By Our Reporters
We sometime back reported about NRM defector Mercy Walukamba whose entry into People Power was threatening to ignite chaos in Bobi Wine’s backyard. In an interview with this news website, Walukamba told us she had decamped from NRM to seek the Bugweri Woman MP Seat as the flag bearer for the People Power Movement (PPM). She maintained that, even when some DP officials think she is aligned to their party, she wasn’t joining any political party for now. “I’m just joining a group of change-seeking forces and that is all,” the wealthy politician emphatically said. She explained that to her understanding PPM was merely a platform aimed at awakening the population against the NRM injustices. The Walukamba interview was published two weeks ago and it carried comments of JEEMA officials who protested Walukamba’s candidature insisting their member Sarah Babirye (a city lawyer) was the legitimate PPM candidate whom Bobi Wine was backing to become the pioneer MP for the newly created Bugweri district. We reported back then about an incidence that saw JEEMA officials clash with DP’s Sam Lubega at Magere inside Bobi’s compound. The JEEMA officials, led by Asuman Odaka, accused Lubega of working with other DP officials in PPM to confuse and impose on Bobi Wine their lady Walukamba well knowing she is an NRM person. The JEEMA bosses accused their DP counterparts of backing Walukamba simply because she has money and not necessarily because she was a better politician than Babirye. There were also rumors that Shs43m was injected by Walukamba to get this endorsement, a claim she vehemently dismissed in the same interview.
NEW ESCALATION;
Now the latest from Bugweri shows that the feuding between JEEMA and a DP group in PPM has escalated with each side accusing the other of obscurantism and dishonesty. JEEMA officials, led by Spokesman Abdul Noor Kyamundu, over the weekend drove to Bugweri and had a mobilization activity there. In the different public meetings they addressed, the JEEMA diehards marketed Sarah Babirye as the legitimate PPM candidate who has full endorsement of Bobi Wine. Renowned for his militant speeches, Kyamundu dismissed the DP group and their candidate Walukamba as impostors and urged the crowd to contemptuously treat them as such. Addressing supporters in her native Buyanga village on the same day, Babirye said: “Everybody in People Power is behind me and I’m the real candidate for People Power. Please don’t accept confusion.” She said in the true spirit of People Power, she enjoys support of officials from different parties and voters must rally behind her to overcome whoever NRM will be fronting for the Seat. In reference to DP’s Moses Bigirwa, who is actively marketing Walukamba, Kyamundu told chanting supporters that: “We shall arrest and detain them for being impostors in this race.” Bigirwa is a self-declared PPM coordinator for the entire Easter Uganda.
BIGIRWA SPEAKS OUT;
The youthful DP activist, who is counting on Mr. Wine to grab Kamuli Municipality MP Seat in 2021, had no kind words for the JEEMA group. “Our friends in JEEMA have one problem. Whereas in People Power the main objective is the bigger struggle to liberate the whole country, some colleagues in JEEMA think it’s time to build their party consolidating on what they achieved in Bugiri. That makes them sound like our friends in FDC who wanted to build their party at a time when everybody wants to diminish Mr. Museveni’s numbers in Parliament. We are looking for the stronger candidate who stands higher chance to win for us and that’s how we the top officials in People Power zeroed on Mercy Walukamba after she denounced NRM and came to us,” Bigirwa told this news website in a phone interview. “We had a meeting of the People Power top officials at Centenary Park and agreed on Mercy Walukamba. Mr. Kyamundu represented JEEMA and we all left the meeting happy and agreed that the candidate was Walukamba. We are now surprised to hear the very divisive words Mr. Kyamundu goes saying everywhere. We even shook hands and concluded this was a done deal.” Bigirwa said that disappointment notwithstanding, they have no problem with JEEMA fielding a candidate. “JEEMA is a political party which is entitled to fielding a candidate everywhere and we wish them well but for People Power, the candidate is Mercy Walukamba. She is the one Honorable Bobi Wine is backing and he will be going to Bugweri to campaign for.” Bigirwa said the problem with JEEMA officials is that “they think we determine People Power candidates based on parties which isn’t the case. Capability to win is the most important factor we consider in our top meetings as People Power where the likes of Kyamundu don’t even sit.” He said the official People Power candidate for Bugweri is well known and was communicated to all concerned partners including JEEMA. “In JEEMA by the way, the only person we recognize and deal with on our part as top officials of People Power is Asuman Basalirwa. It’s him who understands the larger struggle we are involved in but where we stand now, we feel sorry for him because we understand the dilemma he faces from those other JEEMA officials who want to capture him and influence the way he thinks about broader things,” said Bigirwa who couldn’t confirm with certainty whether Basalirwa is behind Walukamba. Another People Power (DP) official backing Walukamba said “the biggest problem in JEEMA is that there is a lady called Hajat Asumat; she is secretary to their treasury and whoever goes to her saying I have an activity say in Bugweri, she just releases money for facilitation.” Insisting not to be quoted, the DP official added that: “Some JEEMA guys now see Sarah Babirye’s candidature as the best opportunity to continue getting money from their Secretary to treasury which is really very unfortunate for the struggle. They want to sacrifice that lady Babirye well knowing her chances are minimal but it doesn’t matter as long as they can use her to justify continued spending of JEEMA funds purporting to be undertaking a political activity in the field.” Other female politicians eyeing the same seat include Rose Birabwa and NRM’s Racheal Magoola who stands to benefit from the brewing polarisis in Bobi’s People Power Movement. For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755.
