Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Secretary General and Budadiri West Member of Parliament Nathan Nandala Mafabi has warned the Inspector General of Police (IGP), General Kale Kayihura to desist from using Elgon zone as a ground for promoting his ‘interests’.
Mafabi made the comments on a Whatsapp group known as Elgon Thinkers Forum where he was questioning why, of all places, Gen. Kayihura chose Mbale to hold his celebratory party.
“Why didn’t the Banyankole welcome their own and instead Bugisu did so?” Mr. Mafabi wrote.
Asked by www.eagle.co.ug why he thought Gen. Kayihura didn’t deserve to celebrate his re-appointment in Mbale, Mafabi said the IGP should instead have celebrated his re-appointment in his home area of Bufumbira.
“Why didn’t he go to his home? These are hopeless things being done in our area. Instead of advocating for service delivery to the region or promoting sons and daughters of the soil in the police force, he is using crime preventers to show that Mbale loves him and why should we allow this in our area?
Gen Kayihura was in Mbale to celebrate his re-appointment for a fifth three-year term as police chief. While there, he is reported to have told the Mbale residents that he had ‘forgiven’ individuals maligning him and the police on social media.
This website failed to get a comment from Gen. Kayihura however, he was quoted by the media as having said that the party at Nauyo Primary School in Bungokho County, had been organised by his admirers in political circles and the police in the Mt Elgon region.
“What you have done; it’s not a small thing. I am like a born-again now and I thank God. I now know the reason why President Museveni started fighting [against] the bad government of Idi Amin from here,” Kayihura was quoted saying, but declared no political ambitions of his own.
The Elgon region, according to Gen Kayihura, is a political Mecca for freedom fighters. In the 1970s, Mr Museveni, who at the time headed the Front for National Salvation (Fronasa), established a cell in the Elgon region to recruit for and advance interests of the rebel group. He later founded the National Resistance Army guerilla outfit, which enabled him to shoot his way to power in 1986.
In 2015, former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi sought to launch his political consultations in Mbale as he made a bid for the presidency.
Another member of the same Whatsapp forum questioned the organizers’ intentions, saying all those that attended were paid.
“Mbale has always been a town of great thinkers but of late it’s the opposite and these thugs know it. I was in Mbale and I saw how excited the crime preventers were, I guess because of a few coins, alcohol and food. I felt so small that we have been reduced to such a level where we can celebrate the likes of such people,” the member posted.
