When Museveni ordered his prime minister Apollo Nsibambi and the speaker of his parliament, Sekandi, to introduce the controversial Land Amendment Bill 2007, he set a trap for NRM MPs. Sources close to the Uganda warlord’s state house tell us that Museveni is using the land bill debate for many reasons. The source told us: “On some level, the president was annoyed that Kabaka Mutebi ruled out any deal between the two of them when they met one-on-one in September 2009 and he wants to punish him as the biggest land owner around. However, the most important reasons are strategic. First, it is now over a year since Museveni and his akazu (secret kitchen cabinet) decided that a bill like this would break the back of the Muganda. Equally important, Mr. Museveni wanted to use this bill to force Buganda MPs to choose between him and Buganda. He knows that some of them are now exposed to serious dangerous but that does not bother him. In fact he likes it that way because now they have nowhere to go except to him.”

Our state house source agreed with the general information in the MP poll that appeared in the November 22, 2009 Observer newspaper but gave us some clarifications. For example, he clarified that the NRM MPs who claim to be undecided are really jokers who are simply positioning to get paid more money for their votes than the others.  

Below is the list from Observer updated with new information from our statehouse source. The Observer news paper is at www.observer.ug.