By Mulengera Reporters
In Mukono politics, at least on the side of opposition, area Municipality MP Betty Nambooze is a small god. Over the years, through politics of intrigue which he has mastered so well, Nambooze has destroyed many politicians.
Equally true, she has also propped many except that she doesn’t keep friends and allies for long. She is a fault finder who is always quick to find fault and falls out with people.
Anifa Nabukeera, who rode on the Kyagulanyi wave and became Mukono Woman MP in 2021, is one politician who has suffered the Nambooze wrath. At first they were allies only to fall out shortly after swearing in May 2021. She insisted on operating independently yet Nambooze wanted to keep her under her armpits both in the constituency and in Parliament.
When she resisted and insisted on being her own person, Nambooze declared war on her and began propping up potential rivals to disrupt her from inside NUP.
Being a lawyer, Nabukeera refused to be cowed and instead prepared for war, which has been raging since 2021 up to this day. She is too assertive and there is no way she was going to let the less schooled Nambooze get her way, says a source close to both of them.
Claiming to be the biggest kingmaker in Mukono, Nambooze has been telling people how Nabukeera is finished and indeed a dead woman walking. This had created an impression that Nabukeera, who has openly been working with Nambooze’s adversaries like Bakaluba Mukasa (LC5 Chairman) and Richard Kabanda etc, had been written off by decision makers at Kavule.
However, this isn’t the case as we are going to demonstrate in this news report. Kavule insiders say that Bobi Wine recently weighed in and told fellow big men inside NUP that he isn’t prepared to allow veteran politicians like Betty Nambooze to use his political party to fight small petty personal wars.
He insisted that the Harriet Chemutai-led EMC gets shielded against crude manipulation by individual MPs like Nambooze when choosing who to give the flag. That’s how Richard Kabanda was given the NUP flag for Mukono Municipality Mayorship while disregarding old man Elisha Nkoyoyo who Nambooze was backing.
“The Principal is generally more comfortable leading fellow young people because he sees them as belonging to the future, which is why it had to be Kabanda and not Nkoyoyo. It was also an opportunity to demystify Nambooze in order to demonstrate to party mobilizers that she doesn’t rule NUP in Mukono as her supporters had been claiming,” says a source adding that there was also need to clamp Nambooze’s wings so that one day she doesn’t become too powerful in her own Mukono backyard.
“The Anifa Nabukeera issue is going to be another opportunity for Kavule to demonstrate that Nambooze doesn’t have the last on NUP politics in Mukono. Nabukeera, who she doesn’t like, has been given the card and there is nothing Nambooze is going to do about it. The Principal is broad and needs everybody. He isn’t prepared to sacrifice a whole incumbent simply because Nambooze doesn’t like her. The party can never be ransomed by pettiness of those veteran politicians who the Principal doesn’t give a damn angering anymore.”
Mulengera News has established that, because NUP is broke and their Presidential Candidate has a whole country to cover, Bobi Wine is cautious not to antagonize majority incumbents because he values and acknowledges the fact that campaigning and winning seats for his NUP requires a lot of financial resources which incumbents can mobilize more easily than wannabe politicians who want to just come in and have actually got nothing to offer.
“You will hear many badmouth and accuse the Principal of being money-minded but the bitter truth is that money is needed. Kavule is broke because the IPOD money was withdrawn and the party won’t be printing posters nor paying nomination fees for the candidates. Now imagine Mukono. It’s a whole district and a big one. You need resources to cover the whole of it with posters. And you must have a campaign team, which an incumbent like Nabukeera is better placed to accomplish than new comers.”
The source explained that under harmonization, many such foot soldiers and wannabe politicians have been told about this painful reality and asked to bow out in favour of more formidable incumbents.
“The thing is the Principal is nervous especially about retaining the 55 MP seats NUP won in Buganda in 2021. He knows NRM wants to diminish him by getting many of those positions and is aware of the PR disaster he will have to deal with in case NRM reclaims some of them. So, he doesn’t want to take chances and in the case of Mukono, Nabukeera hasn’t been a bad MP. She might be naturally a laid back person and with even problems in the constituency but at least there is no record of her stabbing the party in back. The Principal knows all the injustices Nambooze has done to her but she remained decent and never publicly fought back.”
That Kavule believes that much as she has weaknesses, Nabukeera can be rehabilitated and backed up to win back that difficult seat for NUP. Kavule also has information that one of the leaders vigorously pushing for the other lady who wants to replace Nabukeera was paid Shs10m promising to convince Bobi Wine and the Secretary General to give the card to that new lady.
“Each time that leader comes to Kavule to de-campaign Nabukeera, bosses at the headquarters aren’t swayed because they know that that leader is merely trying to account for Shs10m that was received.” Kavule is also mindful of the fact that, whereas a foot soldiers who insist on running as an independent can be easy to cow and circumvent, and thereby minimizing the damage, an incumbent who decides to stand as an independent can be real hard to overcome.
“The Principal is more scared of people who will be standing as NUP-leaning independents than he is scared of NRM candidates because they are going to split the NUP vote. He is convinced that in a scenario like that an incumbent can be more damaging than a mere foot soldier,” elaborated one of the Kavule insiders we spoke to for this article.
“The only incumbent to be discarded will be one who has become so unpopular and hard to sell to the electorate, otherwise the principal badly wants a win in every constituency where NUP won in 2021.” All these factors have combined to make EMC and decision makers at Kavule to conclude that, even when she isn’t an angel, Anifa Nabukeera remains the best thing NUP can front to retain the Mukono Woman MP Seat. Rehabilitating her back with a flag will help NUP isolate the Peter Bakaluba Mukasa-led caucus of independents who have vowed to gang up and have their own candidates line up in order to protest Kavule’s failure to prevent Nambooze from mistreating.
“It’s also true that the Principal has come to realize it will be taking on too much discarding both the incumbent LC5 Chairman [Bakaluba Mukasa] and the Woman MP at the same time. This has made it necessary to save Nabukeera since Bakaluba was sacrificed to pave way for Nambooze’s friend Johnson Muyanja Ssenyonga,” clarified the source.
The ill-fated incumbents who will need divine intervention to retain their MP seats have variously been listed to include Twaha Kagabo, Jimmy Lwanga, Francis Katabaazi, Christine Kaaya of Kiboga, Fred Ssimbwa and a few others.
Bamunanika County’s Robert Sekitoleko is only being saved by the fact that those who have exhibited interested in the flag have so far failed to demonstrate to EMC members that they can win the constituency back for NUP. The same goes for Katikamu’s Hassan Kirumira. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
