A new dossier has revealed a big fight between two of the most powerful women in the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party – Ruth Nankabirwa, the current Chief Government Whip in the Ugandan Cabinet and Justine Lumumba Kasule the party’s Secretary General.
The duo is reportedly hustling who should be in charge after it emerged last month that State House is set to release Shs12billion meant to mobilise NRM Members of Parliament to support a constitutional amendment aimed at scrapping the 75-year-old presidential age limit, apparently the two NRM boss are jostling over the money’s control.
To make matters worse, the NRM Secretary General’s office has since authored a strongly worded letter to President Yoweri Museveni advising him against releasing the money to Nakabirwa’s office since she has not yet accounted for Shs52 million, part of the Shs104m given to her on February 27, for the facilitation of NRM MPs towards voting for the party candidates in the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA).
Lumumba claims in the letter that of the money that was delivered by State House official Vicent Musinguzi, each of MP got only Shs200,000 instead of Shs400,000 which made the legislators bitter and could as a result block the forthcoming constitutional amendments by Justice Minister Gen. Kahinda Otafiire to allow Museveni rule for life.
SG Lumumba’s letter also goes ahead to advise the President that he should make the Chief Government Whip Nankabirwa and the NRM caucus Treasurer Hon. Mariam Naigaga to refund the unaccounted for balance with an apology and not to trust them with any more funds meant for future mobilisation of party activities within Parliament.
Lumumba and Nankabirwa’s fight comes at the heels of the removal of Museveni’s once powerful personal assistant, Maj Edith Nakalema officially from State House and sentto London for studies. Nakalema’s departure also comes high on the heels of an intense power struggle amongst the president’s private secretaries.
Why the life presidency
Museveni, 71, who came to power in 1986 and has endeared himself to the West by fighting Islamists in the region, is barred from the next election in 2021 because he will be past the constitutional age limit of 75 for presidential candidates.
Museveni, who led a guerrilla war in the early 1980s that brought him to power, has been credited with bringing relative peace and economic growth to Uganda, a prospective oil producer that nonetheless still suffers poor infrastructure.
Critics fault him for not doing enough to stem high youth unemployment and sweeping corruption, as well as hampering Uganda’s progress with a top-down approach to governing. They point to Museveni’s tendency to refer to “my oil”.
