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By Mulengera Reporters
Deputy Mayor Sarah Kanyike (continuing to be contemptuously dismissed as a traitor by many opposition supporters because of the extent to which Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago trusted her) has continued to endure extreme dilemma. This dilemma is in relation to the President’s letter which indicated she had been appointed to serve as KCCA Director in charge of Gender, Community Services & Production along with several others (see https://mulengeranews.com/inside-m7s-friday-meeting-that-sealed-kitakas-fate-what-you-need-to-know-about-eng-david-luyimbazi/).
Reliable sources close to her say that many of the young people who have always worked under her at City Hall have since been reaching out to her showing their shock and disappointment. Telling them she is equally broken by the extent to which what she considered a simple matter has created disappointment and anger among her fellow DPs, Kanyike has so far only managed to tell them: “I’m still undecided whether to take up that position at this material point in time because I’m still consulting family and what we decide with my husband is what I will officially communicate to the people of Kampala as my final decision.”
She has explained to some of them that its true she reached out to Gen Museveni and expressed interest (we don’t know through whom: could be Betty Amongin or Benny Namugwanya because she is the one who has been dealing with the Ministry for Lord Mayor’s wing) but never expected things to happen this fast. That, because of fear for the unknown, she was unsure of getting reelected as Makindye East councilor in 2021 and decided to prepare for life after being Deputy Lord Mayor. She lobbied for the Director Job anticipating the appointment would come through much later in the year when it’s just weeks to the end of her term as councilor after which she would become ineligible to serve as Deputy Lord Mayor.
“She says the Museveni appointment came sooner than she expected and she is now in total confusion and the biggest betrayal is that she never informed colleagues in the Lord Mayor’s inner circles yet the practice has always been sharing each other’s secrets as they battled detractors at City Hall,” says a knowledgeable source close to Sarah Kanyike whose husband Mustapha Sebaggala is a big man in the Museveni Electoral Commission where he serves as one of the Commissioners. “The idea was to prepare for life after Councillorship and being a veteran in City Hall politics, she calculated well that she can directly and indirectly earn much more as Director Gender than being Deputy Lord Mayor which is merely a position of prestige and limelight without actually earning much materially because even the little she earns is encroached upon by the voters.” What has caused many supporters at City Hall to become broken is the fact that she is one person whose maturity, loyalty and experience caused the Lord Mayor to deeply trust her implying she was ideally expected to be equally transparent in all her future plans including desire to lobby for Gen Museveni’s job yet this is something Erias Lukwago and others only learnt through Saturday media reports.
As Deputy Lord Mayor, Sarah Kanyike earns a net of about Shs14m per month which is slightly more than what she can earn as Director in the strict sense of salary. But there is much more clout coming with that job beyond mere salary. As a Director she heads a directorate with many employees under her and yet that isn’t all. It’s a job she can certainly hold onto for as long as 10 years unlike councillorship which causes her to always be blackmailed by voters who can even get annoyed and throw her out after 5 years. As Director Gender, the former KCCA Speaker will be controlling a huge budget regarding women groups working in markets, the youths, the PWDs, the elderly, the albinos and other special interest groups. She does many other things on behalf of the technical wing under that docket and being the ambitious lady she is, Sarah Kanyike could use the resultant visibility to mobilize resources to eventually realize her longtime dream of becoming MP. It doesn’t have to be Kampala because as an NRM person, she can become loaded and relocate to another more remote constituency and easily win on the ruling party ticket. Her boss Erias Lukwago, seemingly very disturbed, has already publicly called upon her to consider declining Museveni’s job in pursuit for higher governance goals and values she has always professed.
