Long-time Forum for Democratic Change Vice President for Eastern Uganda, Proscovia Salaamu Musumba has labelled new the National Resistance Movement recruit from FDC, Eunice Namatende as a damaged good contrary to the ruling party’s Eastern Uganda Vice Chair, Capt. Mike Mukula’s boasting that he had taken a big fish.
Namatende, a five-time FDC Parliamentary flagbearer for Bugiri, likewise Deputy Secretary for Organisation and Mobilisation was handed to Mukula by Bukooli Central MP Solomon Silwany as she disclosed a new chapter in her political life. Mukula then chest thumped, bragging about how he had hooked a big fish to his party, something that appears not to have sounded well for Musumba.
In her first media interview after being unveiled as a new recruit for the NRM by Capt Mike Mukula, Eunice Namatende (who has been the Secretary for Mobilisation under the POA-led faction at Najjanankumbi) has explained why she has had to bid farewell to opposition politics. Saying the decision was well thought out, Namatende explained that she realized she risked dying without ever getting chance to impact on her people in Bugiri and the country at large while contributing to its well-being.
“I’m a mother and well-educated Ugandan to the extent that I’m actually a lecturer at Kampala University. I have loyally and energetically belonged to FDC under which I have consistently opposed and fought this government for 20 years without break and there isn’t anything I have achieved for my people. I haven’t been able to solve any of their problems. As a mother, I have come to the realization that this fidgeting has to come to an end because I haven’t been able to deliver or do anything tangible for my people for 20 years,” said Eunice Namatende, a POA-Nandala Mafabi diehard supporter
“I need to add value for my people in Bugiri and for my country Uganda which can simply never happen if we keep in those endless struggles of the opposition.” Namatende says she doesn’t regret duping fellow FDC Najjanankumbi loyalists into giving her the Mobilisation Secretary position in October this very year “because as of that time, I hadn’t fully made up my mind to join [NRM].”
In an exclusive conversation with this website, Musumba described Namatende as a damaged good that should rather be referred to as a political tadpole than a big fish as Mukula erroneously asserted.
The furious FDC iron lady who is famous for not mincing her words likewise claimed that Mukula seems to have lost political outlook for wrongly using words to describe things portraying things in a different light than they are.
On Namatende’s defection, Musumba said she had become an easy target for NRM following years of trying to get to parliament but frustrated by the very system she has finally opted to join.
