IPC is fanning troubles in DP, he claims.

MANCHESTER, UK- Gulu District Chairman, Norbert Mao, has accused the Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) of quietly aiding and abetting the elements that threaten to split his party, DP.

He said the IPC, a loose political alliance of FDC, UPC, CP and JEEMA, is fanning wrangles in DP because they fear his candidature.

“Their wish is that I am sidelined, so that DP ends up with a weak candidate who is unknown to the public, which will automatically raise their chances of becoming the coalition candidate,” said Mao.
The IPC plans to field a single presidential candidate in the elections due early next year.

Mao, who featured on the UK-based internet radio Ngoma last week, claimed that a senior IPC member whom he did not name, telephoned Mathias Nsubuga, the disputed DP Secretary General, to persuade him not to support his (Mao’s) bid to become DP’s president general.

Mao said those against him in IPC fear that he will not accept the already anointed IPC candidates.

Mao added that even within the DP, some of the old guards fear him because they know that they will not be able to control him.
“They know that I cannot be subjected to political blackmail,” he said.

He gave an example of DP President General, John Ssebaana Kizito, whom he said had been in the good books of  the old guards in DP but once he started thinking independently, he suddenly became a “bad person.”

Mao says that when he becomes DP president, he will woo back members who have since abandoned the party. He said Makindye East MP, Mike Mabikke and former minister Prof. Peter Kasenene, had expressed readiness to return to DP if he is elected president general.

“Mabikke told me that once I come from Mbale on February 21 as DP president, I will find him in Jinja raising the DP flag, and Prof. Kasenene told me that when we put our house in order, he will return to our party,” Mao said.

He added that there are even other members in the North who had abandoned the party but are ready to return if he is elected DP leader.

Mao also dismissed as malicious allegations that his wife works in State House. He said that Naomi Achieng Odong will enter State House, for the first time, when she becomes the first lady.

He said that his wife is an independent professional film maker who established her own firm Eyez on Africa Ltd. One of the films she made is Trapped in Anguish, which is about the plight of night commuters and Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Northern Uganda.

“I am the only person in my family who gets a government salary because my pay comes from the Consolidated Fund,” he said.
Mao also dismissed as false accusations that he has ever left DP saying he only formed a pressure group with ICT Minister Aggrey Awori to campaign for the return of multi-party democracy and he has no apologies for that.

Mao also wondered why the break-away faction led by DP National Chairman, Prof. Joseph Mukiibi, and deputy Secretary General, Dr. Lulume Bayigga, are afraid of the people’s verdict in the delegates’ conference scheduled for February 18-21 in Mbale.

He said the delegate’s conference should be as basic to a party as prayers are for Christians and Muslims, but it has become an issue in DP because of the fear of the outcome which would be his victory. Mao said the only meaningful reconciliation should come after the delegates’ conference.

The other contender, Sam Lubega, who was supposed to be co-hosted on the same show could neither pick up his calls nor answer the text messages sent by the producers to remind him of his commitment to participate in the DP presidential debate.

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