By George Murumba

13^th Dec 2010

President Museveni in a recent PR visit to Somalia

President Yoweri Museveni’s abrupt visit to war-torn Somalia on 5^th December could have been purely for Public Relations purposes, Uganda Correspondent can exclusively reveal.

In a move that surprised many, including First Lady Mrs. Janet Museveni, some sources say, the President unceremoniously took time off his busy election campaign schedule to visit Ugandan soldiers serving under the AU’s AMISOM peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

Appearing at Mogadishu airport in full military attire, President Museveni is also reported to have met his Somalia counterpart President  Sheikh Sherif Ahmed while allegedly on his way to attend an AU leaders summit in Libya.

Reliable sources however told Uganda Correspondent on condition of strict anonymity that Museveni’s entire Somalia visit was planned and organised by Albany Associates [International] Ltd, a British Public Relations firm based in Plymouth-United Kingdom.

The purpose of the visit, we were told, was to present the embattled President Yoweri Museveni to the world “…as a visionary African leader who deserves support for his open empathy with the West’s ‘war on terror’ in Somalia”.

For the proverbial ‘icing on the cake’, our efforts to get clarification on the matter from Albany Associates [International] Ltd only served up fresh revelations about the unclear relationship between Albany Associates [International] Ltd and the AU/UN Information Support Team.

In her reply to Uganda Correspondent’s enquiry to Albany Associates [International] Ltd, President Museveni’s former Press Secretary M/s Hope Kivengere, who rather interestingly, signed off as Programme Manager for the ‘AU/UN Information Support Team’, sounded very suspiciously evasive.

“…The AU/UN Information Support was not involved in organising the recent visit of President Yoweri Museveni to Mogadishu or in the PR of the visit”, M/s Hope Kivengere said.

In the circumstances, Uganda Correspondent could not therefore establish with any satisfactory degree of authority whether M/s Hope Kivengere now works for Albany Associates [International] Ltd, the AU/UN Information Support Team, or both. 

President Museveni’s former Press Secretary however referred Uganda Correspondent to others who stepped into her shoes after she “retired” from doing President Museveni’s PR work. 

“…For any information about this, I suggest you contact the presidential press secretary, Tamale Mirundi, or the head of the presidential press unit, Mr. V. Keeya who is copied in here”, Kivengere added.

By the time Uganda Correspondent went to press however, a full week after we made the request, neither Tamale Mirundi nor Mr. Keeya had replied.  END. Please log into www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.