Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) chief Gen Salim Saleh is doing everything within his powers to ensure that he splits National Unity Platform (NUP) apart.
Gen Saleh who is President Yoweri Museveni’s younger brother has allegedly been reaching out to the NUP’s newly elected Members of Parliament with inducements to encourage them to rebel against the party’s leadership.
Due to NUP wave, a good number of politicians especially those belonging to ruling party NRM failed to retain their elective posts in the 2021 general elections.
Particularly in the Central Region, the NRM candidates were heavily trounced by candidates from Robert Kyagulanyi’s young political party.
The ruling party heavyweights who lost include Vice President Edward Sekandi, Government Chief Whip Ruth Nankabirwa, Information Minister Judith Nabakooba, Science, Innovations and Technology Minister Elioda Tumwesigye, Agriculture Minister Vincent Ssempijja and Trade Minister Amelia Kyambadde among others.
Now with a need to rein on NUP’s popularity before the bad gets worse, Gen Saleh and other top NRM leaders have made recapturing Buganda and disorganizing NUP as their top priority.
According to online news website witness.co.ug, for the past couple of weeks, Gen Saleh has reached out to some of the NUP MP-elects and asked them to work for Museveni.
“I have been contacted, and they were telling me to defect to NRM and in return, they support my projects,” one of the incoming MPs told the news website.
The MP specifically mentioned Gen Saleh as the person who has made the offer.
Meanwhile, some NUP MPs have already met the senior army officer.
“I haven’t been there but I heard that some of our colleagues were taken to meet him in Nakaseke during the campaigns and he gave them some money,” the MP added.
Interviewed, NUP spokesman Joel Ssenyonyi (Nakawa West) said that although it could be true that some party members are being approached by the government, it could as well be a propagandist narrative intended to put the party leadership on a collision path with some of its members.
