By Mulengera Reporters
In the NUP Party, it’s not uncommon for MPs to signal their headquarters at Kavule on people they would like to be considered for Party flag bearership for lower positions such as LC3 Chairpersons and Councillorships.
An MP can also have a say in who becomes the flag bearer for LC5 and some legislators like Betty Nambooze of Mukono can influence the dropping of the district chairperson they are not comfortable working with.
So, in the case of new Kawempe North MP Erias Nalukoola, things didn’t work out that well. All the people he desired to be given the flag for division councillorship never made it to the final flag bearers’ list.
An angry Nalukoola protested to Kavule, a thing that greatly frightened Bobi Wine. Kyagulanyi immediately rang Nalukoola imploring him to help in de-escalating things by talking to aggrieved foot soldiers in his constituency to calm down.
Nalukoola was instead angry and demanded to know from Bobi Wine why Kavule could do such a thing to him yet they claim to be his close allies.
He demanded to know why some other MPs had been permitted to recommend their allies for flag bearership and had been considered yet he was thrown under the bus when it came to his Kawempe North. Even in deeply Muslim areas like Mbogo, flag bearers who were favoured by Kavule are not the type the pro-Nalukoola Sheikhs would have desired to see.
These are mainly non-Muslims and this deprivation of Muslims has indicated to the Kawempe North Sheikhs that their man Nalukoola is after all not as influential inside NUP like they thought. They are now realizing the extent to which they misconstrued the honeymoon period and the natural euphoria, that comes with being a new MP, for Kavule’s genuine love for their Nalukoola.
At some point, the party had agreed to give some concessions by recalling four card or ticket allocations but even then, still Nalukoola’s people were not adequately considered.
Instead, the new ticket allocations favoured four NUP cadres who are even more hostile to him in the politics of Kawempe North. This left Nalukoola broken like never before.
This can be such a big dilemma for a sitting MP because his lower-level mobilizers can be expecting him or her to have sufficient leverage with Kavule so as to help them land the ticket. Failure to deliver to the expectations of such supporters greatly demoralizes an MP and that is the chaos Nalukoola is now finding himself in.
In a subsequent phone call, Nalukoola exploded in Kyagulanyi’s ear making it clear that he had been demystified by what happened and he was fearful this is gradually going to weaken him in his own constituency.
“Your Excellence I have been having a lot of respect for our Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya but my all that is now gone. There is no way anyone would have done such a thing to me without the Secretary General knowing or even clearing the same,” Nalukoola roared in Kyagulanyi’s ear.
An overwhelmed Kyagulanyi only responded with: “Eeh comrade as you have taken this too far? I didn’t expect such condemnation of the Secretary General from you, of all people.” (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
