Having endured harassment by hundreds of disgraced Secretary General Nandala Mafabi and President PAO’s supporters in police uniform, hundreds of FDC supporters finally got down at Dr. Kizza Besigye’s offices at Katonga Road in Nakasero and transacted party business under the auspices of the extra ordinary delegates conference that was duly convened by national party chairman Ambassador Wasswa Birigwa.
Having travelled at their own cost from all corners of Uganda, the FDC delegates spent much of Tuesday morning having running battles at Birigwa’s beach resort in Busabala from where they were teargassed and chased by Nandala/POA supporters dressed in police uniform and armed with state guns. The POA supporters in Police uniform even unleashed teargas and in the process injured several.
Impassioned by desire to free up their political party, which founding President Kizza Besigye said was currently being ‘strangled’ by impostors currently running the show at Najjanankumbi, FDC delegates somehow found their way and regrouped at the Katonga Road offices which had originally been serving as the accreditation center for the Busabala-bound delegates.At the end of the day’s deliberations, Party spokesperson Semujju Nganda read out resolutions including those relating to the disbandment of the Boniface Toterebuka Bamwenda sham party elections and suspension of discredited SG Nandala Mafabi and his walking stick Patrick Oboi Amuriat. It was resolved, as read out by Nganda, that POA and Nandala be suspended along with politically struggling treasurer general Geoffrey Ekanya. In the interim, the party will continue to be ran by other NEC level leaders whose tenure has been extended for another 6 months.
The suspended trio has in the interim been replaced by their deputies namely Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago (Ag President), Harold Kaija (Ag Secretary General) and Francis Mwijukye as Ag Treasurer General. These will be serving as acting Party President, Secretary and Treasurer General respectively. In the place of the dust-binned Toterebuka Bamwenda EC, a team led by ex-Nakawa MP Micheal Kabaziguruka, ex-Mutesa Royal University DVC Dr. Elizabeth Kyewalabye and Jack Wamanga Wamai (ex-Mbale Municipality MP) will be running all electoral affairs.
The delegates conference also mandated the FDC National Executive Committee (NEC), which Erias Lukwago will now be leading, to immediately challenge the 6th October delegates conference which is being organized by the POA-Police alliance. The delegates also declared illegal and therefore null and void the kiwaani elections Toterebuka Bamwenda purports to have organized as part of preparations for the 6th October delegates conference. This simply means that the Kabaziguruka team will have to organize proper elections for the party.
At the same event, presided over by Birigwa, Kasese’s Saul Matte (speaking on behalf of fellow FDC district chairpersons) urged Kizza Besigye to consider returning to lead FDC once again after the impending liberation and rescue of the Najjanankumbi headquarters which KB stated was currently being suffocated by impostors who don’t serve the cause for which the party was formed anymore. In his remarks, KB commended Birigwa, Roland Kaginda, Semujju Nganda and all the delegates for standing firm and defying intimidation, the money and propaganda Museveni enablers inside FDC were continuing to deploy.
He assured chanting delegates that it was a matter of time before Najjanankumbi gets rescued culminating into the eviction of impostors currently holding out themselves there. The audience Besigye, Matte and others addressed had several big-name FDC leaders like Betty Aol, Dennis Onekalit, Deputy Kampala Lord Mayor Nyanjura Doreen, Francis Mwijukye, MP Atkins Katushabe, Oliver Namazzi and elder Wafula Ogutu among others.
Dr. Besigye also implored delegates to continue working closely with other change-seeking political formations in the country because focus must remain on the broader struggle for regime change and better-governed country. He also explained that the day’s events (namely Najjanankumbi being firmly under grip of kifeesi gangs & Nandala/POA supporters in Police uniform vigorously teargassing genuine FDC leaders wherever they find them) explain why his decision to set up Katonga (as one of the few remaining genuine opposition meeting points which can’t be captured by the ‘junta’ as he called it) was spot on and based on well-founded intelligence information. Besigye also implied posterity will never forgive Nandala and POA for breaching an d abusing the trust FDC delegates placed in them to lead their party. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [whatsapp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).