Drama as Uganda’s oldest diaspora association gets two presidents

Uganda’s oldest diaspora union, Ugandans in North America Association (UNAA) will now be run by two parallel Presidents following a disagreement on who is the rightly elected association head.
This comes after conclusion of a presidential election this week, in which Daniel Kawuma Busuulwa trounced his longtime rival and incumbent, Monday Atigo.

Results released by the UNAA Electoral Commission headed by Mr Franco Wantsala indicate that Kawuma obtained 181 votes from a total of 217 votes cast while Monday Atigo obtained 33 votes.
However, in what seems to be a defiant move, Monday Atigo has insisted the elections are not legal and he is still the legitimate President of UNAA.

“Those elections are for Mr Wantsala and Brian Kwesiga (former President of UNAA) and not UNAA elections, as for me business will continue as usual,” Atigo said.
In fact, Mr Atigo is currently in Uganda in his presidential capacity to raise funds for the association’s upcoming convention in Seattle in August.
It should be noted that Mr Atigo, at the beginning of the month, said he would not take part in the elections, dismissing them as illegal. He consequently fired the Board of Trustees that was pushing for the same elections.

With the Board adamant on elections, he scrapped them off the association’s letter head, and had their profiles on the official UNAA website deleted. The board also retaliated by writing to banking institutions to relieve Atigo of signatory rights and proceeding with the election despite Atigo’s disinterest.
Atigo in turn swore not to hand over any accounts. He vowed to maintain his power as President of the association, dismissing the organisers of the elections as illegal.
However, the UNAA Association official social media platforms have already announced Kawuma as the new President of the association.
“Dr Kawuma is UNAA’s new president. It is a new day in UNAA,” the association twitted.

Regarding his controversial victory, Kawuma took a swipe at his rival Atigo, wondering why the latter is still posing as UNAA’s president.
On not having the required instruments of power, Kawuma says that he has the voters and that is what matters.
“I do not need accounts, I have voters and that is what matters to me, I didn’t run for UNAA president to organize conventions. My vision of what the Uganda Diaspora is capable of goes beyond what we currently have,” Kawuma said.
Meanwhile one of the members of the board insists that the process to strip Mr Atigo of powers is still on going.

“It will take a couple of days for the communication tools, website, bank accounts, etc to be taken away from him since he’s fighting, but it’s now a done deal and he is out,” the board member said.
“Today we have achieved two things, Daniel Kawuma is the president and we have also released the first ever audit report for UNAA,” he added.
The association has been grappling with instability which many claim is a result of a government’s annual token of Shs360m (about $100000) towards the activities of the association.
While Kawuma’s camp accuses Atigo of lack of accountability and misuse of the money, Atigo says that the people fighting him are only interested in misusing the same money.

This chaos reached its height during the elections at the convention in Miama in 2017 in which Atigo emerged victorious over Kawuma by 23 votes. Atigo’s victory was however nullified after the Board claimed there were irregularities.
The Board consequently ordered for fresh elections in 90 days and asked Atigo to stand down until the rerun. Atigo however defied the order calling it illegal and coming from an illegal board whose members did not meet the merits to be appointed to the same.

Atigo’s defiance was followed by EC secretary Peter Simbi who together with other commissioners disagreed unanimously with the Board orders. The board as result fired Simbi and proceeded to organize the elections.
Meanwhile Simbi and other commissioners also organized different elections in Seattle this year and hav e not signed on the results declaring Kawuma as President.