By Mulengera Reporters
Claiming to have recently blocked a group of DP/UYD boys who wanted to beat them up for perceived betrayal, Norbert Mao says he feels he has been wronged and stabbed in the back but won’t work towards revenging against his Deputy President Mukasa Mbidde and DP Secretary General Gerald Siranda, who are actively campaigning for his opponent Anita Among in the Speakership race.
On Tuesday, Mao told news reporters at his press conference in Kampala that he had always been there for both Mbidde and Siranda and he is convinced he will be able to work with them again some day because there is simply a lot of history of the trio working together.
He said recently a group of UYD leaders had planned to waylay, ambush and assault the two leaders as they came for a meeting at party headquarters but he stopped them saying there must be life beyond the Speakership fight.
In Siranda’s case, it’s not hard to understand his Speakership choice. Anita Among, for whom he has vigorously been campaigning, was there for him a few years ago when he sought to become one of the 9 EALA members from Uganda.
Unlike Mao who was broke and the timing of whose MoU with NRM brought complications as MPs suddenly began demanding for money, Anita Among (just like Thomas Tayebwa) financially stood with Siranda besides ensuring that his name was among the first nine on the ballot paper which had more than 30 candidates.
The same Siranda qualifies for 2nd term at Arusha and he believes he will need the same Anita Among’s support to pull it off. He sees Mao’s Speakership bid as something complicating and spoiling his chances. This explains why he had no problem joining Mbidde in contradicting Mao’s bid. This is something Mao responded to and addressed during his Tuesday news conference.
He claimed to have selflessly made the two leaders who they both in DP and nationally. That he had backed Mbidde in his unsuccessful bid to become MP for Makindye West in 2006 and subsequently Kalungu East and Masaka City where he respectively lost to Hussein Kyanjo, Vincent Ssempijja (Justin Namere’s dad) and Mathias Mpuuga in 2021.
He said that instead Mbidde betrayed him in favour of Bobi Wine in 2021 when he backed the NUP Presidential Candidate by investing in very big campaign banners of his in Masaka City yet Mao himself was also in the race as the DP candidate for President.
“I asked him what’s this? And he said this is how I’m going to win that MP Seat for DP and I told him good luck but I knew there is no way Bobi Wine would leave Mpuuga for Mbidde and that exactly is what happened. Bobi Wine abused Mbidde a lot when he campaigned in Masaka and that’s how it ended in tears,” Mao said.
Mao claimed that Mbidde at first opposed the NRM-DP cooperation agreement because it hadn’t been spearheaded by him but gradually accepted it after realizing it would be leveraged to increase his electoral chances in Buwekula in Mubende district where he stood for the MP Seat in 2026.
“He told me the area has many Banyarwandas and he stood high chance because he had been the Attorney General for their association but in the end, he came last,” Mao sarcastically said.
He recalled equally being there for Siranda since the days of the DP Secretary General Matia Nsubuga who he was deputizing. Mao said when Nsubuga died he personally shielded Siranda by tactfully delaying the delegates conference for three years to enable Siranda run the show up the next delegates conference where he was elected the substantive party SG. “A lot of people in DP didn’t like him but I was always there to shield him.”
He added that, before finally replacing Mbidde at EALA, Siranda had been a political failure standing and miserably failing to win his MP race in Mbale Municipality and later on Pallisa.
People in the Mao universe also say that even as SG, Siranda was a broke politician who struggled to raise things like rent in Kampala, which prompted the party president to allow him utilize the little money from the washing bay operators working on the party’s other vacant plot of land in Mengo.
Mao is a modest man who didn’t have to brag about this at the media event but there are also claims that he is one of the people who generously contributed cash when the SG’s wife fell sick and got admitted in one of Kampala’s most expensive hospitals.
“The PG is restraining himself but the painful truth is he has financially been there for that Siranda traitor for such a long time,” says a DP insider operating in the pro-Mao universe.
Mao accused the two leaders of conniving to connect boys operating under DP@Heart pressure group to Anita Among’s money in which he claimed they are swimming these days.
“They are everywhere in the country talking and convening meetings. Where are they getting all that money? They are now the luseke people enjoying themselves because of my Speakership bid because they are what i call pay as you go. They don’t even know which values DP stands for,” Mao said of the Ismail Kiirya-led DP@Heart boys who lately have been traversing the country visiting party elders to instigate resentful sentiments against him.
Mao also criticised the two leaders for having too much pride which pushed them into saying they can’t back his Speakership bid simply because he never consulted them.
“In 2021, Richard Sebamala declared he was standing for Speakership and I called a press conference to declare DP’s support for him except that he later on withdrew and didn’t run. I backed him because even that mere effort is very good for DP’s image and reputation even if that DP member doesn’t win.”
He explained that he was now in the Speakership race not for personal glory but simply because he realizes what is at stake at this moment namely mid-wifing the political transition and the urgent need to stamp out corruption.
He warned that if the duo doesn’t wake up and change course before it gets too late, Mbidde and Siranda will politically burn their fingers and end up regretting why they turned their back on DP as was the case with Muwanga Kivumbi, Mathias Mpuuga, Medard Segona, Lubega Mukaku and others.
Mao also claimed that Siranda wouldn’t be DP flag bearer for EALA in 2022 if it wasn’t for his backing because he only beat Babirye Kabanda by only 2 votes in DP’s internal processes.
He demanded that the two become genuine friends; always prepared to be there for their person even when its painful, costly and inconvenient. He said he is expecting Siranda and Mbidde to turn up for the upcoming party NEC meeting which is soon.
He predicted that Anita Among would soon sideline both of them since they aren’t even voters for Speakership. He said they are soon going to be sidelined in the Anita Among universe in favour of the Justine Namere’s group which is comprised of more ‘useful’ actors. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
