Lule quits after only 2½ months in power

Press, 22 June 1979, Page 5

Lule quits after only 2½ months in power

NZPA-Reuter Kampala Thousands of Ugandans took to the streets of Kampala through Wednesday night demanding the reinstatement of Yusufu Lule who quit as President on Wednesday less than 10 weeks after taking over from the ousted dictator, Idi Amin.

Eye-witnesses said the demonstrators were peaceful, although they shouted they would set fire to the city if Professor Lule were not returned to the Presidency in place of a lawyer, Godfred Binaisa, his successor, who became the country’s third leader in three months.

The police took no action as an estimated 3000 demonstrators marched through the streets shouting demands for the jailing of 17 members of the National Consultative Council known to have put pressure on Professor Lule to resign. President Binaisa, who is 59, was sworn in as Head of State on Wednesday night. Professor Lule, who is 67, quit on Wednesday after

members of the ruling Uganda National Liberation Front accused him of making Cabinet changes in a dictatorial manner in two reshuffles in as many weeks.

The soft-spoken academic said: “I did not wish to see any conflict arising around my personality. Uganda has had enough of this.”

A statement broadcast on Wednesday night over Uganda Radio by the chairman of the U.N.L.F.’s National Consultative Council (Mr Edward Rugumayo) said Professor Lule had been replaced because he “ignored democratic methods of making decisions of significance to the nation.” He said that Professor Lule had made Ministerial appointments without consultation.

The statement added: “The council expressed its gratitude to Professor Lule for his contribution to the liberation of the country’.” The U.N.F.L. was estab-1 lished in Moshi. Northern Tanzania, last March as a broad-based coalition of

Ugandan exile groups. Professor Lule. regarded as political, was elected chairman of the Executive Council, which automatically made him President when Tanzanian and Ugandan exile forces ousted Amin a month later.

Professor Lule. a friend of the Tanzanian President (Dr Julius Nyerere), came to pow'er amid hopes that he would act to unite disparate elements of the U.N.L.F.

Instead, a power struggle had evolved principally between a Left-wing group close to the former President, Milton Obote, ousted by Idi Amin in a coup d'etat in 1971, and a conservative southern group of the Baganda tribe, diplomatic sources said. President Binaisa is a Bagandan who resigned as At-torney-Genera) in Dr Obote’s Government in 1967 after disagreeing with a proposed constitution. He is described las a tougher and more experienced politician than Professor Lule, who was formerly chief administrator of the national university.