Odonga Otto, the former Aruu County MP, on Monday turned up at PLU offices in Naguru to witness the launching of the group’s website and other online membership registration and MK endorsement Apps.
Odonga Otto was one of the many VIPs who graced the event including Ministers, MPs and business community leaders. Private sector leaders present included Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia and Godfrey Kirumira. The duo represented the Kwagalana Group whose members own and control more than 80% of the private businesses and commercial buildings in Kampala’s CBD.
Otto said he had no problem with Gen MK as a person even when he has lately been very critical of some of the security operations linked to him as the CDF. Otto shed tears and cried during a TV talk show while protesting the manner in which his fellow lawyers Miria Matembe and Erias Lukwago had been arrested and made to disappear.
He has always appreciated Gen MK’s firm stand against corruption and inefficiencies in government while at the same time calling on PLU leaders to stop behaving as if Uganda is theirs alone. He repeated this claim in his brief speech at Naguru. He demanded that PLU leadership works for a Uganda where dissent is tolerated because the country must belong to all Ugandans, including those who don’t believe in PLU politics.
Balaam Barugahara, who was one of the day’s co-MCs and was politically mentored by Otto while still at Makerere in the late 1990s, claimed that Otto had privately told him he is open to becoming an active member and taking up the PLU Patriotic Officer number on grounds that a private meeting is arranged for him to meet the First Son who is also serving as the CDF. He wants to use that meeting to get several things clarified to him before making up his mind to go public.
The same Balaam declared that even former Kawempe South MP Mubarak Munyagwa, who has lately been very cynical of the General’s 2031 bid, had reached out to him in a private phone call and signaled readiness to join PLU and become part of the Gen MK universe. Balaam said Munyagwa told him the only thing still holding him back is the existence of people who blackmail free thinkers like himself while claiming to be very close to Gen MK.
Balaam quoted Munyagwa as saying that he fears such people can easily give fake news to the CDF deliberately to antagonize him from free thinkers so that people like himself end up being taken to the basement. In a YouTube interview a few days ago, Munyagwa implied that Gen Museveni is still interested in the Presidency and predicted the possibility of Gen MK being sent to a military course abroad as his disciplines like David Kabanda and Andrew Mwenda get locked up on charges like incitement, treason and illegal possession of guns and other government stores.
Munyagwa’s point has been that Gen MK can only become President if Museveni wills that he does. Balaam said that Munyagwa had told him that there are some PLU insides close to Gen MK who are trying to ride of such utterances by him to portray him to the CDF as very hostile so that he too gets arrested like was the case with Charles Rwomushana. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com.
