Joseph Kabuleta. PHOTO: COURTESY.
Veteran Journalist and founder of Watchman Ministries, Joseph Kabuleta has called President Museveni’s meeting with Pastors “a campaign gimmick.”
According to Kabuleta, the meeting which gathered close to 55,000 Pastors at Lugogo Criket Oval in Kampala on 23rd September “was just an opportunity” for the President.
Kabuleta appeared on the ‘Morning at NTV’ live show on 25 September, 2019, denying claims that the event had anything to do with evangelism.
“It was politics. It was called by the President,” Kabuleta emphasized.
Kabuleta, who was in July this year arrested and slapped with charges of offensive communication when he allegedly used his social media account to annoy the President, told NTV Uganda the proposed Religious and Faith-based Organisations (RFBOs) policy perturbing Pastors has its very ‘roots’ in State House.
“Pastors before convened a meeting, they asked him [President Museveni] to come and talk about it [RFBOs policy], he foxed them. He actually sent a very low representative to come and tell them he has no time, he’d tell them when he has time,” Kabuleta said.
“Now of course when politicking is the main thing right now, then he convenes the meeting, he calls them, and because they are let down by their leaders, some of them came from Gulu and everywhere, I don’t know what they expected. I don’t know why people still expect any substance from this president. Okay, that’s me speaking politically. But I don’t know what they expected,” he said. “This is what disappoints me about the pastors; it’s not Lokodo. Lokodo is just a pawn in this chess game. He is not the originator of it [RFBOs policy]. It comes straight from State House. Now in typical Machiavellian style, he originates it and the people who are opposed run to him for solace and then he plays them.”
“These pastors are let down by their leaders, and I have to say this, because it was an opportunity for some leaders to have kodak moments with the president and shake hands and so on. But truth is, so many pastors expected too much and we interacted with some of them,” Kabuleta said.
“It was just a campaign gimmick. The pastors are being let down by their leaders who marketed this as something which is going to be beneficial to pastors and it was not. It was never meant to be. But it was beneficial to people like Robert Kayanja and a few people who had their kodak moments with the president and that’s what it was all about,” he concluded.
