Former senior presidential press secretary Joseph Tamale Mirundi has said that former Security Minister Gen Elly Tumwine is panicking because he fears the International Criminal Court (ICC) sanctions and charges.
While speaking during a political talk show on Beat FM on Wednesday, Mirundi scoofed at Gen Tumwine saying that while he was in power, he was very arrogant whereby he threatened to kill innocent Ugandans because they were not supporting the incumbent government.
Mirundi added during his tenure as security minister, Gen Tumwine was big-headed to the extent of disrespecting the Parliament.
“Elly Tumwine thought that he was also among the untouchables in Museveni’s government, that is why he was very arrogant singing wars songs to threaten Ugandans. They called him in Parliament to speak about the torture chambers and refused to go there. Now what is making him panic is the ICC because the media has always been recording him confessing that they are ready to kill Ugandans,”the veteran journalist asserted.
“ Now he has to give accountability to both the local and the international community. He was very arrogant, they asked him to remove the safe houses and he refused. But now because of the ICC is he is panicking.”
When he was handing over office to the new security minister Maj Gen Jim Muhwezi last week, Tumwine said he was going to advise President Yoweri Museveni to start thinking about peaceful power transition.
“I will continue to give him my genuine support and advice and to me now, I think the best advice we can give him is to prepare for a smooth transition so that we ensure stability and long-term peace for the long future. You know it should be our duty to save him from being ‘ngamba nyenka.’ The Banyankole have the proverb ‘ngamba nyenka anyunka amarwa mabi’; That the one who does not take advice brews some bad beer. But we should save the president that problem or we should save him from the disease diagnosed by political scientists and political psychologists that is called hubris syndrome,” he said.
However, to Mirundi, Gen Tumwine said all that because he is trying to clean his public image and that the four star general is fearing what awaits him in future as far as ICC is concerned.
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