NRM CEC Disagree With Museveni Over New Mobilisation Teams

By Kungu Al-mahadi Adam

A group of eight members of the top organ of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) has disagreed with President Yoweri Museveni who also doubles as the party Chairman, on the procedure of establishing more than 200,000 NRM mobilisers in the country.

Through the Office of the National Chairman (ONC), Museveni recently directed that a group of 3 volunteers (NRM cadres – two youths and an elder) are identified from each of the 65,200 villages in the country for political mobilisation purposes.

The ONC team led by Milly Doka Babalanda is since reported to have come up with a database profiling thousands of volunteers named as Wealth Creation Ambassadors.

The move however, did not appease Justine Kasule Lumumba, the NRM Secretary General, who in a statement dated May 24, expressed her discontentment with the newly established teams, saying neither was the Secretariat not the Central Executive Committee of the party, was involved in the matter.

She said that there is no formal decision or directive of any Organ of the National Resistance Movement made specifically to identify and/or recruit the three cadres per village and that “as the custodian of the minutes of Organs of the National Resistance Movement, inclusive of the Central Executive Committee meetings, I can state with no fear of contradiction, that the above recruitment drive is certainly not part of the 7-point Chobe Resolutions.”

However, her statement got a bitter reception from Dr Tanga Odoi, the Chairperson of the party’s Electoral Commission, who on Tuesday said says it was not right for Lumumba to run to the press when she is not satisfied with the decision by the party’s Chairman.

“Who appoints the Secretary General, the Chairman of the party recommends the name of the Secretary General to CEC (Central Executive Committee) and CEC endorses it. So if the Chairman of the party had done a mistake, the SG of the party does not go to the press. The SG meets the President more often than me. She should instead go and discuss it with the President and say that Mzee there is a contradiction here than running to the Press,” Odoi said.

“The Secretariat has a lot of work and if they burry their heads in the sand to criticise the Chairman of the party where they don’t have power, they are wasting time. I want to say these coordinators and their creation does not spell any contradiction within in NRM, it is only the People who didn’t understand or who have malicious attitude who are thinking there are contradictions,” Odoi added.

Also read: https://topradiouganda.com/division-in-nrm-tanga-furious-about-lumumbas-discomfort-with-musevenis-mobiliser/

Odoi also claimed that the President wrote to Lumumba on May 15 informing her about the matter, wondering why she (Lumumba) would deny knowledge about the move to create the new structures.

Now, some members of CEC including Sam Engora, Godfrey Nyakana, Lydia Wanyoto, Gaddafi Nasur, James Tweheyo, Kato Gabriel, Dominic Mafwabi Gidudu and Aleper Simon Peter have in a statement dated May 28, distanced themselves from having discussed the recruitment of the NRM cadres at the second retreat session of CEC retreat at Chobe Safari Lodge in Nwoya district recently.

They say that: “while it is within the mandate of the National Chairman of the National Resistance Movement to empower the office of the National Chairman to carryout specific assignments, such empowerment should only be complementary to the mandate of the Organs and Structures of the National Resistance Movement and certainly should never be antagonistic, usurpation and/ or a duplication of the roles of roles of any organ or structures of the National Resistance Movement.”

The CEC members further observe that some of the party cadres recruited by the ONC have used and continue using social media with impunity to undermine integrity and decisions by some organs of the party. This, if not addressed they say will marry the party moment into increased internal contradictions.

They have resolved to move the national chairman to call for CEC meeting to refocus on the “bigger strategic vision” of the NRM and also appealed to members of the NRM to respect the party constitution and desist from attacking any of its organs and structures.