NATIONAL Resistance Movement party Secretary General, Kasule Lumumba is on spot after she ordered the Ambassador to drop the name of the party youth leader who had been nominated for training in China in favour of her tribemate.
According to a source, Lumumba drove to the Chinese Embassy in Kololo and told the Ambassador 8to drop the name of Robert Rutaro who was nominated by the Deputy Secretary General, Richard Twodong. Rutaro had been nominated among the 20 youth to train for capacity building in Beijing China. The trip and training is sponsored by the Chinese ruling party.
Lumumba instead replaced Rutaro with the name of former Luuka legislature Meddie Mulumba who is also a commissioner at Uganda Human Rights Commission.
The move by Lumumba show the poor working relationship between top NRM party officials especially the Secretary and her Deputy.
Rutaro works at the NRM secretariat and is among the youth the NRM party Chairman, Yoweri Museveni picked from Makerere. Rutaro has previously served as NRM Secretary General for the youth league and before that, he was a Guild President Makerere University
Below is Rutaro’s narration of events
The Rt .Hon Richard Todwong recommended me (Rutaro Robert) to travel to China on a powerful delegation to attend a Youth Conference due on the June 3-13, 2016 in Beijing. The trip is wholly sponsored and financed by the Chinese government. Today morning the china embassy called me to go for and pick my visa, on reaching the embassy around 11 am I found the Secretary General Kasule Lumumba driving out of the said embassy. On reaching the counter to collect my visa I was informed that my Secretary General left orders that my name should be PUT OFF THE LIST OF 20 MAN DELEGATION, emphasizing that she is not comfortable with my name on that list. She replaced me with the one and only Meddie Mulumba. The changes only affected me. The trip is on June 2, 2016.
- Question is why would the Secretary General remove my name off the delegation without consulting her deputy who nominated me to travel?
- Secondly, was the matter so important that the secretary General had to drive to the embassy personally just to effect that min-reshuffle on the delegation?
- Thirdly, why wouldn’t my Secretary General inform me of her decision early enough so that I don’t prepare for the trip, later on waste my time and fuel to go to the embassy to collect the said visa? Up to now, I have not heard a word from her!
The Secretary General’s directive was communicated to the visa counter by none else but the Chinese Ambassador himself with instructions to cancel and withdraw my visa, after holding lengthy discussion my Secretary General which lasted over two hours. So I was turned away with the bad news, assured that I will not travel on that delegation as per the directive of my Powerful Secretary General.
