Former Uganda prime minister and presidential contender John Patrick Amama Mbabazi has on Tuesday December 31, 2019 met with his former boss President Yoweri Museveni at the latter’s country farm in Kisozi, Gomba District.
Mbabazi, who was clad in a casual outfit, arrived in Kisozi for a private meeting with Museveni at around midday.
However, it is not clear what the two old gentlemen discussed and none of the sources is willing to divulge the details of their meeting.
The once most powerful minister in Museveni’s government parted ways with his close friend towards the 2016 general elections when Mbabazi declared his presidential bid to unseat his boss.
Amama Mbabazi with President Museveni touring the farm
Despite not declaring it, Mbabazi’s presidential ambitions were seen as early as 2014 and shortly President Museveni moved to curtail Mbabazi’s influence.
At first, he was accused of being “too busy being a prime minister to be an effective NRM secretary-general” and was consequently dropped from the latter position.
Several NRM top officials openly criticized Mbabazi for being behind their woes in a bid to either end their political careers or edge them out of government.
Later, a group of Young Turks led by the current State Minister for Investment, Evelyn Anite surprised Mbabazi when they moved a proposal to endorse Museveni as the sole NRM party candidate at Kyankwanzi at a party retreat.
This took Mbabazi by surprise and he was finally dropped as Prime Minister.
He, however, went on to stand against his former boss in the 2016 polls but lost miserably.
Speaking at one of the functions, Museveni said he had been let down by Mbabazi on a number of occasions.
“I gave my common people to Mbabazi, and he was occupying all those big and influential ministries. I am now going to work directly with the people. The problem I had is politicians,” Museveni said while launching saving schemes in Katwe, Zana and Bwebajja in August 2016.
In the run-up to the 2016 general election, a well-coordinated group of youth who swore allegiance to Mbabazi, the former powerful prime minister were lured to Museveni ‘s side and revealed “all the secrets” of how they had capacity to overthrow Museveni.
On his side, Mbabazi claimed that Museveni always took credit for all the good done by the NRM government and blamed “others” for the bad during the same time.
