National
I’m no rebel to fight for oil - Iguru
The Omukama of Bunyoro Kingdom, Dr Solomon Gafabusa Iguru, on Christmas Day stunned his subjects with the claim that top district officials have implicated him in a planned armed rebellion.
“The Hoima district chairman (George Bagonza) and RDC Martha Asiimwe have written to the President claiming that I am training rebels. That is false of course. They have caused me a lot of problems,” Iguru told Christians who attended Christmas Day prayers at St. Peters Cathedral (COU) at Duhaga in Hoima town.
“Let the government come and find out and kill them (rebels) if at all they exist. But am not aware about all this” Iguru added. He said the officials are linking him in a ploy to destabilise oil prospecting activities in Lake Albert through insurgency. Iguru’s claim comes at a time when the central government led by President Museveni is doing its best to court Bunyoro, a sub-region where the huge oil deposits have recently been confirmed.
Demanding royalties
The kingdom has so far demanded that it gets paid substantial royalties once commercial exploitation of the oil starts. This is the first time the cultural leader of the Banyoro was commenting on such a sensitive security matter to his subjects.
Iguru is also chairperson of Uganda cultural leaders’ forum which brings together 13 cultural leaders of Uganda. But the district chairman distanced himself from the accusation.
“I have been told that he mentioned me in his address to Christians. But I think my king is just idle,” Mr Bagonza said in an interview, adding, “Let him show the public the letter I wrote to the President.”
Letter talk
He added that he has never written to President Museveni since he became district chairman in 2001. Mr Bagonza protested that he is “too small to write to the President”. “Telling such a lie would be contempt of the highest order,” he said. “The king has lost focus”.
Mr Bagonza is a well known critic of the Bunyoro Kingdom institution and is widely suspected to have engineered the arrest of two of the king’s guards early this year but he denies such allegations. RDC Asiimwe has since contacted Sunday Monitor to express her disappointment at the king.
“These are wild allegations from the cultural leader,” Ms Asiimwe said.
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