There was a time when the name John Patrick Amama Mbabazi (JPAM) evoked power, fear and respect. Fellow ministers prostrated before him. His political opponents feared to cross his path.
Whenever he gestured to the speaker that he needed to say something, the House fell silent. You could hear a pin drop as every MP anxiously waited for what the man from Kinkizi had to say.
He usually said a few words… but even one word from him carried immense weight.
Mbabazi had the ear of President Museveni and some said he was the defacto president. Once, the Vice President Prof Gilbert Bukenya said some unsavoury things about him, Mbabazi “summoned” him and with a sheepish smile, Bukenya apologized.
Then…things started going downhill when rumours started circulating that he was angling to topple Museveni as the president of Uganda and the chairman of the NRM. With time, the rumours turned out to be true.
The president stripped him of his posts as Prime Minister and NRM Secretary General and of all his privileges. But Mbabazi stood against him any way in 2016 and lost.
He fell on hard times, retreated to his palatial home in Kololo, and started mapping out his political future. He concluded that he needed to find a path back to the president’s inner circle. And he did.
Only that…this time Museveni decided that Mbabazi should serve as his ‘special envoy’, an ambiguous role.
Today, JPAM still carries himself with the demeanor of a very powerful person. Yet in truth, he is a faded shadow of his former self.
