For about two months now the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Secretary General Justin Kasule Lumumba has been out of the country amid reports that she could have landed a job with a Catholic international charity organisation.
EagleOnline cannot name the Catholic organization which is said to have given Ms Lumumba the job because it has not responded to emails and phone calls of inquiry have not been returned.
Similarly, conflicting accounts as to her whereabouts by senior party officials have not helped much, with NRM publicist Rogers Mulindwa saying the SG is on assignment by the party Chairman Yoweri Museveni, while Dr Tanga Odoi, the chairperson of the NRM electoral commission, who has publicly had a spat with Ms Lumumba before said, in between feats laughter, that the SG is out of the country on medication.
“She told us she is in London for treatment. For now we know she is getting treatment and that’s the little I know. I don’t know if she is doing other things”, Dr. Tanga Odoi said.
On his part Mulindwa said: “Whoever says that (resignation of SG) has a mental problem. Even if it is you, I repeat you have a mental problem. The Secretary General is out of the country on official duty. The Party Chairman sent her and Mr Todwong is now the acting Secretary General.”
Such contrasting accounts that have left room for speculation about the SG’s whereabouts, and this, coupled with Ms. Lumumba’s exclusion from the NRM age limit campaign team that has today started ‘consultative meetings’, has not made matters any better.
The development come amid reports that all is not well at the party headquarters on Plot 10 Kyadondo Road, and that many are worried that the Secretariat which is supposed to keep the party juices flowing is functioning haltingly.
“I can assure you that if President Museveni leaves, NRM will be worse than Kanu in Kenya. It will simply disintegrate because the party leaders thrive on the weakness of the party secretariat which should have been the opposite,” one party official said.
Meanwhile, a source intimated to the EagleOnline that Ms. Lumumba jumped ship after continued frustration from the party including lack of facilitation at the secretariat and endless political intrigue.
The source further said that Ms Lumumba grew ‘frustrated’ after realizing that resigning her parliamentary position, where she was the Bugiri district Woman MP, for a job at the Party Secretariat, was a miscalculation.
“After the presidential campaigns were done, all Lumumba would do was to arrive at Kyadondo Plot 10 in a convoy, and then sit in her office the entire day intermittently sipping on tea and listening to complaints from staff over delayed salaries,” the source said.
“The Secretariat is only active if there is a general election. That’s when
there is money. Most staff don’t even have appointment letters so it was hard for her,” the source added.
By press time it was not possible to speak to Ms. Lumumba.
