The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Mbale, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Gender Labor and Social Development State Minister, Peace Mutuuzo is being accused by one of the factions in Inzu Ya Masaba for being behind the leadership disputes that have bedevilled by the cultural institution. Inzu has been struggling to gazette its new cultural head alias Umukuka following the demise of the late Bob Mushikori last months.
Prior to Mushikori’s death, a group of Bamasaba clan heads led by the former Speaker, Nelson Wedaira, the former Speaker of Inzu Ya Masaba elected Jude Mike Mudoma as their leader. However, the cultural council led by Bobi Mushikori elected John Amram Wagabyalile as the cultural leader. They also went ahead to install and gazette him as the new Umukuka.
However, while at the burial of the late Mushikori, Mutuuzo said no one has been gazetted as Bamasaba cultural as far as the government is concerned. This drew uproar from the cultural council prompting them to send a delegation to the government over the matter.
Now in his February 8, 2021, letter to the Gender Labor and Social Development Minister, Frank Tumwebaze, Geoffrey Wepondi, the Secretary-General of Inzu Ya Masaba, accuses Mutuuzo of reinstating leaders ejected from the institution during their general assembly in 2019.
He asserts that their general assembly chaired by the late Mushikori dully elected Wagabyalile as Umukuka III. “There were five contestants in the race including Wagabylile who was elected and Jude Mudoma who purportedly was elected the III Umukuka but Mudoma wanted to go through shortcuts beating the established process and now he is fighting to legalize illegality using the machinery of your state minister’s office…,” the letter reads in part.
He further alleges that High Court delivered a ruling on November 10, 2020 stopping the minister’s actions. According to the same letter, on February 1, 2021, delegates held an extraordinary general assembly and resolved to forward Wagabyalile’s name to Tumwebaze’s office for gazetting as Mushikori’s successor and that the Umukuka has already proposed a cabinet, which the elders have approved.
However, Mudoma’s faction insists that he is the rightly elected cultural leader of the Bamasaba. Last week, the outgoing Sironko district LC V Chairperson, Herbert Mulekwa convened a crisis meeting including clan heads, RDCs, LC V chairpersons, and Chief Administrative Officers from Mbale, Bududa, Namisindwa, Manafwa and Bulambuli but Wagabyalile’s group shunned it.
In the meeting, the leaders resolved to forward Mudoma’s name as the dully-elected leader of the Bamasaba. Wediara claims that during the meeting, the clan leaders from Mwambu clan, where the new Umukuka is expected to come from unanimously agreed that Mudoma is gazetted Umukuka III.
He said they have written to the Gender Ministry to gazette Mudoma to fill the vacuum left by the late Mushikori.
Mutuuzo dismissed Wepondi’s allegations as mere opinions but declined to divulge further details. “We have not yet got the successor. That is his opinion and I don’t want to talk about that,” she said.
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