UPC ‘defector’ Kanusu declines Museveni gift
Mr Robert Kanusu, (3rdL) refuses to take the yellow cap from President Museveni in Budondo on Sunday. PHOTO BY DENIS ODEMA
What you need to know:
Doubts. The UPC strongman was on Sunday declared to have crossed to the ruling NRM during the launch of the Busoga Women Leaders’ Association in Budondo on Sunday, however upon being handed the symbolic cap, he rejected it.
NRM officials in Jinja District were embarrassed when former press secretary of Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) president on Sunday declined to wear a yellow baseball cap of the ruling NRM handed to him by President Museveni moments after it had been declared that he had crossed from UPC to the NRM.
Mr Robert Kanusu, who during the 2011 general elections contested for the Jinja LC5 seat on a UPC ticket, had on Sunday been presented to Mr Museveni at Buwagi Primary School in Budondo by Jinja Woman MP Agnes Nabirye.
A visibly excited Jinja Municipality NRM chairman, Mr Moses Karangwa Kaliisa, quickly handed the President the baseball cap who in turn tried to give it to Mr Kanusu, but the UPC diehard rejected the cap.
However, moments after the function, Mr Kanusu denied having defected from UPC, saying that he had been “ambushed”.
“There was nothing like crossing to the NRM. I love associating with women. When I heard that they were holding a function in my home sub-county, I had to come. They said that I would be invited to greet the President, which was okay with me. I didn’t know that they would call it defection,” said Mr Kanusu.
However, NRM officials, including the vice chairman, Majid Dhikusooka and Karangawa Kaliisa, insisted that they had been engaging Mr Kanusu and other opposition supporters who later crossed to the NRM. Presentation before Mr Museveni, they claimed, was meant to be a formality. They said the only problem was that Mr Kanusu’s name was hurriedly mentioned to Mr Museveni at a function where he had unequivocally stated that he would not talk politics.
Who is kanusu?
Mr Robert Kanusu is a former journalist with Jinja-based Kiira FM. In the last general elections, he contested for the Jinja LC5 seat on a UPC ticket. His rise. He rose to prominence in Jinja when images of him destroying electoral materials at Kayunga A Polling Station in Mafubira Sub-county were televised on all major television channels.
Prominence. A different set of images showing him attacking the District Returning Officer, Ms Flavia Mujulizi, who he accused of being one of the pawns in a government orchestrated rigging machinery, and unplugging equipment including computers at the EC’s offices in Jinja.
