By Mulengera Reporters DF President Mathias Mpuuga Nsamba has laughed off claims by his successor LoP Joel Ssenyonyi implicating him into Shs1.6bn the Nakawa West MP/NUP Spokesman claims was recently shared by four back bench Commissioners of Parliament-namely Mpuuga, Solomon Silwanyi, Esther Afooyochan and Prossy Mbabazi Akampurira. While being interviewed by the CBS news crew, Mpuuga contemptuously used the Luganda word “Ssempapwe” to describe Ssenyonyi as a foolish idiot who shouldn’t waste anyone’s time. He said his successor deserves to be ignored because he is totally confused and doesn’t appreciate the duty-bearing and responsibility that comes with the office he occupies-and the expected decorum. He described him as a failure in comparison to what he accomplished in his two and half years as LoP. He was fired in December 2023 and replaced with Ssenyonyi. Mathias Mpuuga said that now is the time for Ssenyonyi’s leadership to manifest as the whole country reflects on the flooding problem in Kampala and the circumstances under which NUP Lord Councillors (who are 41 in a KCCA Council of 44) voted for a resolution which the President based on to write his letter permitting tycoon Ham Kiggundu to construct commercial structures on top of Nakivubo channel. It has widely been claimed by Ugandans on social media that money exchanged hands for the NUP Lord Councillors to vote the way they voted on this matter. Mpuuga’s spokesman Moses Kasibante has been very outspoken against the NUP Lord Councillors and more so Speaker Zahara Luyirika. Mpuuga’s DF has repeatedly challenged NUP President Bobi Wine and Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya to come up with a clearly-worded media statement, proclaimed at a news conference, unequivocally condemning the authorization of Ham Kiggundu to construct on top of Nakivubo channel-as opposed to beating around the bush. That this has to be done in order for the NUP top leadership to effectively contradict claims that a fraction of the money Kavule Lord Councillors received, was passed on to the Secretary General and the Principal. Mpuuga says Joel Ssenyonyi ought to be offering overall opposition leadership to ensure that this Nakivubo matter is comprehensively inquired into, as opposed to being swept under the carpet. He warns that public debate about the same won’t be going away anytime soon until Kavule gives clear accountability. Mpuuga wondered why the NUP top leadership, which is always very critical of Speaker Anita Among, never uttered a word in condemnation (not very long ago) when the same Speaker stopped COSASE Chairman Medard Ssegona when he had commenced a public inquiry into the circumstances under which Ham Kiggundu had been authorized to construct on Nakivubo channel. “This shows they had interest as a party and stood to benefit from Ssegona’s inquiry being blocked. It helped them to escape public scrutiny and that’s why they didn’t accuse the Speaker of interference with COSASE as they always do. It was working for them,” Mpuuga told the CBS interviewer. It was a Luganda interview. Mpuuga’s DF is clearly determined to make the Nakivubo channel interference by tycoon Ham Kiggundu, and the ongoing flooding problem in Kampala, a big campaign issue and the Front’s online warriors have also seized on Frank Gashumba’s wild claims that Rubongoya’s campaign posters for the Kampala Central MP race are being printed at a Nasser Road printing facility linked to a top NRM tycoon and for free of charge. The same has been said about Lord Councillor Moses Katabu who is seeking to become Kampala Central Mayor on the NUP ticket. Katabu is a close Rubongoya ally having reconciled a few months ago. Katabu wanted to be the NUP flag bearer but was upstaged in Rubongoya’s favour. Mathias Mpuuga says that Joel Ssenyonyi should be leading and encouraging public scrutiny on all these things (regarding the Nakivubo controversy) instead of scapegoating on him, in the hope that the same will divert public attention from wild allegations that continue being made on the NUP party officials-with a lot of focus going on the alleged dubious City Hall deals involving NUP Lord Councillors. Mpuuga says the corruption, governance and moral crisis in NUP is irredeemable and wants Ssenyonyi to expend his energies on that. He also says that he is surprised that someone at the position of LoP can be so ignorant and uninformed about procedures that are followed to access such colossal sums of money at Parliament. Mpuuga