KAMPALA — Former Minister Without Portfolio Abdul Nadduli has fired another salvo at President Museveni—warning that if the NRM chairman continues to disregard their pieces of advice, he will follow the same route his predecessors including Idi Amin and Dr. Milton Obote took.
Appearing at a local TV station, Delta TV, Al-Hajji Nadduli claimed the President who has been in power long before the Berlin Wall fell is doing exactly what they were fighting against in the early 1980s and that he would not sit back seeing the party’s core values being changed in favour of a few people.
“The opposition has nothing to do with the collapse of NRM, no, in fact, these young boys are playing their own politics like how we were in the 1980s, but what made us win the war was because of the disorganisation in Obote’s camps and this is what am seeing right now in our party. And the recent primaries were a good example for us to learn from. The good thing I have always been speaking about how our leaders in the party have left the original values we had,” he said.
Hajji Nadduli, a senior presidential advisor suggested that the NRM chairman, needs to look and see where they have gone wrong when it’s still early by restoring the original values.
“During Obote’s reign, we witnessed people from other regions coming here to represent us in Parliament, it’s the same thing we see here and people come from nowhere that I want to be a Member of Parliament here in the Central and the leader is keeping silent, this is going to cause a problem. The party has given full mandate to one person which is wrong also, he can’t be the only person to solve the whole problems of the party and yet he is the same person commanding who should contest where and how.”
Nadduli whose son Jakana Sulaiman Nadduli was defeated by Syda Bbumba in the party primaries for Nakaseke Central parliamentary seat alleges, that if President Museveni does not deal with the mafias that have penetrated the party, he will end up being eaten.
“We have let many dangerous people into the party leadership including the so-called mafias, for example in my constituency Syda had moved away with the voter register that is why maybe Museveni had to make that late announcement but also she had already gained other state machinery from those big wigs in the party which helped her to win by cheating, this is dangerous to the growth of our party.”
Nadduli who last week castigated President Museveni’s younger brother, Gen. Salim Saleh, accusing him of aiding election rigging in favour of veteran politician Syda Bbumba for Nakaseke Central Parliamentary NRM flag vowed that if Dr Tanga Odoi, the chairman NRM Electoral Commission goes ahead and endorses the victory of Bbumba, his son will come as an independent in the general election.
“If Dr Tanga does not come out and sort out this I will tell him to contest on an independent ticket, he is a Ugandan, what stops him? However, for the good of the party, I advise our party, national chairman, to go back to the original ways and revise how we used to select the leader before we changed to NRM. Also, he should stop doing things as if he is helping us yet he knows very well that’s putting us in a danger. If you know very well that people don’t like your candidate why do you force them to vote him or her,” Nadduli wondered.
He says voter bribery and intimidation characterized the NRM primary election campaigns in Nakaseke with Gen Saleh aiding violence and rigging.
Gen. Saleh he says, arrived at the tallying centre at around 11pm before the results were declared at 2am.
“They have a habit of handpicking the candidates they want to represent the party. What was Saleh doing at the tallying centre! How come he never went somewhere else!” he said, claiming his son’s victory was robbed on gun point.
Domestic NGOs under their electoral observation umbrella board called National Election Watch Uganda (NEW-U) on Sunday expressed concern at the level of violence and voter bribery witnessed in the just concluded NRM primaries
