Getrude Njuba: A silent influence

The movie-plot aspects of her wedding extend to separate, subsequent circumstances that define how and why Uganda will remember her; as a National Resistance Movement (NRM) historical who literally guarded, with her life, President Yoweri Museveni in his bush rebel days, and one who exercises power and influence without ever seeming to.

Joining Museveni’s camp
The foundation of her political relationship with President Museveni reads like a case of Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages empathise with their captors and in some cases, like hers, turn out to be, end up defending them.

Sam Njuba had been jailed by Yusuf Lule’s Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) government 1979.His wife, Gertrude, had approached Museveni, then Minister of State for Defence, to enlist his aid securing the release of her husband. When they returned to thank the UNLF’s youngest minister for his help, the Njubas left Museveni’s office new converts to his Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM).

It is said she was among those trusted enough with the then rebel leader, Museveni’s, meals. There is a common tale about how this role almost led to her death when the doctor of the NRA’s mobile force, misdiagnosed Museveni’s liver infection as a case of poisoning. Apparently, with fellow “food taster”, Olive Zizinga, Njuba spent a night crying while contemplating the more ominous implications in their imminent removal from Museveni’s favour and vicinity. Museveni, it is said, delayed their transfer by ordering they both stay to watch him die, which allowed the head of the NRA’s Health Department, Dr Ronald Bata (RIP), time to arrive and rectify the, thankfully, incorrect diagnosis.

At the time, support for the liberation struggle was split between the Andrew Kayiira’s Buganda nationalist Uganda Freedom Movement, and the NRA, which was viewed as an Ankole-advocacy outfit. Gertrude Njuba, through recruiting fellow Baganda and providing an example of such unflinching loyalty, was instrumental in helping the NRA overcome tribal intrigues and establish itself firmly in Buganda.

Museveni’s political defender
After the bush war ended , she became the Deputy Minister for Industry in Museveni’s 1986 cabinet. Alongside others like Victoria Sekitoleko (Minister of Agriculture) and Betty Bigombe (Deputy Minister, Prime Minister’s Office), her appointment symbolised what Mary Karooro Okurut dubbed “the NRM’s continuing love affair with Ugandan women”.

In her case, she married her fate with the NRM’s, staying even when her husband left it. Case in point, her explanation of the symbols the NRM used for the Constitutional Referendum on July 28, 2005 . “Our bus’ door is open. You are free to get out and come in whenever you want,” she said, adding, “We had the house and those in opposition had a tree. When it gets hot inside, you go out and rest in a tree. When it starts raining outside, you get into the house. And, I know some people have walked out and later come back to the Movement.”

Not one to walk away, she rallied to Museveni’s defence in February 2006 when his former caretaker, Dr Kizza Besigye, threatened to release a list of the President’s secret wives, concubines and children. “In Africa, a man who gets many women and children with other women is a great man. Such a man cannot lose votes because of that,” she reportedly said.

She is an iconic example of how the love affair between the NRM government and Ugandan women has borne reciprocal benefits to both.

Building Ssesamirembe City
It will be ironic if she becomes remembered as more of a business strategist than for the career politician she has been for almost thirty years, courtesy of her role directing the development of the Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone (LVFTZ).

“Uganda cannot become a large manufacturer because it is a landlocked country, but Ugandans are good traders and the free zone can become a business hub of the region,” she once surmised, raising a concern made more contemporary by equally ambitious economic development plans from landlocked neighbours like Rwanda.

Operationalised in November 2006, the LVFTZ is promoted by Kagera Eco-Cities Limited, which she co-directs with Sserulanda Spiritual Foundation’s Beenunula Eyenunula. Located on 200 square miles adjacent to Rakai District section of Lake Victoria, it could become the most visible legacy of her service to Uganda.

When complete, it will be the first and largest special economic zone green municipality in Africa. The planned Ssesamirembe International Solar Airport might also be the first in Africa, powered by three megawatts of energy created from its roof made of solar panels.

If this never comes to pass in her lifetime, at least Ugandans will never forget Gertrude Njuba’s shining example of an increasingly harder-to-find political loyalty that helped establish and maintain the NRM government.

Fact File:
Born in Hoima on November 26, 1944
Parents: Retired Bishop Yokana Mukasa and Nora Nakanywa Mukasa
Attended Duhaga Girls’ School and Makerere College School.
Joined NRM’s bush struggle in 1981 and one of the first women to undergo military training for purposes of serving the liberation struggle.
Together with bush struggle comrade Captain Olive Zizinga, is one of 82 recipients of the Luwero Triangle Award (2001)
Currently State House Director on Land Matters
Presidential Advisor on Political Matters.
Chairperson Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone (LVFTZ) Governing Council
Hobbies: Reading spiritual books and singing religious songs.

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