A couple of days ago, Buganda kingdom Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga held a customary address to the Lukiiko, giving what many people call the Annual State of the Kingdom Address, though this time round his medium was television and radio, due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic which has enforced social distancing as a new normal.
Mr Mayiga who made seven years as Katikkiro of Buganda this week, as usual had inspirational words for his listeners, taking them through the past and future of Buganda.
However, parting from the norm, Mayiga had a word or two for his unnamed critics.
Without mentioning names, the Katikkiro said people should pay less attention to some of the people who criticize his leadership and concentrate on those who are worth their salt. “Some of these people are usually arrested for being con artists. They have no known jobs apart from conning people. Others are drunkards. By midmorning, they have already done a crate of beer and are opening another one. Those are not people you should pay attention to. Find critics worth their name,” Mayiga said. “There also those with pseudo names on Facebook and Twitter. Don’t pay attention to anything they say. So don’t lose hope,” he added.
Even before finishing his two-hour speech, photos of Tamale Mirundi and Frank Gashumba had started circulating on social media with people saying Mirundi is the drunkard while Gashumba is the conman Mayiga was referring too.
Many social media people have been posting and tweeting that Gashumba has no moral authority to accuse Katikkiro of anything.
Some people say that Mirundi regularly appears on his talkshows on many TV and radio stations while drunk. Some of the photos circulating on social media showed a drunk Mirundi in company of some unidentified women. His conduct has always betrayed him or played to confirm these allegations as he sometimes fights his talkshow hosts.
A few years ago, Mirundi was critical of Mengo’s initiative to issue leasehold land titles to its tenants in a campaign dubbed Ekyapa Mu Ngalo arguing that people didn’t need these titles only for information to leak that at least Mirundi had got the same titles he was criticizing.
Gashumba has been of recent accusing Katikkiro Mayiga of being a mafia without bringing any evidence. The public reacted angrily to Gashumba’s accusations and Mirundi calling them government propagandists who don’t want to see Buganda develop.
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