By In his probably first ever public comments on the matter, Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu on Wednesday hinted at the source of claims made a decade ago that he was a plant working for President Museveni inside the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC).
To-date, no proof has been made to support those claims, but they were enough to bring his short leadership of what was then Uganda’s most formidable opposition grouping to a premature end in 2017.
Speaking about the ongoing wrangling in the same party amidst similar talk about “moles”, Maj Gen Muntu told this publication that the “false news” peddled about him had origins in the intelligence services — possibly as part of a disinformation campaign designed to infiltrate and split regime opponents.
“For now, I can only say that regimes like the one of General Museveni will always do whatever it takes to infiltrate political parties,” he said before elaborating that, “For myself, it was the Crime Intelligence who supplied false news that I am a mole and some opportunistic party members jumped on that and spread the false information”.
Within three months, he said on Wednesday morning, Ugandans will get to know who the real moles in the FDC are.
The former FDC president told this publication that by the time his former party convenes for its National Delegates conference planned for November, it will be clear as to who is quietly working against it.
As that crucial event at which new leaders will be chosen looms, he also warned that FDC will be staring at its eventual collapse if the current conflicting individuals do not sit down and talk.
His views were delivered as FDC’s National Council was expected to convene for crunch talks today at the party headquarters in Najjanankumbi, Kampala.
A leadership contest raging inside FDC has spiralled out of control this past fortnight, spilling into the media to the astonishment of political pundits and insiders alike. A sticking point in the faction fighting are allegations that one wing was compromised to betray the party, purportedly pocketing billions of shillings in suspicious campaign financing in inducements.
But on Wednesday the party’s former leader, measured as always in his comments, said time will tell who the real Trojan horses are.
“You cannot just come out and brand someone a mole unless you have evidence. Even if you are sure that such people are moles, you have to have video footage of their meeting or documentary evidence showing transactions, I was branded as a mole in FDC but the truth is that I was not. That’s why I don’t go with hearsay,” he said.
“If someone talks good when they are actually doing bad, you eventually know. That is why I say time is the biggest natural judge,” he said, reprising a ‘prophecy’ he made almost a decade ago when he, too, faced similar though unsubstantiated accusations.
The two-star General left FDC after an acrimonious election in which he was removed from the party presidency and replaced with current leader, Mr Patrick Oboi Amuriat.
In the heated run-up to that 2017 process, Maj Gen Muntu was denounced as a mole working for President Museveni. His detractors, however, provided no proof of their claims.
Against that background, he told this publication the ongoing conflict is not new.
“For our case, it was about the strategies that would be taken by the party to assume power. My faction was championing peaceful means through building grassroot leadership, while our colleagues led by Amuriat were in support of defiance. When they defeated us in 2017, we peacefully conceded and exited,” he added.
The former army commander, who joined opposition politics after retiring from the army, said he is now focused on building the fledgling Alliance for National Transformation (ANT), a party he co-founded in 2018 with former FDC colleagues who also fell victim to the internal strife which cut short his leadership at that party.
Today, FDC’s Mr Amuriat and party secretary general Nathan Nandala Mafabi are locked in a bitter conflict with a faction led by party spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda and Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, who is FDC vice president for Buganda region.
At the other end of the unrest is party founding father, Col (rtd) Dr Kizza Besigye who was named by Mr Amuriat last week for fanning the internal discord through his continued running of a parallel power centre out of his Katonga Road offices in Nakasero, central Kampala.