also disputed claims that Joel Ssenyonyi has repeatedly been excluded from and locked out of Parliamentary Commission meetings. MINSA KABANDA’S REVELATIONS:The Mpuuga DF group has also been emboldened, and had their utterances complemented, by Kampala Minister Hajjat Minsa Kabanda who has lately been very outspoken on the circumstances under which the President wrote his letter backing Ham Kiggundu’s developments on Nakivubo channel. Minsa Kabanda, who was heavily involved in the decision by virtue of the consequential political office she occupies in the management of Kampala, says that NUP Councillors especially Luyirika and Katabu played pivotal roles in procuring the pro-Kiggundu resolution. She says the President’s letter was justified by and based on the Luyirika-spearheaded KCCA Council resolution backing the Nakivubo deal. Minsa Kabanda has also exonerated Erias Lukwago, making it clear he was consistent in his opposition to the whole thing, which is why Luyirika and Katabu instigated fellow NUP Lord Councillors to keep abusing him in City Hall meetings, while instigating their surrogates on social media to keep doing and amplifying the same. This ongoing demonisation and isolation of NUP Lord Councillors has already increased victory chances for DF MP positions-level flag bearers in Kampala including Nakawa East’s Winfred Nakandi and Makindye West’s David Musiri. It’s equally benefiting DF Secretary General Mike Mabikke who is facing NUP’s Ali Nganda Mulyanyama for Makindye East MP Seat. Nganda is also the outgoing Makindye Division Mayor and a legendary actor when it comes to executing Nakivubo-like deal making in the city. He, indeed, has refused to condemn tycoon Ham Kiggundu in any conspicuous manner even when Mabikke has repeatedly demanded that he so, in a very unambiguous manner. The same destruction of NUP Councillors, and other elected leaders like the 8 MPs (Kampala has 9 MPs and 8 are NUP), is also benefiting DF publicist Moses Kasibante who is seeking to oust NUP’s Zachary Mberaze Mawula from the Rubaga Division Mayor. Kasibante says Mberaze ought to have rallied fellow NUP Division Mayors to join Erias Lukwago in rejecting the Nakivubo channel give-away. As they go canvassing for votes in their respective areas, community members in the poverty-stricken ghettos of Kampala are already demanding that NUP flag bearers take a clear stand and come out to condemn the giving away of Nakivubo channel. This has increasingly placed many NUP flag bearers between a rock and hard place, with many of them wondering why their apex leaders at Kavule have remained ambivalent about the same. All Bobi Wine and Rubongoya have done is to curiously put together a team of lawyers (ineptly led by Shamim Malende) ostensibly to help floods-victim city traders to sue government (and not tycoon Ham Kiggundu) for compensation over lost merchandize. The party has clearly been reluctant to go into overt condemnation of tycoon Ham Kiggundu, something Mpuuga says Joel Ssenyonyi is duty-bound to come clean on, in his capacity as the reigning LoP instead of turning him into a punching bug in the hope that the alleged combined award of Shs1.6bn saga will divert public attention and debate from the Nakivubo fracas. As if to advantage Mathias Mpuuga and his DF politics, Kabaka’s CBS radio has also clearly come out demanding to know why Kampala elected leaders, including MPs, majority of whom are NUP, are conspicuously silent on the controversial Nakivubo channel giveaway. In their programming, CBS has been inciting Kampala voters (like market vendors, arcade operators, Boda riders and taxi drivers’ associations) to begin confronting their elected leaders while demanding that they become outspoken and begin giving leadership and taking clear stands on social justice issues afflicting Kampala’s urban poor the way Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago has been doing as opposed to engaging in selfish deal-making. Even when there isn’t much they can change, elected NUP leaders in Kampala have increasingly been required to pronounce themselves on the Nakivubo saga so that the public record, regarding where they stand, becomes very clear and unambiguous. Detrimentally, many of them have remained timid and unwilling to pronounce themselves fearing to antagonize the top leadership at Kavule which has so far been very cautious not to condemn tycoon Ham Kiggundu in a very conspicuous manner. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).