By Aggrey Baba
Just a few days ago, former Kawempe North MP Al Haji Latif Ssebagala Ssengendo dramatically announced that he was no longer a member of the opposition, declaring instead that he would support President Yoweri Museveni in 2031 or whoever Museveni chooses to succeed him.
Now, the veteran politician has opened up on his changing relationship with National Unity Platform (NUP) leader Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi, making it clear that whatever political communication once existed between them is no longer something he is interested in pursuing.
Speaking during Tuesday’s Morning Briefing podcast on the Mulengera Media platform, Ssebagala said he is now an independent politician and has no reason to engage in social media exchanges with Kyagulanyi simply because the two no longer share the same political views.
His latest position is particularly significant given his complicated history with NUP, a party he once belonged to, and whose presidential candidate he continued supporting even after repeatedly falling out with its electoral structures.
The first major rupture came around the 2021 elections, when Ssebagala, who had represented Kawempe North since 2001, initially sought to pursue the Kampala Lord Mayoral seat through NUP structures rather than immediately defending his parliamentary constituency. He appeared before the party’s Electoral Management Committee but eventually withdrew from the mayoral contest.
He later returned to the Kawempe North race as an Independent, only to find that NUP had already backed Muhammad Ssegirinya for the constituency. Ssegirinya went on to win the seat, leaving Ssebagala in fourth position with 3,919 votes.
That defeat did not immediately end Ssebagala’s relationship with Kyagulanyi. For years afterwards, he continued to identify with the broader opposition project and maintained that his disagreements were largely with particular party decisions rather than with Kyagulanyi’s presidential candidature.
The same pattern resurfaced ahead of the 2026 elections. Ssebagala again sought the NUP ticket, this time for Kawempe Division mayor, but the party chose incumbent Emmanuel Sserunjogi (Owedembe). Ssebagala consequently returned to the Independent ticket. Even after being denied the NUP flag, he was still publicly insisting that Kyagulanyi remained his presidential choice. At his September 2025 nomination, Ssebagala said he would support Kyagulanyi at presidential level while independently contesting the mayoral race.
That makes his current declaration a sharp political departure.
The man who was still calling Kyagulanyi his president after losing the NUP mayoral ticket in 2025 is now saying he is no longer interested in maintaining direct political communication with him, and has publicly shifted his 2031 support to Museveni or Museveni’s preferred successor.
Ssebagala’s disagreements with NUP had also become increasingly public. During the 2025 electoral process, he criticized the party’s handling of candidate vetting and accused Kyagulanyi of failing to act on allegations concerning his brother, Fred Nyanzi. Nyanzi denied the allegations, while NUP’s internal investigation report was not made public at the time.
But Ssebagala now appears to have moved beyond those internal disagreements.
Asked during the poadcast whether he still communicates with Bobi Wine, he said that he is no longer NUP and that those looking for regular communication with Kyagulanyi should look within the party rather than to him.
He also refused to be drawn into responding to things Kyagulanyi or other NUP politicians may say on social media, arguing that political disagreement does not require personal confrontation.
“I’m not the kind of person who can respond to someone who has said something on social media, mostly when that person disagrees with me on something. I can’t force them to believe or think like me, nor can he force me to think like him. We’re all free and fully entitled to our beliefs,” Ssebagala said.
When asked when he last spoke to Kyagulanyi, he could not give a specific date, instead saying both of them have their own affairs and communication channels.
For Ssebagala, the message is that Kyagulanyi can continue communicating through his social-media platforms, while he will use his own platforms to explain his new political direction. That direction is now firmly centred on Museveni’s 2031 project.
Ssebagala has said that if Museveni is on the ballot in 2031, he will support him, and if the President does not contest, he will support whoever Museveni endorses.
Yet the former MP’s Tuesday interview was not only about his break with NUP.
Ssebagala also used his own political journey to send a warning to younger politicians who are entering elective politics and beginning to treat political office as their only source of livelihood. He revealed that his political journey started when he was only 23, when he became LC1 chairman of his village unopposed. He later became a youth councillor at Kawempe Sub-county before eventually entering Parliament in 2001.
After spending 20 years representing Kawempe North, Ssebagala knows first-hand how quickly political fortunes can change.
His advice to younger politicians was that: never abandon your profession, business or other investments simply because you have entered elective politics.
He said politics should be regarded as a form of service from which one can be removed at any time, meaning politicians should maintain alternative sources of income and continue developing their private ventures.
For Ssebagala, education became his fallback. He explained that even while serving as MP, he continued running and expanding his schools instead of abandoning the education sector to concentrate entirely on Parliament.
Those investments, he said, have helped him considerably since leaving Parliament and have given him a livelihood outside elective politics. Indeed, he suggested that his life today could be better than it was while he was still an MP, largely because he continued building something outside politics. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
