Kampala
  26/09/07
 
FEARS OF SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST OPPOSITION GRIPS UGANDA

By Leo Odera Omolo

Fears of a smear campaign suspected of being engineered by the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) to tarnish members of the opposition parties are growing and causing anxiety among political operatives in Uganda.

According to rumor sections of the opposition, especially the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), they think there is a thick plot against them.

This follows recent reports that the United National Development Programme (UNDP) was probing Mrs. Winnie Byangima at the instigation of NRM members. She is said to have registered her nephew as her own child enabling her to enjoy UNDP benefits.

Byangima is the wife of FDC leader Dr. Kiiza Besigye, and the UNDP director of Gender Team Bureau of Development policy based in New York.

Talks making the round within the opposition circles has it that she adopted her nephew but the NRM smear campaign team tipped the UN that she uttered false information prompting an investigation.

Byangima is likely to lose her job if any wrong doing is established. This is feeding into the grapevines that NRM is providing information against FDC members in international organizations and agencies with the aim of bringing them down.

But some people think it is FDC top officials who reported Byangimas’ alleged misinformation to the UNDP. The same source of rumour has it that some of the FDC top officials were not happy with her for indirectly running the party through her husband.

They also believe that she could be an NRM agent basing on speculation that President Yoweri Museveni had seconded her for the UNDP top job.

Ends.
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com