Depending on who you speak to, everyone has a different take on Norbert Mao’s twitter storm that has rattled feathers in the opposition fold.
But they all agree on one thing: They don’t know what has motivated the amiable president general of the Democratic Party to go on an attacking spree.
Mao, the articulate, vibrant and contrarian politician has been firing in all directions, in the process hurting people like an overloaded shopping trolley that suddenly runs loose in a crowded supermarket.
Dr Kizza Besigye, has referred to Mao’s recent outbursts as an “unguided missile” after the former FDC president became the target of his attacks.
While the motivation behind Mao’s twitter attacks on his colleague is unclear, what is, is the fact that his tweets became more venomous after the First Son, Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba praised him as the “most brilliant” opposition leader on February 3.
In reply, Mao thanked Muhoozi and said he [first son] is not like other leaders who suffer from “generational myopia”.
He then went on a tweeting spree clobbering a number of opposition politicians on his twitter handle.
From Mathias Mpuuga to Dr Kizza Besigye to Robert Kyagulanyi, they have all been at the end of his twitter lash.
Mpuuga, Mao said, used to receive fuel from the regime he criticises through former IGP, Gen Kale Kayihura.
As for Kyagulanyi, Mao’s litany of tweets is long. He has accused Bobi Wine of being a state project, of having stolen someone’s party and of not being genuine in his opposition to Museveni.
Kyagulanyi has chosen to ignore him but not Besigye.
Mao claimed in a series of tweets that Besigye has held secret talks with Museveni, something that did not go down well with the retired colonel.
Indeed like Besigye, some analysts have wondered why Mao would point guns at his colleagues not the NRM.
One of them suggested that Mao’s increased criticism of the opposition could be his meal card to a big political job.
“Don’t be shocked when Mao is appointed to cabinet,” said one political analyst who identifies with the opposition.
“He has worked hard for it.”
On his part, Mao has said in several media interviews that he is on the crusade to expose opposition members who are seemingly critical of President Museveni during the day yet at night, they secretly dine with him or benefit from his largesse.
“I don’t fear the truth but now it looks like my truth telling is shaking the high tables of hypocrites who have been deceiving Ugandans that they are liberators. They are a bunch of cowards with no plan,” he said recently.
For the nth time let me say those corrupt hypocrites who denounce dialogue under @UgandaIpod know that you can’t eat your cake and have it. The documents approved by parliament are here for all to see. Just receive the money osilike… pic.twitter.com/qhk3WZEdKi
— Norbert Mao (@norbertmao) February 23, 2022
Mao has also constantly dismissed reports that he is working for the NRM.
Yet besides Muhoozi, Mao’s tweets seem to have received approval and endorsement from other senior NRM officials like Frank Tumwebaze, the minister for Agriculture.
“Hon @norbertmao takes no prisoners & has no patience for mediocrity, feeble minds & witless pple who posture for fame using insults & blackmail.On this, i tick his 📦. For the record, Hon Mao is a brain a part. Even when he disagrees with u, he has respect for logic! #RespectMao,” Tumwebaze tweeted on February 19.
Checkered career
Mao’s political career has been checkered.
The the story of his triumph in Makerere guild elections has become part of the folklore at the Ivory Tower, passed on from one generation of students to another.
Mao defeated none other than Brig Noble Mayombo, in what some people say was the first commercialised election in Makerere’s history.
When he hit the national stage as a legislator in the 6th and 7th Parliament, Mao distinguished himself as an astute debater and became the poster child of the fight against bad governance.
One veteran journalist said Mao’s submissions on the floor were very enriching and persuasive.
“He is a master of analogies and knows when to apply them. Whenever he would stand up to speak on the floor, you would not want his submission to be interrupted,” said the journalist.
After a stint in Parliament, he retreated to Gulu, his home district, where he served as chairman.
Yet it was his historic election as DP president general in Mbale in 2010 that some say marked the beginning of his political down fall.
First he failed to galvanise Uganda’s oldest political party leading to factions and walk outs.
Secondly, he started attacking Forum for Democratic Change and its then leader, Besigye, accusing him of fomenting divisions in DP, alienating himself with the opposition forces.
Writing in The Observer on May 19, 210, Ssemujju Nganda, the Kira Municipality MP asserted that Mao was Museveni’s trojan horse.
Ssemujju claimed that he had overheard Mao telling an NRM politician after a workshop in Gulu that “If Museveni handled them [DP] properly, they can even help him defeat FDC in Acholi.”
In 2011 when he threw his hat into the presidential elections ring, only 147, 917 people in the country voted for him.
Yet his biggest political knock came in 2020 when a dozen DP MPs decided to join NUP in the run up to the 2021 elections.
Mao, threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at the defecting MPs and at NUP.
When this did not work, he said he will “catch them” at the elections where he offered himself as a presidential candidate again.
This time only 57, 682 people voted for him, more than 60% decline from his 2011 performance.
Some say that Mao turned to social media, specifically twitter, because he was disappointed by the political turn of events. Then he unleashed his missiles, as an act of trying to revive his wavering political fortunes.
