By Mulengera Reporters
Kimanya-Kabonera MP Dr. Abed Bwanika says that his DF boss Mathias Mpuuga has written to the Speaker of Parliament requisitioning for a special session of Parliament during which MPs will exhaustively debate the loss of merchandize hundreds of Kampala traders endured recently as a result of flooding that menaced several city arcades and shopping centers.
An accusing finger was subsequently pointed at city property mogul Hamis Kiggundu and the role NUP’s more than 40 KCCA Lord Councilors are alleged to have played in incentivizing the President to write a letter directing the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja to enable the private developer erect commercial properties on top of Nakivubo drainage channel.
The timing of the problem has turned this into a campaign issue with a growing number of Kampala city traders, residents and Ugandans online castigating NUP Councilors for attacking Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, who Kampala Minister Minsa Kabanda says is the only elected leader in Kampala who, in principle, stood up and did his best to oppose the giving away of the channel to tycoon Ham Kiggundu in whose name several land titles are allegedly already being processed.
Erias Lukwago says that the process is on to have more than 40 out of the 76 acres comprising the Nakivubo channel land cut off and titled to become private property for Kiggundu. Ironically, Lukwago and Kiggundu, whose favorable treatment the Lord Mayor is opposed to, belong to Nkima clan and hail from Kalungu district in Masaka Buddu. Some commentators like Tamale Mirundi Junior have demanded that Lukwago automatically supports Ham because they have a lot in common.
The NUP Lord Councilors have continued to face a lot of public scrutiny and haranguing which prompted some of them not to bother seeking re-election. Those seeking re-election have had to endure being shouted at by ordinary Kampalans who have coiled the term ‘ababbi b’omwala [those who sold off Nakivubo channel]’ to describe them, and they continue to have no peace even on social media where memes have been crafted to contemptuously portray them as greedy, insensitive, unsophisticated and unfit to be re-elected.
The debate continues with Erias Lukwago, who demanded due diligence, getting exonerated each day it rains and Kampala gets flooded. Christening himself the ‘engabo ya banna Kampala [the shield of Kampala’s poor people],’ Lukwago has been emboldened in his messaging of consistently telling people that contemporary Kampala requires an incorruptible Lord Mayor who will prioritize the need to use that office as a platform to keep voicing ordinary poor people’s grievances, while vigorously standing up to the Elon Musk-like billionaires who are determined to grab and personalize public spaces ad property in the city, to the total detriment of the majority ordinary urban poor who daily work in Kampala.
On the other hand, the NUP camp (whose Principal and Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya badly want that same seat to leverage their respective personal agendas) has increasingly found themselves on the defensive. Many Ugandans on social media have demanded that NUP (whose Rubongoya is seeking to become MP Kampala central, where Nakivubo channel is located) at least convenes a news conference and issues a public statement unequivocally condemning tycoon Ham Kiggundu, or to even denounce their Lord Councilors’ lack of appetite to stop him, but the authorities at Kavule have remained too terrified to do that.
This ambivalence has made Kavule’s political case and messaging hard to make to the deprived voters, while at the same time giving ammunition to candidates from adversary camps who are out competing against them for the same Lord Councilor, Division Mayorship and MP positions in Kampala.
DF’S WAY FORWARD:
With NUP officially denying any wrongdoing while refusing to sanction the much-accused KCCA Speaker the wealthy Zahara Luyirika, Mathias Mpuuga’s DF has stepped forward to propose some way forward. Their view, as articulated by Abed Bwanika during a weekend appearance on Kabaka’s CBS fm radio, is that the Speaker of Parliament allows the matter to be freely/exhaustively debated and discussed during a special plenary of Parliament.
Bwanika says that, with lives and billions of merchandize being lost amidst growing media publicity, the Nakivubo issue qualifies to be discussed as a matter of national importance under a special session of Parliament. During the same CBS radio debate, Bwanika claimed that a Secretary General of one of the political parties was given Shs300m to buy his silence on the Nakivubo channel.
Saying he has a lot of evidence to corroborate his claims, Bwanika (who is good at propaganda also when he chooses to engage in that game) wanted to name the Secretary General and give more details but Dr. Sam Kazibwe, who was moderating the programme, appropriately stopped him; making it clear that he wasn’t prepared to turn the CBS platform into a court that tries people and proceeds to find them guilty without giving them chance to be heard.
“After the matter being exhaustively debated by Parliament, the house can resolve to constitute a special committee to inquire into the same including the role the technical and elected political leaders at City Hall played to get us to where we currently are. It’s only through that transparent process, of public hearings being conducted, that the respective players’ innocence and culpability can be established-and the whole thing comes to an end. Otherwise, many people will remain guilty in the court of public opinion and such a transparent inquiry is the only way through which the whole truth can be established,” Bwanika said during the CBS political talk show in which he participated along with PM Nabbanja’s PA Robert Kasule Sebunya, NUP MP Erias Nalukoola, Building Control Board’s Herbert Zziwa and an engineer from Engineers’ Registration Board (ERB).
All said and done, Mathias Mpuuga’s DF stands to benefit from the ongoing demonization and destruction of the NUP brand in the context of the Nakivubo channel debate since their candidates like Moses Kasibante for Rubaga Mayor, Winfred Nakandi for Nakawa East MP Seat, Aidah Nakuya for Kampala Central and David Musiri for Makindye West are remarkably doing well so far; significantly threatening NUP’s candidates for those very positions. These include incumbent Rubaga Mayor Zachary Mberaze Mawula, the incarcerated Alex Waiswsa Mufumbiro, Rubongoya and Zahara Luyirika respectively. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
