Julius Buchana: Is your Party at log ahead with Hon. Kyagulanyi and his NUP?

Norbert Mao: No, we are not at log ahead, I think log ahead is a very strong word. We disagreed and our disagreement comes from the time we were working on the reunion.

The mission statement of the reunion which I wrote myself, I said , to correlate, to galvanise the scattered forces of democracy and unify them and DP should offer leadership to the scattered forces that was the opening statement.

I am now going to tell you things that I was still holding onto but I will tell you a bit, the reason why am so confident and totally fearless is because I know a lot, you know knowledge is a nuclear bomb, when someone has information, be careful with such a person. I know a lot. We knew that we have failed to defeat President Museveni because we have failed to close the gap of about 2millon votes, that’s all we needed.

Dr. Ssemwogerere got about 2 million votes, about 1.8m.

Dr.Besigye came in 2001 and added those votes. In 2011 we decided to test our strength as DP , 2016 we wanted to rally around the former secretary General of NRM. Some people said , this man has just become opposition you can’t trust him but Ugandans trusted Doctor Besigye.

So I am at log a head with hypocrites, I am not at log a head with any organisation and I am not going to be silenced. Actually I have been provoked so much to expose them. I posted on twitter that ‘I should hang their dirt linen on MTN and Airtel Masts very high where even birds can see them’.

In DP we invested over 400 million shillings in that reunion, I was the first to write an article about Hon Kyagulanyi, at that time non of the people around him took him seriously. I wrote that ‘This is a future promising leader of Uganda from Buganda’.

I did it because his appeal was wide but then some people surrounded him and brought him back to a provincial leader, a Leader whose wings wanted to spread was broken by those hypocrites and meal card leaders that I talk about. We used to talk and there is no home that Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi has visted more than mine only that I am not a type who takes a selfie every time he visits but I am not at liberty to disclose what we talk about.

We recognised him and in my speech at Makerere, I said, “We have now found someone who can help us close the gap”. It was not about him being the President or the Presidential candidate because first point we must agree on the mission then look forward for the mission to choose the people. So we met with people and many of them said that they think this man can come and lead DP as a Presidential candidate and I said absolutely! I met Hon Muwanga Kivumbi in Gulu and told him that I was willing to push for a constitutional amendment in the National Delegates Conference to allow someone who is not a member of the party to carry the Party Flag, I did this after consulting the top leadership of the Party but many of the people around Hon. Kyagulanyi who where more interested in what their positions would be in the arrangement focused on their roles not the goal.

Many of them were interested in being the flag bearers in the parliamentary elections. They went to Robert Kyagulanyi and told him to be careful with mao. If Mao is not contesting for Presidency he is definitely going to come to parliament and yet your chance of winning a dictator is going to be 50/50. Mao will be Leader of Opposition, President of the party, the party will be getting a lot of money and now where will you be?.

I met Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi at my house and I told him, “if that is the concern, I won’t even contest to come to parliament, I am going to be with you wherever you go, I will be the one to introduce you to the voters because I know my capacity”. and I am fought by those who know my capacity, and by the way I am still around for a very long time.

Unfortunately the same group told him that, ” No , Norbert Mao is intelligent and he is just setting you up, he will be moving around with you to the country just to introduce himself so that he can come and be the President in future” So there was a lot of confusion and eventually they formed NUP.

Those were the few stories of the fights in DP, the rest I will tell them any time. When NUP was launched I called Robert Kyagulanyi and told him that now you have formed the NUP, can we form the People Power with NUP as a member , DP, or any other Party?!. That conversation was also sabotaged by the meal card politicians, so that was my disappointment because I believed in unity and we fight for the oppressed.

And that’s why I am annoyed on behalf of the Ugandans who were denied the opportunity for bringing change. It was no longer about who is going to be president. We are the ones who launched Togikwatako. We Launched the Red ribbons but the opportunists, masqueraders, and meal card politicians hijacked the struggle. I am from the part of Uganda that has seen the worst of NRM and NRA. I have seen my people thrown in halls with fire and broken bottles, I have seen my people kept in a camp for 10 years eating row maize so I want people to understand that I did not want to DP to be a play ground and I have no apology to declare that rather than DP becoming a play ground, it would rather become a battle groud and indeed we turned it into a battle ground.

I said, “There will not be a game here but a fight” and indeed, it was a fight. That is the discussion about the quarrel on twitter because we had the opportunity of touching change , we just needed a little push. Don’t let people decieve you, you must speak for an idea. There are ideas that must unite Ugandans whether Karamajong, Banyankore , Baganda etc. What is the idea we are rallying about? Number one, we need the government that respects the law, we need equality, we need the government where the army is for the people not an individual.

As long as I am the President General of DP I will not fear to fight hypocrisy.

Therefore, I am not fighting NUP or Any body in NUP , no! I am fighting hypocrisy and the fight will continue.