Former Minister for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives (MTIC), Amelia Anne Kyambadde, has spoken out on life outside President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s cabinet, saying she misses being a minister, a powerful position in the Ugandan political structure.
In a cabinet reshuffle effected in June 2021 as he put together a team to work with as he steers the country for another five-year term ending in 2026, President Museveni dropped Amelia Kyambadde as Minister. Lucky for her, Amelia Kyambadde was one of the few fired ministers that Museveni consoled with presidential advisor positions as reported HERE.
After being dropped from cabinet and losing her Mawokota North parliamentary seat to singer Hilary Kiyaga aka Dr Hilderman of Robert Kyagulanyi’s National Unity Platform (NUP), Kyambadde had been largely out of the public eye. And when she resurfaced she made some confessions about missing being a minister and revelations about her future plans.
Amelia Kyambadde, who also previously served as the principal private secretary to Museveni, admitted that she found trouble adjusting to life out of cabinet and Parliament but says she was steadily getting used to it.
“It was very difficult in the beginning to come to terms with the fact that I am no longer a Minister, but now I have. If I were to write a book, I would write about the challenges of a legislator,” Kyambadde told NBS Morning Breeze. “I have been hibernating, and now I am out of hibernation.”
During her time of hibernation, Kyambadde says she has been reflecting on her life as a minister and Member of Parliament for Mawokota North, a seat that was grabbed by a singer who once composed popular campaign praises songs for her. She believes that people failed to understand her.
“I have reflected on my mistakes, but sometimes self-criticism is hard unless someone sits you down. People misunderstood me, and thought I was very ambitious and contemptuous,” said Kyambadde.
She also hinted on what her future in politics will be like, and if she was planning of a political comeback in Mawokota North to reclaim her parliamentary seat from NUP’s Dr Hilderman. She says she did her best for the people of Mawokota and does not think she is a god. She wondered what she would add she was reelected MP in, say, 2026.
“Politics is just a game, not very clean. When I look at my area, I did everything,” she noted. ” What more am I going to add? You can’t say you are the only one, the alpha and omega.”
Yet some of her supporters are already pestering her to return and contest so as to wrestle her position back from Hilderman, a member of Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine’s NUP party whose wave saw many ministers lose their MP seats.
She has now made it clear that she seeks to invest her time, resources and experience in entrepreneurship and a doctorate instead of politics. Kyamabadde said: “I am under a lot of pressure to come back to politics but politics is not the only job: I want to go into entrepreneurship and do my PhD as well. I have other aspirations.”
WHERE ARE OTHER FIRED MINISTERS?
It should be remembered that two of the fired ministers have since died. These are Gen Elly Tumwine and Fr Simon Lokodo. Before he died, Gen Elly Tumwine had delivered a clear warning and message to President Museveni regarding peaceful power handover, as well as another message for his bush war comrades. (See Details Here and There).
Other fired members of Museveni’s cabinet have been living silent lives. Former Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi, who was replaced by Jessica Alupo, was recently seen ‘eating life with a big spoon,’ has had trouble with his ‘second wife’ after reportedly chasing her and her children from his house and other properties, and was also said to have recently been rushed to a Dubai Hospital in critical condition. (See Details Here, There and Over There).
