Mbabazi’s wife: I’ve been plotting against Museveni to remove

Mrs Jacqueline Mbabazi, the wife of former Ugandan prime minister Amama Mbabazi gestures at a past event. PHOTO|FILE 

By The Citizen Correspondent

In Summary

Mr Museveni made the accusation against Ms Mbabazi during a meeting of the NRM Central Executive Committee (CEC) at State House, Nakasero on Thursday, our sources revealed.

Kampala. President Museveni has castigated former prime minister Amama Mbabazi’s wife, Jacqueline, accusing her of mobilising National Resistance Movement (NRM) party members against him.

Mr Museveni made the accusation against Ms Mbabazi during a meeting of the NRM Central Executive Committee (CEC) at State House, Nakasero on Thursday, our sources revealed.

A member of CEC who attended the meeting said Mr Museveni presented a document titled “Costly President” which he said had been authored and distributed on the instructions of Mr Mbabazi’s wife to incite the party members against him.

In reply, the defiant Ms Mbabazi confirmed she was the author of the document but said there was nothing controversial about it.

She said the document had been drawn out of the budget allocations for State House and President’s Office. The document criticises President Museveni’s use of State resources and State House’s huge budget and its controversial supplementary budgets.

Jacqueline also admitted mobilising political support for her husband, saying there were issues she was unhappy with, including the lifting of presidential term limits from the Constitution.

A CEC source in the meeting told the Sunday Monitor that Mr Museveni in response, said he had not known that his being in the liberation struggle was a problem and that if he had known, he would have left even during the Bush War days.

Mr Museveni captured power after the 1981-86 guerrilla war that overthrew the Gen Tito Okello junta.

Ms Jacqueline Mbabazi heads the Women League of the NRM party. Her husband, Mr Mbabazi, the Secretary General of the NRM, was sacked as prime minister on September 18. This was after widespread reports that he intended to contest against Mr Museveni for the presidency in 2016.

Earlier in February, the NRM Caucus at a retreat in Kyankwanzi passed a resolution endorsing Mr Museveni as their party’s “sole candidate” in the 2016 presidential elections.

Jacqueline subsequently slammed the resolution saying the caucus had no powers to choose a party’s flag bearer. Her utterances have since sparked bad blood between her on one side and the President and some NRM leaders on the other.

Inside sources said the steamy 11-hour CEC meeting discussed only one item on the agenda – party cohesion. Mr Museveni chaired the meeting and Mr Mbabazi took the minutes.