By Mulengera Reporters
Crying of discrimination, stigmatization and alienation, a growing number of disgruntled NRM insiders are sheltering at Mengo, the seat of Buganda Kingdom. They are evidently being attracted by desire to leverage Kabaka’s large media platforms (the two CBS radios and BBS Terefayina) which are widely followed and have a lot of influence on people in their respective constituencies.
Whoever gets victimised in NRM elections these days rushes to Mengo (as long as they are Baganda) to incite Kabaka’s people while lamenting about lack of democracy and presence of targeted victimization in Gen Museveni’s political party. The latest to do this is the youthful Ibrahim Kitata who is the district Chairman for Lwengo district and one of the few NRMs who survived the NUP wave of 2021 in Greater Masaka.
Hosted by Kaddu Mukasa in the presence of NRM Communications Director Emmanuel Ddombo, Ibrahim Kitata shed tears, cried and lost his voice while choking on anger as he narrated the harassment and humiliation, he went through at the hands of proxies of Cissy Namujju who he described as the chief dictator of Lwengo.
As Woman MP, Cissy Namujju has lately been becoming very powerful and influential because of personal deep connections to the mighty in Kampala. Her much-publicized arrest over alleged extortion and distortion of the budgeting process sometime last year, greatly elevated her profile to become a household name across Uganda.
She is also stinking rich and has capacity to influence key decision makers in the country’s security apparatus. Kitata says that instead of helping transform people’s lives in Lwengo, Namujju has resorted to using her might and newly found strength to suffocate and politically obliterate Lwengo colleagues who she is uncomfortable having in political positions of the district for which she has been Woman MP since 2016.
Kitata, who wanted to become NRM flag bearer for Bukoto Midwest, was trounced by incumbent MP Mohammed Sentayi who is a close political ally of Namujju. It was him who organized solidarity rallies to which Namujju’s backers and allies in Kampala came and made big pronouncements to embolden her base. So, when Sentayi faced a huge challenge by Kitata (whose father was area MP before), Namujju considered this to be an opportunity to pay back the political capital Sentayi rendered earlier on.
Kitata says that Namujju has instead gone too far, fighting everyone who she is politically uncomfortable with in Lwengo. That she wants to become the undisputed kingmaker for Lwengo district and used money and the network of the RDCs, ISO operatives and Police commanders in the district to manipulate elections in favour of her preferred flag bearers. That some faced physical violence that was orchestrated by men in Drones who he says had been instructed to abduct him.
Kitata shocked the viewers and fellow panelists on Kaddu Mukasa’s program when he revealed how he had to abandon his home fearing for his personal security and had to hide and spend several nights in the bushes because the pro-Sentayi security operatives who had been instigated by Cissy Namujju were baying for his blood. That they intended to kidnap and torture him in order to advantage Sentayi.
That the rigging started from the point of compiling the NRM register at villages. That Namujju’s network ensured that those she was uncomfortable with were eliminated from parish level structures upwards. He says the manner in which Namujju conducted herself that day created an impression that NRM is no longer a party of peasants but for rich and wealthy oligarchs from Kampala. He narrated how he reached out to Presidency Minister Milly Babalanda several times complaining about the RDC who had become a campaigner for his opponent, but he was never helped.
He wondered whether Museveni’s RDCs these days earn a salary or get any facilitation from their mother ministry in Kampala. He alleged that in the case of Lwengo, the RDCs, the deputies and assistants are beggars who spend their time chasing for deals and rich people to beg from in order to facilitate their land grabbing missions.
Kitata says there is a lot of land grabbing in Lwengo where he said RDCs spend time identifying vulnerable communities from whom the powerful oligarchs in Kampala can come and grab land. He claimed that the RDC several times called him to security meetings and tried to recruit him into land grabbing schemes.
“When I resisted and made it clear that I can’t betray my people by siding with land grabbing oligarchs from Kampala, that’s when my problems with the RDC’s office started. How do you be a whole representative of the President and turn yourself into a beggar ever expecting to get weekend hand outs from the district chairman in order to provide for your family? These RDCs of these days are either too greedy or unpaid by the President’s office. This is why those with money have easily manipulated them into destroying the image of the Movement,” Kitata said. Kitata also wondered whether RDCs of these days undergo any induction to understand any minimum standards they are supposed to comply with. “They seem to think that when you are deployed, the district becomes your hunting ground for deals to overcome poverty in your family.”
Kitata alleged that Namujju these days wants every Lwengo politician to bow before her and worship her like a small god. He claimed that even former Minister Muyanja Mbabali (senior as he is) was only able to win the flag bearership of Bukoto South, which he represented before as MP, after accepting to worship Namujju and stepping down in favour of Namujju’s favourite candidate for some other position inside NRM structures.
GOOD DAYS FOR NUP: Kitata asserted that there is a lot of resentment towards NRM now in Lwengo because of the brutality that big lady Cissy Namujju has become associated with. He said thousands of young people who genuinely love NRM are now disillusioned because of the rigging, torture and violence they experienced in party elections in Lwengo.
That in anger, seeing how powerless their beloved district chairman has been made to become by Namujju, they are considering defecting to NUP in big numbers. He said that the only way to prevent them from defecting to NUP in protest, is by authentically popular cadres like himself coming together and forming a coalition of independents who will be NRM-leaning.
He made it clear that they have agreed not to waste time petitioning the Tribunal at Kyaddondo because they have come to the conclusion that in today’s NRM processes, there is no longer anything money can’t buy.
“It was always a grass roots movement and party of the peasants. This is no longer the case. It’s now a party of the rich who disregard ordinary people and come with money in election season to procure election victory,” said Kitata who also made it clear they won’t be campaigning for Candidate Museveni even when they are NRM-leaning. This claim of NRM becoming a party of the very rich was earlier on made by Kisoro LC5 Chairman Abed Bizimana during an earlier press conference in Kampala.
On the BBS show, Kitata revealed that his failure to prevent vote rigging and manipulative conduct by super rich politicians like Cissy Namujju had made Museveni, in his capacity as NRM Chairman and Candidate, a very hard brand to sell to disgruntled voters in Lwengo. Kitata said that from what he hears from fellow vote rigging victims across the country, he has no doubt that NRM has by design now become a party of the rich and not peasants’ anymore. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
