Former FDC President, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu has scoffed at those that have continued to accuse him of secretly meeting President Yoweri Museveni as well as labeling him as an opposition mole.
Muntu was responding to the media questions during the grand announcement of a new political group in the country.
It comes two days after Muntu announced that he had left the FDC which he joined in 2004. But his separation with Uganda’s largest opposition political party has been characterized by friction, with some elements in the FDC labeling him a mole.
Muntu said that for all the time that he was in FDC, he was continually labeled a mole, the same tag had been attached to him when he joined the bush war to fight the Milton Obote regime.
He said he was put under surveillance for some time since some individuals could not believe that a son of Muntuyera (his father) who was a loyalist to Obote would be fighting the Obote regime.
On Thursday, Muntu noted that he has never held any secret talks with President Museveni as it is being alleged by some political players in the country.
“I last met Museveni one-on-one after we held our Mbale meeting as PAFO in 2004. That’s the last time I met Museveni physically at Nakasero State Lodge”.
“But I want to ask those who keep saying that I hold secret meetings with Museveni, what would I benefit from the meeting? Is it money? When I was the commander of the army, if it was wealth that drives me, I would amassed wealth,” Muntu said.
“I became commander when there were no systems of accountability in the NRA and later UPDF. They would bring in sacks of money in senior commanders’ rooms. One time they brought the sacks and I asked them where they were taking the money. They told me that that was the practice but i told them to return the money to office and have it accounted for”.
The former army commander stated that he had the capacity to stay in the NRM government and manoeuvre his way to power if he so wished, but he didn’t.
“Is it power? I was in the vantage position within the NRM, I would have remained there, I am one of the person who is gifted with discipline, I would have remained there and maneuvered there into power because it wouldn’t have been risky than joining the opposition,” he said.
“In 2009 when President Museveni shifted me from the command and gave me the Ministry which I declined, I humbly wrote to him declining the position and I moved.”
Muntu further alluded to an incident in 2004 when while in Kyakwazi, s one of the representatives of the army, he advised President Museveni to leave a legacy by stepping aside.
“In 1996, I advised Gen. Museveni that the system is simply cracking and that we were doing the very things that we fought against the Obote regime. I was the commander of the army by then and I told him in public, I knew he could dismiss me or do anything,” added Muntu, citing scenarios in the past where he demonstrated that he was against Museveni’s system.
Muntu noted that since time is the best ally, it will tell who the real moles are in the opposition.
He said that had he been a mole, he would have stuck in the FDC and instead focused on further dividing the party.
He stressed that integrity has been one of the most central things to his being and that there’s nothing he has focused more time on throughout his life than building character.
