Former Prime Minister of Uganda Amama Mbabazi has today, January 16, turned 70 years of age.
Mbabazi was born on January 16, 1949 in Mparo Village, Rukiga County (present day Kabale District).
In a heartwarming Facebook message, his daughter Nina Mbabazi Rukikaire lauded him as the best dad in the whole world.
She wrote, “Happy 70th birthday to the best Dad in the whole wide world. Thank God every day that he let us come into your life and share a bit of your life. To many more birthday.”
About Mbabazi;
He attended Kigezi College Butobere for his O’Level and Ntare School for his A’ Level.
He would later join Makerere University where he graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Law. He received a postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Center in Kampala.
He is an Advocate of the Courts of Judicature of Uganda and has been a member of the Uganda Law Society since 1977.
Before joining politics, he worked as a state attorney in the Attorney General’s Chambers from 1976 to 1978, rising to the position of secretary of the Uganda Law Council from 1977 to 1979.
Between 1986 and 1992, he served as head of the External Security Organisation (ESO).
He has also served as Minister of State in the President’s Office, in charge of political affairs.
He became secretary of the NRM caucus in the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1995 Uganda Constitution.
Between 1986 and 1992, he was Minister of State for Defence. Subsequently, he served as Minister of State for Regional Cooperation from 1998 to 2001. He was Attorney General and Minister of Justice from 2004 to 2006, a feat that earned him the moniker “Super Minister”. He was appointed as Minister of Defence in 2006, a position he held until he was appointed as Minister of Security. He served as Minister of Security from February 2009 until May 2011, when he was appointed Prime Minister.
He was Secretary General of the NRM from November 2005 to January 2015.
On September, 2014, Mbabazi was dropped as Prime Minister. He was replaced with his childhood friend Ruhakana Rugunda.
This move was seen by many as President Yoweri Museveni’s way of punishing Mbabazi for his rumoured presidential run. On June15, 2015, he declared his intentions to run against Museveni for the National Resistance Movement’s nomination for president at the party’s convention on 4 October 2015.
This declaration was followed by a response from Museveni who dubbed it “bad conduct and premature”. On July 31, after much disagreement between top-ranking party officials and Mbabazi himself, the former Prime Minister declared he would stand as an independent candidate. His candidature was backed by The Democratic Alliance (TDA), a loose convergence of minor political parties that worked to win the position of presidency.
In the 2016 general election he received 1.39% of the vote, placing him in the third position after Forum for Democratic Change (FDC)’s candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye and Museveni.
Additional information from Wikipedia.
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