A day after Philip Oucor, the official candidate of National Resistance Movement (NRM), lost the Serere County byelection, Capt Mike Mukula, the party’s National Vice Chairperson for Eastern Uganda, has rubbished allegations by the the ruling party’s Electoral Commission (EC) Chairman Dr Tanga Odoi that his actions cost the NRM victory.
Speaking after Emmanuel Omoding, an independent candidate and son to late MP Patrick Okabe, was declared winner of the Serere byelection, Dr Tanga Odoi blamed the loss on internal contradictions, including Capt Mukula’s failure to join the president and national chairman in canvassing votes for the NRM candidate.
“We lost because of internal contradictions. A whole National Vice Chairperson Eastern did not turn up to welcome the president. It shows a serious problem within the party,” said Odoi.
But Capt Mukula has fired back at Tanga Odoi and other few NRM leaders for speaking recklessly. The NRM Vice Chairperson also revealed that such reckless talkers would be dealt with through the party’s internal processes.
“You don’t make unsubstantiated statements as a leader. You don’t do that: you must think before you talk, that is leadership. You cannot go in and attack your own without substance: it is wrong. The National Resistance Movement has got what we call ‘correct methods of work’ and they are there has to be respect in the hierarchy and the structure of the party,” Mukula told reporters in Kampala.
“I am an elected member of the National Resistance Movement, deputy to the president of Uganda and the chairman representing eastern. I traversed the whole country to be elected and I have done this severally. I have a lot of respect for many people, our functionaries in the party, in the secretariat: there are very brilliant people, very energetic but there are one or two, three elements, sometimes, who are reckless but we will deal with that in another forum, we’ll deal with it internally.”
He insisted that Odoi’s claims that he had ordered Oucor to surrender the NRM flag to Omoding were “absolute hogwash” and ‘nonsense.’
Mukula further revealed that Museveni was aware of his conflict of interest since he had informed the president and party leader that both Omoding and Oucor were his friends and that he had found it impossible to choose one of them and leave the other.
He also noted that whereas the official ruling party candidate had lost, the winner was NRM-leaning, an indication that the people of Serere were strong supporters of the ruling party.
