Social media users react to Gen Muntu exit
Gen Mugisha Muntu addressing journalists after the meeting in Kampala on September 25, 2018. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI
What you need to know:
- NRM members who took to social media to rejoice his exit from FDC, however, invited Gen Muntu to “return home”.
- Like former party president Dr Kizza Besigye, Gen Muntu once served in President Museveni’s government as his army commander.
- Veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda tweeted that Gen Muntu’s departure was long overdue.
Kampala. Several Ugandans took to social media to express their feelings and opinions about the announcement that former president of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Maj Gen (Rtd) Mugisha Muntu, is to leave the party.
Gen Muntu made the announcement in a statement over his Facebook and Twitter accounts after a more than five-hour meeting with FDC president Patrick Amuriat Oboi at Fairway Hotel in Kampala yesterday.
Kawempe South MP Mubarak Munyagwa, who attended the closed-door meeting, later addressed journalists at Parliament and confirmed what he called a “mass exodus” of FDC party members.
Some of the people on social media, however, reacted with consternation, while others said the decision for Gen Muntu to quit FDC was predictable after years of internal bickering. Others predicted that he was likely to team up with Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, of the “People Power” pressure group or form his own political party.
NRM members who took to social media to rejoice his exit from FDC, however, invited Gen Muntu to “return home”. Like former party president Dr Kizza Besigye, Gen Muntu once served in President Museveni’s government as his army commander.
Veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda tweeted that Gen Muntu’s departure was long overdue.
“I predicted this long time ago - that given the takeover of FDC by radical extremists, it was increasingly untenable for enlightened voices of reason and mediation to stay in that party,” his tweet read in part.
Information Minister Frank Tumwebaze also took to twitter and said he respected Gen Muntu for rejecting divisionary politics that is built on “hooliganism”.
“Though I have no business with @FDCOfficial1 internal politics, I respect Gen @mugishamuntu our disagreements notwithstanding for rejecting comedy and political theatrics. The political class must reject diversionary politics of hooliganism. Let’s contest on ideas and keep it civil,” he twitted.
A lady who identified herself as Alice Kiyingi posted on Facebook wall, saying Gen Muntu is likely to be the “invisible powerful force” behind Mr Kyagulanyi’s “people power” group, adding that the former FDC president is likely to contest in the 2021 presidential elections.
Writing on his private Facebook wall, senior Presidential press secretary Don Wanyama said: “The Second Coming, Turning and Turning in the widening gyre. The Falcon cannot hear the Falconer. Things Fall Apart (In FDC). The centre cannot hold...”
