Rise and fall of Kato Lubwama as a politician

On  April 25, 2017, Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi, the Butambala County Member of Parliament (MP), had pumped himself up when the police top brass, led by Gen Kale Kayihura, then Inspector General of Government (IGP), appeared before the Defence and Internal Affairs Committee of Parliament, then led by former police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba who was now representing Mityana District women.

During the proceedings, Muwanga insisted on asking Kayihura a barrage of questions rotating around human rights violations done by security agencies, but Nabakooba couldn’t allow him to, saying such questions would be misplaced since they were handling what she termed as “policy statements”.

In shutting down Muwanga, Nabakooba wasn’t a lone ranger. She was joined by Paulo Kato Lubwama of Rubaga South who was making his debut in the house.

Police had been dogged by accusations of human rights abuses and Muwanga thought that since the committee was discussing the police’s budget, MPs had to seize this moment to table human rights issues.

But Lubwama, a dramatist who was forging a political career, felt that human rights violations were a trivial issue. Lubwama, who had arrived in Parliament as an independent albeit as Opposition-leaning, turned the tables on Muwanga. With his oval eyes almost popping out of the orbit Lubwama accused the Butambala MP of disrespecting other committee members.

“I think you are stepping too far,” a bespectacled Lubwama told Muwanga. “You have to respect the chair. No…no…no... We should respect ourselves.”

The exchanges didn’t end in the committee they reached outside where Muwanga, then shadow defence minister, accused Rubaga South voters of basically electing ekiwulenge, loosely meaning a clown, or a senseless person.

“Human right issues are critical because these guys [security agencies] can arrest anybody, whether you [journalists] or me,” a visibly livid Muwanga said. “Then you come here and you keep quiet. This is not theatre. We aren’t in drama.”

Lubwama wasn’t one to go down easily, he accused Muwanga of “arrivalism”.
“He grew up in the Kawempe slums sporting underwear with double colours. Putting on stocks of double colours,” Lubwama said of Muwanga before warning him.

“I will not quarrel with him. Next time I will just beat him. I will just chew him. He thinks he is the cleverest person around. He wants to talk about every issue and the entire Parliament can’t stand him.”

It wasn’t the first time Lubwama was picking a fight with Muwanga over an issue involving Kayihura. In 2016, Kayihura invited the Parliamentary Defence Committee to Lake Victoria Serena yet it was the committee that had first summoned him to Parliament. 

Muwanga refused to go to Serena, accusing Kayihura of contravening House rules. Again, Lubwama shielded Kayihura and lambasted Muwanga, accusing him of being selfish and exhibiting double standards.

“I think Muwanga Kivumbi isn’t positive and impartial at all; we sat in some retreat with the UPDF in the same venue and he didn’t raise any complaint,” Lubwama said.

Aged 46, Lubwama arrived at Parliament in 2016 following decades in which he made a name in music and drama. He established the Diamond Ensemble, a drama group, and Diamond Productions, a music band group.

He had also for decades forged a career on Central Broadcasting Service (CBS), a Buganda Kingdom-owned radio station, where he outed comical jingles and adverts. However with the trend of people in the arts sector venturing into Uganda’s murky politics, Lubwama wasn’t to be left out.

Joining politics
By 2015, he had made it clear that he was going to stand in Rubaga South, a constituency famed for housing low-income artisans and blue-collar workers who engage in hard manual labour, manufacturing, construction and maintenance sectors in areas such as Nalukolongo, Nateete and Ndeeba, inter alia.

Though the cardinal roles of an MP include representation, legislation, oversight, budget approval, and appropriation, in Uganda’s politics voters in both rural and urban precincts tend to ask MPs to improve roads, repair or construct health centres, and construct clean water sources.

There are also instances in which those who want to enter the House have promised electricity connections and job opportunities for the youth.

In Opposition constituencies that are found around Kampala metropolitan area, candidates tend to tell voters once they are elected they will hold the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) accountable.

But since he was an unconventional politician, Lubwama wasn’t willing to follow this script. He borrowed a script from Michela Wrong’s book entitled It’s our turn to eat.

To win the election, Lubwama, who was a Democratic Party member but due to the party’s unending ending squabbles formed his own outfit dubbed “Solida” and revealed his own brand of politics – a blend of drama, cynicism and bluntness – appealed to voters who bought into his eccentric ways on grounds that he is more forthright than politicians who normally promise them heaven on earth but to deliver nothing.

While conventional politicians normally promise to lobby the central government to improve infrastructure, and social services and also get jobs for the unemployed youth in their respective constituencies, Lubwama bluntly told voters not to expect much from him since his only aim of going to Parliament was to pocket the fatty salary and other privileges that come along with being an MP.  

“Munnonde nange ngende ndyeko,” (vote me such that I can also eat) was Mr Lubwama’s catchword during campaigns.

With this kind of unpretentious campaign, Lubwama who obtained 27,268 votes, easily brushed off a challenge from the Conservative Party’s John Ken Lukyamuzi, who had made this position his.

