has revealed that the rejection of the nominated State Minister for Internal Affairs professor Lawrance Muganga was influenced by internal and diaspora politics of Rwanda.
Musaazi said that when Muganga travelled to Canada and become very influential in Banyarwanda diaspora community, he helped both those who are against president Paul Kagame and those supporting his government which placed him between a rock and a hard rock and a hard place.
“Professor Muganga’s issue is very complicated and wide and cannot only be looked at from the angle of being rejected by parliament’s appointment committee. Firstly, those in President Kagame’s government and those fighting it do not understand him because they are not sure whether he supports them or he is fighting them, so I am very sure that those factors are influencing his rejection,” Musaazi said.
He added that the said factors were cited when he was arrested and briefly detained by intelligence agencies over allegation of being a spy for a certain country which by then was not in good terms with President Museveni who directed his release after studying the situation.
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He wondered why he didn’t learn from that incident and became cautious when uttering some statements after being rejected by parliament.
He insists that it was very wrong for Muganga to record a conversation he was having with the deputy speaker of parliament Thomas Tayebwa noting that his actions may have even scared the appointing authority.
Peter Kibazo also a veteran political journalist said that it was wrong for Muganga to attack Tayebwa as a person who stood in the way of his approval as a minister citing their personal issues.
Kibazo said that before announcing the names of the designated ministers, Museveni through his intelligence agencies especially the Internal Security Organisation(ISO) do investigations on all potential candidates and accordingly advise him and give him all details concerning the people he wishes to work with in his government so this was also done on Muganga.
Kibazo insisted that Tayebwa based on a classified report which intelligence bosses forwarded to the President on considering Muganga’s appointment. He thus wondered how it reached Tayebwa who later used it to expose him as having more than two citizenship and secretly traveling to a neighbouring country.
Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda also a veteran journalist and also former Kira Municipality legislator revealed that he was among the lobbyists that former Kampala city mayor Hajji Nasser Ntege Ssebaggala deployed to lobby for his approval in parliament appointments committee as a minister and to fulfil this task, he engaged a number of legislators who sit on that committee.
However, he was told that there was a directive from the appointing authority to then the speaker of parliament Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga not to approve Ssebaggala which she did on grounds of not having the required academic qualifications.
He added that Muganga failed to understand that there is a lot of lobbying and influence peddling once one has been designated as a minister. He narrated how Kadaga lobbied parliament’s appointments committee to approve Hajji Abdul Nadduli as a minister even though he did not have the academic qualifications like Ssebaggala who was rejected.
Frank Gashumba, a close friend to Muganga insists that there was no report which was used to reject his colleague. He accused Tayebwa of using his position to settle his score against the people with Rwanda origin in Uganda noting that Museveni appointed Muganga as a minister with an open heart and designated him in a ministry where they have been facing difficulty when seeking government services especially National Identity Cards and passports.
He further alleged that Muganga’s rejection was influenced by money which exchanged hands and they have evidence to support their claim.
Highly placed intelligence sources revealed to Ono Bwino that security bosses were shocked after learning that a section of people including a ruthless tycoon in the city deployed more than Shs2bn to lobby for Muganga’s approval.
However, Rwomushana disclosed that that the troubles that Muganga is going through are as a result of him and Gashumba betraying the Banyarwanda community in Uganda after they trusted them to lead the fight against being discriminated especially when it came to giving them national documents which could help them to secure ownership of land.
“I have evidence that the Banyarwanda community in Uganda sent three people including Muganga and Gashumba to meet President Museveni; the main issue was for them to get national documents. But they were shocked that after the meeting, Gashumba and Muganga changed and started mobilizing and using the Banyarwanda people in Uganda to declare support for Museveni and Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba which endangered them in the country, and placed them as targets,” Rwomushana said.
He added that since then, it is only Fred Mukasa Mbidde who is also of Rwandese origin and a lawyer to a number of them who is advocating for them to own land in Uganda. He even threatened to institute a Constitutional petition against Museveni government even though Gashumba and Muganga are not even commenting on the issue of evicting their fellow Banyarwanda from their land around the country but they are only focused on mobilizing political support for President Museveni and Gen Muhoozi.
“It is also very dangerous for Gashumba and Muganga to blackmail Museveni. It is wrong for them to think that he appointed Muganga a minister as a result of the meeting they held with him when the entire community trusted them and he instead betrayed them” Rwomushana said
Veteran journalist John Kakande revealed that the issue of Banyarwanda in Buganda has been used as a political tool for so long. He revealed how it helped Museveni to defeat Dr Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere in the hotly contested 1996 presidential election.
“I remember Museveni summoned all news editors in Uganda when Joseph Kony was fighting his government, Drake Ssekeba asked him to clear the air on the allegations Kony was raising that he was fighting Museveni because he is a Munyarwanda not Uganda. Museveni told Ssekeba that he was a Ugandan, but he also told him that even if he was not Ugandan, the people of Uganda should be open to anyone who brings good things to them instead on concentrating on small issues of tribalism and checking their backgrounds,” Kakande said.
