The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
“He (Muntu) has always claimed he is a democrat however he seems to have come to the election thinking it was a must win for him,” Atuheire noted emphasizing that Muntu’s consultations should be dealt with carefully and party members should only go knowing that they are personal.
“Using a party name to consult its members while planning to build another force is what is unacceptable,” Atuheire added, “There is no company, political party, organization worth its name that should recognize people who want to form a splinter faction to steal its members. I therefore think that such consultations should be treated with contempt.”
Apart from Atuheire, FDC secretary general, Nandala Mafabi has also been openly against Muntu’s consultations. When the consultations had just started, Nandala wrote Muntu a letter saying his consultations were not approved and passed by the party’s National Executive Committee.
“This is for purposes of harmonizing party activities,” the letter read in part, “All activities of the party will be communicated to you by my office.”
The letter was largely ignored and seen as biased. Muntu and Nandala have not been great friends since the former beat the latter to the party presidency in a highly divisive election in 2012.
Indeed, the current rifts in the party partly stem from that election. While Muntu managed to hold the party together during his reign, the contradictions within FDC appear to have reached a breaking point during the November 2017 polls in which members loyal to Kizza Besigye who identify as the defiance camp voted in Amuriat and against Muntu’s side referred to as the organization camp owing to Muntu’s leadership style that prioritises nurturing organizational capabilities. Defiance on the other hand seems to focus on radical opposition to government.
After the November elections, many urged Muntu to form a new political claiming that he no longer had a place in the party. However, he defied these calls, started the consultations, which he says promise a carefully managed process.
Despite insisting his focus is on resolving contradictions within the FDC, occasionally, Muntu drops hints of quitting the party.
“Even before we form a new party,” Muntu says, “we must have a list of values. We must resolve whatever exists first. If the process is managed well, you can have a separation in a smooth way. The overall objective is to take power and manage it better.”
Muntu also maintains that not all hope is lost; the two methods of defiance and building capabilities are not in conflict, and can be pursued simultaneously.
Muntu’s approach is not helping either in form or substance and in the end he would have embarrassed himself. I do like Muntu’s personality but I did detaste his managerial style particularly in a hostile environment such as Uganda’s. The wise counsel to him would be to eat his humble pie and sit down his ass and concentrate on how to improve the party from within. Muntu cannot and will never marshal a greater political muscle than what the FDC offers him. Yes, his departure hurts the image and objectives of the party but his departure doesn’t give him his ultimate objective of regime change that can only be united if we remain united. What Muntu refers to as ‘party contradictions’ are restricted to the methodology. If Muntu is hellbent on “organization” and building party structures, who refuses him from creating a department (if not already in existence) that deals with that? I want to think that Muntu is using the FDC as the “trajon horse” to deliver his own party. I wish him the very best.
MUNTU is a SERIAL TRAITOR, so forming or joining another party will not be out of character.
MUNTU grew up, was almost born into UPC, he in our African context was the son of OBOTE.
HE went and joined the bush war, because he was joining ” his own” – abeitu- because he considered the northerners were not ” his enough.”
MUNTU was and is today what he is because of what M 7 made him. There are no special individual qualities that one can attribute to him that lead him to be made the army commander at the time, over and above a group of about maybe 10 people, any one of whom could have become the army commander, some probably more deserving than him. THE only reason he was made the army commander is /was in line with M 7s style of picking someone almost from obscurity and elevating them so that they owe absolute allegiance to him, they too fully knowing that they would not be where they are if not for M 7 – ANITE style.
AND yet when he was dropped as army commander and literally put on katebe, as was bound to happen, this is when he started to realise that things were not quite right . Others , like Tinyefuza and even Tumukunde have risked their careers and said what they think of the system, even when they are still serving officers.
LET him go back to the party where he would be most comfortable, a party where his own brother NUWAGABA HERBERT is still a serving member , and is a political appointee in his current job.
MUNTU is fancying himself a little too much when he says ” the country is short on a mass of mature leaders”
REALLY.
AND it just so happens that you fall among that select group of mature leaders.
MUNTU and quite a few others, but most especially him, have never overcome the fact that the person who was his junior/ subordinate , is now a head of state across the border. HE agonizes about what would have happened if at the time of the start of the war , he was not in the position he was.