NOT FIRST ONE
Yet Sarah Kanyike isn’t the first female DP politician to break the hearts of diehard party supporters by openly falling in bed with Gen Museveni’s NRM. Previously, there was Sarah Nkonge who then Mayor Nasser Sebaggala liked very much and empowered by making her Deputy Mayor in the hope that she would use the clout coming with that coveted office to build capacity to capture the Kampala Woman MP seat from NRM’s Margaret Zziwa who was holding onto it for an eternity. As of 2001, Nkonge was the strongest opposition female politician in Kampala having served as Mayor as Sebaggala endured jail in the US. Riding on all that momentum, she glamorously stood for Woman MP Seat but easily fell to Zziwa because then Women MPs were still elected through electoral colleges which Musevenists easily manipulated just like they do in youth elections.
Unable to endure another 5 years of joblessness and economic humiliation, Nkonge finally cracked and gave in to temptations to visit State House whose Principal Gen Museveni had always targeted recruiting her. She indeed was given a job to serve as Private Secretary to the President in charge of land matters and worked under Mrs. Gertrude Njuba besides others like Med Sebaggala’s wife Mariam Namayanja. The now elderly Nkonge gradually sunk into political oblivion before relocating to Lwengo district where she is still struggling to overcome Cissy Namujju to become woman MP for the NRM. Some of her key supporters say that inside NRM, Dr. Nkonge has been subjected to a lot of stigma and discrimination especially after fears emerged that Gen Museveni could potentially make her VP (on getting the MP Seat) because she has similar credentials with Sekandi (highly qualified, staunch catholic and from Greater Masaka).
Yet Nkonge was preceded by another major defection from DP which came under Maria Mutagamba who PK Semogerere had mentored to grow into Secretary General. Besides being SG, she had also chaired Semogerere’s IPFC National Campaign Taskforce in 1996 and vigorously mobilized support in ways that caused Gen Museveni to notice her capabilities and lured her to NRM and made her Minister until she died. Her departure left many DP diehards heartbroken yet those supporting her claimed she had accumulated a debt of Shs9m in Celtel airtime (mobile phones had just come to Ug & she was famously among the first people to own one) for the calls she nationally made to mobilize for PK yet DP never helped her pay that bill that nearly took her to Luzira.
More recently came Florence Nakiwala Kiyingi who was equally perceived as a vibrant woman leader in DP. She originally centered her politics around Kampala where she stood for Woman MP on being herded out of Mengo by new Katikkiro Peter Mayiga. Just like Kanyike, Nakiwala was initially very close to Lukwago in her opposition politics and considered him to be her mentor. Actually to this day, her Liza Medical Center is one of the very few medical facilities where some of the Lord Mayor’s family members comfortably go to seek medical attention (implying even when she politically decamped some slight bonding/solidarity still remained). In any case, her Lisa Medical Center in the vicinity of the City big man’s Wakaliga residence. Nakiwala, on losing the MP bid in 2016, defected and became even Minister in Museveni’s government in a deal she claimed was brokered by some Catholic Bishops.
In 2016, despite trailing behind Nabillah Nagayi who shrewdly rode on Besigye’s key for a 3rd time since 2006), Nakiwala polled over 70,000 votes meaning her defection demoralized many opposition supporters especially in Mao’s DP, some of whom actually went with her to NRM. Loyalty of these female politicians in Kampala and their susceptibility to falling in bed with Gen Museveni’s NRM is something DP party leaders must carefully study so that a comprehensive solution can gradually be found. In fact, Sarah Kanyike (who strangely was claimed by members of Abubaker Kawalya’s camp as one of their secretive backers against Lukwago-backed Nyanjura Doreen) hadn’t yet given up ambitions to run for the Kampala Woman MP position in 2021. Sources close to her say she lost hope getting there as early as 2021 after realizing that Dr. Stella Nyanzi remained popular even after a stint in Luzira. It was only then that her supporters like Defiant Martin diminished on their online campaigns trying to market her as best choice for Kampala in 2021. Her decision has since been defended by some of the renowned opposition online activists especially those who belong to Gen Muntu’s ANT the very party from which her PA Ddembe Catherine (formerly of FDC) also hails from.
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