By Mulengera Reporter
Singer Nubian Li has been deployed by Bobi Wine to become the new mayor for Nakawa division where his wife Salha Mutoni is already serving as councilor and deputy mayor. Nakawa, which NRM dominated for decades, had safety already been liberated with real estate dealer, money lender and apartments owner Paul Mugambe serving as area mayor having replaced Ronald Balimwezo in 2021.
Mugambe came from DP and joined NUP in 2021. However, Kavule badly wants him out so as to pave way for Nubian Li whose wife Mugambe was forced to make deputy mayor at the beginning of his term. But Mugambe’s woes started much earlier on when Mutoni declared war on deputy speaker Jalia Nalubwama, describing her as unfit for the position of deputy speaker. Mugambe refused to join that war, which Mutoni didn’t like.
She started bad mouthing him to her husband and other power brokers in NUP as disloyal and too principled. Mugambe’s woes later worsened and escalated when he insisted that Nakawa west MP Joel Ssenyonyi, who is also a very good friend of Nubian Li, pays back the money he had borrowed from him to fund his campaigns in 2021 when he was still a very broke young man who had just abandoned his lowly-paid job at NTV.
Leaders inside NUP headquarters desired that Mugambe forgets about the money and consoles himself with the fact that he had been able to win and fulfil his childhood dream of becoming area mayor largely because of the Kyagulanyi endorsement. Mugambe insisted the money had to be paid back because this was a business and not mere charity.
In the end, Ssenyonyi reluctantly paid back the money but Mugambe had already been blacklisted and declared unwanted. This partly explains why he stands no chance retaining the NUP ticket to keep his seat as Nakawa mayor come 2026. Yet his insistence to stand as an NUP-leaning independent could split up and diminish the opposition vote and thereby increasing chances for NRM to reclaim Nakawa which their Benjamin Kalumba held before Balimwezo ousted him in 2016. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
