A week that reminded everyone of faulty NRM decision-making system

After two weeks of a government united by the mourning and eulogising of the late Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah, this week the country was treated to the following:
- Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba abruptly deleted his Twitter handle.
- The minister of Information, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, dismissed police summons to help with investigations into allegations that Oulanyah was poisoned.
- Agriculture minister Frank Tumwebaze distanced himself from the government decision to award Uganda’s coffee marketing to an Italian firm.
The mood within government quickly returned to the familiar in-fighting and chaos.
Muhoozi exit from Twitter
Followers of Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba woke up on April 12 to find the Commander of the Land Forces and son of President Museveni had deleted his Twitter handle.
By now, it should no longer come as a surprise that Muhoozi would do something like that.
Via his tweets, he has established a pattern over the past year or so of rather erratic, often bizarre thoughts.
The only question is what prompted this. Muhoozi, as Sunday Monitor noted several months ago, clearly relishes the attention, validation, and freedom that his Twitter handle has given him.
It’s unlikely that he would give up such an addictive digital platform of his own accord.
Was he issued an ultimatum by the UPDF’s Commander-in-Chief to get off social media?
Twitter grants a user 30 days in which to reconsider their deletion of their account. If after 30 days they have not re-activated it, then it is permanently removed.
If by mid-May he re-activates the account, the interpretation will be that the initial deletion of the account was just the usual Muhoozi being his erratic self.
If by mid-May he has not re-activated it, he will be off that account for good and it will be in order to speculate that he was forced off it by the only power in Uganda he has no choice but obey.
Baryomunsi defies police
Police spokesperson Fred Enanga this week stated that a number of people who had publicly claimed that former Speaker Oulanyah told them that he had been poisoned, were being summoned by police to help with its investigations.
One of them was the minister of Information, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the other was the NRM vice chairperson for the central region, Godfrey Ssuubi Kiwanda.
Kiwanda alleged, during an appearance on Capital FM on Saturday, April 9, that Oulanyah had intimated to him that he, Oulanyah, was poisoned, and Kiwanda stated that he mentioned Oulanyah’s revelation to Dr Baryomunsi.

READ: Probe on Oulanyah poison claim should go on - Otafiire
These summons were not necessarily suggestions that the people in question were guilty of any misdemeanour; they were simply being requested to furnish police with further details on what they had been told.
Besides, Enanga as the police spokesman was simply doing his job, relaying the development to the concerned people and to the public.
However, Baryomunsi responded by letting out a tirade, blasting Enanga and Kiwanda personally and publicly.
Given that the police spokesman is a colleague in government, Baryomunsi could have placed a phone call to Enanga and privately discussed the matter with him.
Baryomunsi knows the procedure and protocol of responding to his colleague Enanga and yet he chose to publicly state his displeasure.
The question is: Why?
The answer is that there is more to this than meets the eye.
Baryomunsi is all too aware that during the saga over the mysterious death in 2009 of the vocal Butaleja Woman MP Cerinah Nebanda, he was one of several MPs who questioned government’s account and openly voiced his suspicion that Nebanda was poisoned.
For his name to be associated with any speculation of poisoning in the death of Oulanyah would resurrect memories that he who now talks like a hardline pro-NRM minister was once categorised as a “rebel MP”.
It would reveal Baryomunsi as one of the many figures in the NRM government who quietly disagree with President Museveni and knowing how sensitive Museveni is to what he terms “traitors”, that would put Baryomunsi in a tricky position.
State House intelligence is constantly trying to figure out who in Cabinet or at State House leaks information to the media.
Cabinet ministers or senior-ranking NRM party officials who believe conspiracy theories about the dark goings-on in government would be primary targets for this State House intelligence investigation.
That would explain Dr Baryomunsi’s heated dismissal of the police summons.
Enanga was not Baryomunsi’s audience; State House was and, given the sensitivity of being associated with the rumours of Oulanyah’s poisoning, it was crucial for Baryomunsi to disassociate himself with any prior knowledge of the poisoning rumours.
For Kiwanda’s part, to appear on a radio talk show last week and publicly mention what he said Oulanyah had confided in him, shows that within the senior ranks of the NRM government and party, there is much paranoia for their own lives.
Kiwanda sought to protect himself by going public with these revelations, the same way the Investment minister of State in 2020 went public when she stated that the “Mafia” were plotting to have her murdered.
All this shows that behind the appearance of party and government unity, many leading NRM government figures live in fear not just of being dropped in Cabinet reshuffles, but in fear of their lives.
Tumwebaze distances himself from coffee deal
It was announced last week that government had awarded to an Italian company, Uganda Vinci Coffee Company Ltd, the contract to market Uganda’s coffee, coffee being Uganda’s leading export commodity and main source of foreign currency earnings.
After coming under fire over the decision, the minister of Agriculture Frank Tumwebaze, posted a note on Twitter on April 13 in which he stated that “be advised that neither myself nor [the ministry of Agriculture] is a party/ privy to that agreement.”
Like Baryomunsi, Tumwebaze chose to respond not by the private peer-to-peer channels within government, but by going public, in Tumwebaze’s case, via a note on Twitter.
At the very least, these public utterances by Cabinet ministers indicates that there is a problem within government.
Top officials, including Cabinet ministers, are no longer able (or willing) to use the official channels to respond to policies or decisions by counterparts in government.
It also suggests that key decisions, such as the awarding of that coffee marketing contract, are made without consulting or even informing the minister directly concerned.
That, in turn, speaks of a disorganised government at work; but it also appears to confirm a view that took root in 2005, thanks to revelations by the-then vice president Gilbert Bukenya to the-then Monitor Publications managing director Conrad Nkutu, that Uganda had a secretive “Mafia” at the helm of power.
There is every possibility that the decision to award the coffee contract to the Italian firm was made by the said ‘Mafia’.
Tumwebaze was indirectly stating his displeasure at being ignored in the making of that decision and was making this clear by directly informing the public through social media.
To cap the week, it has emerged that several companies that provided services during the funeral and burial of Oulanyah had still not been paid.
That is the week that was, a week that reminded anyone who needs reminding, of this distorted NRM government decision-making system.