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Uganda Reveals Why Museveni-Mengo Deal Was Secret

Uganda Reveals Why Museveni-Mengo Deal Was Secret

From AllAfrica

When President Museveni called Buganda Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), in which the central government made major concessions, it took the kingdom by surprise.

According to a well-placed Buganda official the MOU was unexpected both in Mengo and within Museveni’s government. The President, according to a State House source, chose to handle the talks with Buganda premier, after realizing that some people in his court benefited from the bad relations between his government and Mengo.

“It has taken Buganda this long to get back (those properties) because some people benefited politically if we maintained a bad relationship with the kingdom,” the source told us.

Indeed Museveni alluded to it in his speech during the coronation anniversary at Lubiri.

“That MOU deals with the issues some people, who like to recklessly fish in troubled waters, have been using regarding some issues including the former masaza-magombolola estates as well as the harmonization of the rights of the indigenous cultural groups in Buganda,” Museveni said.

About two days to the signing, Museveni is said to have met the Ssabaruuli, Mwogeza-Butamanya, one of the contested cultural leaders that are largely seen as his creations to undermine the influence of the Kabaka of Buganda. A meeting between the former Katikkiro John Baptist Walusimbi and the Ssabaruuli is reported to have angered the Kabaka to the point of rejecting the earlier MOU. (See: Kabaka turns down Museveni ebyaffe offer). The MOU now subordinates the Ssabaruuli and the Ssabanyala Baker Kimeze to the Kabaka of Buganda.

Read more at AllAfrica.