By Mulengera Reporters
The Buikwe South MP Dr. Philip Lulume Bayiga on Wednesday stormed the EC headquarters in Kampala demanding that Justice Simon Byabakama becomes interested and gets involved to reprimand Norbert Mao and SG Gelard Blacks Siranda for committting fraudulent acts while disregarding the DP Constitution.
Lulume says that a lot of fraud and forgeries are being committed in order to rig the forthcoming Delegates Conference of the party in favor of Norbert Mao, Siranda and other preferred incumbents.
He claimed that the SG is plotting to use kiwaani/fake delegates from Arua Park to represent the supposed DP members from West Nile, something Siranda says wouldn’t be a problem; assuming it were true.
Lulume says the upcoming DP delegates conference is full of delegates and 1,600 voters from NRM who have been lent to Norbert Mao by his allies inside President Museveni’s NRM.
He says that Mao has a list of delegates from Mbarara who can’t even speak Runyankore. To him, this proves that these are kiwaani delegates who don’t actually come from Ankore.
Lulume adds that Edith Byanyima, who is one of his campaigners, has for the last two months been tasking the DP Secretariat to reveal the DP delegates from Ankole only to be totally ignored by Mao and Siranda.
This Wednesday, Siranda furiously responded demanding to know the capacity in which Edith Byanyima is asking for the delegates’ list.
Siranda says that Edith, whose father Mzee Boniface Byanyima served as DP national chairman for more than 30 years and sacrificed a lot to remain DP, has no locus to ask questions to a big man like Mao because she only got the DP ticket and became a member last December.
He adds that being Mzee Byanyima’s daughter doesn’t make Edith Byanyima a special person in DP. He says she has always been ignoring DP presidential candidates like Francis Bwengye in 2001, Sebaana Kizito in 2006 and Norbert Mao in both 2011 and 2021.
He says Edith can’t claim any special status in DP, which she hasn’t done so far, because allowing her to enjoy the same would amount to encouraging children of Ben Kiwanuka, who are now in NUP and NRM, to come around and give orders to Mao because of the sacrifice their father made in defense of DP’s values of truth and justice.
Siranda, who was angry as to why Edith joined Lulume and a one Ddumba to go demand Simon Byabakama’s action at EC headquarters on Wednesday, however didn’t respond to any of the substantive issues Edith Byanyima and others have been raising.
His convenient strategy was to attack the messenger while disregarding the message, critics observed.
Siranda also defended his decision to refuse to reveal the list of delegates to those seeking to stand against Mao during the 30th May NDC in Mbarara.
Even when he says he knows the number reaches 1600 delegates even when a minimum of 500 is enough to have the NDC, Siranda said there is no list to be shared with anyone as yet. He said returns are still coming in and the list will only be shared when it’s complete. This means that, barely 3 weeks to it’s internal elections, Uganda’s oldest political party doesn’t have a voters’ register as yet.
Candidates vying for different positions have to campaign amongst those delegates and the SG doesn’t agree that there is need for them to have more time to be able to adequately campaign.
Siranda said that Mao deserves kudos and flowers for achieving so much in such a short time even when many national DP leaders have been very hostile to him.
He said that Mao should be celebrated because the party, which was homeless, now has its own home and in Kampala and his future successors won’t have to rent. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