Whereas Lukyamuzi, with a tinge of drama, cherished political debate and engaged in activism and demonstrations, more so those related to environmental protection, Lubwama, on the other hand, detested all of that and viewed his relationship with voters as transactional.

“I never promised voters flyovers and the roads,” Lubwama said. “The thing is simple: I wanted some money and they wanted some money. The little money I get from Parliament: we share it,” Lubwama said, adding that speaking on the floor of Parliament was secondary.

The reward of voters electing him, Lubwama said, was for him to give them a chunk of salary and other money he might get from government officials, including President Museveni, who he routinely accused of being selfish.

After his seat in the Augustus House, Kato was accused by sections of the Opposition of being among the motley crew of MPs that had got money from Museveni’s influential brother, Gen Caleb Akandwanaho, popularly known as Salim Saleh, in a bid to frustrate the defiance campaign spearheaded by Opposition doyen Kizza Besigye.

But his response to the allegations was pretty instructive: “Salim Saleh hasn’t given me money yet, but if he wants to give me money, I will chew it. He hasn’t given me a coin, and I am looking for him to give me [money] if he can,” Lubwama told The Observer newspaper in September 2016.
Once MPs were sworn in for this term, once again one of the sticking issues was the kind of cars MPs should get given their increase in number.

To break the impasse, Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda, the Kira Municipality MP who then doubled as the Opposition Chief Whip, proposed that MPs should be given a loan of Shs200m. But Lubwama derided this proposal, saying he preferred taxpayers directly buying MPs cars worth the same amount.

When Parliament came under fire for being extravagant yet the country was facing economic dire straits, Lubwama’s response was swift: “I didn’t come here to suffer.”

“I spoke about [a reality]. You cannot have a Member of Parliament driving a car of Shs20m; respect MPs. The problem with Ugandans [is], they don’t want to hear the truth, but the [cars for MPs] are provided for in the [government’s standing policy]. Don’t blame me, you blame the framers of the Constitution who allocated emoluments to MPs,” Lubwama explained why an MP deserves fuel-guzzlers.

In these exchanges, it was always clear that Lubwama wasn’t a fan of intellectual debate and outspoken Opposition MPs such as Ssemujju and Muwanga weren’t his cup of tea as he consistently accused them of talking about things they hardly comprehended.

“The problem with politicians in Uganda is they want to talk about everything, which is not the case with me. If I don’t know something [about the law], I will call [Kampala Central MP Muhammad] Nsereko and ask him,” he said.

“I am not going to answer every question put to me if it is from an area I am not conversant with. That is the problem with the people on Facebook; they want to comment about everything even when they lack information about it.”

With Museveni seemingly entrenched in power and there is no hope that he will give it up, Lubwama shocked those within Opposition ranks when he called for cooperation with the ruling elite rather than defiance.  

According to Lubwama, Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, was presiding over a military government which had monopolised everything, and it would make sense to leave everything to him.

“You shouldn’t take me to the defiance [campaign] when I don’t want; I don’t want defiance and my people also don’t want it. My people are hungry, they need something to eat. Can you defy when you’re dead? [Kizza] Besigye will not take me to the streets of Kampala,” he said.

“But what I can assure you, I will not leave President Museveni to eat the money alone. That must be put straight; this country belongs to all of us.”
Lubwama, in fact, made it clear that MPs were too powerless to bring about any change. 

“The voters voted me well knowing that I’m powerless. I’m a slave to this government. There’s nothing I can do to bring about change,” he declared.

Before Lubwama could settle in Parliament, Habib Buwembo, then a youth winger in the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), announced his arrival on the national scene when he initiated court proceedings against Lubwama.

A resident of Rubaga South, Buwembo, though he was out of time having not filed his petition within the 30-day period prescribed under Section 60 (3) of the Parliamentary Elections Act, 2005 (as amended) stipulated to challenge Parliament, he asked the High Court’s Civil Division to treat his case as a special one and allow him to challenge Lubwama’s elections on grounds that he had no academic papers.

The crux of Buwembo’s case was that the results Mr Lubwama obtained at O-Level were not satisfactory for him to be awarded the certificate. 

At O-Level, according to the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb), Lubwama obtained F9 in Mathematics, English, Chemistry and Physics. He also got passes in History and Commerce and credits in Political Education, Geography and Christian Religious Education.  

According to Uneb, only Division One to Four candidates qualify to get an O-Level certificate and can, therefore, proceed to A-Level or do other courses.

When the hearing started, Lubwama, who used to come to court sporting a backcloth, turned the court and its surroundings into the theatre. His supporters came with drums before a rattled Justice Margret Oguli-Oumo ordered Lubwama to go outside and prevail over this rather boisterous group.

Having been presented with sufficient evidence, prima facie, poking holes in Lubwama’s academic papers, Justice Oguli-Oumo, who has since retired, ruled that she has no option but to allow Buwembo file his petition “out of time”. 

Lubwama reacted by appealing this ruling but to date, the Court of Appeal, for myriad reasons, never resolved the case, and Lubwama who had a diploma in Music Dance and Drama (MDD) bragged about it.  

“I studied but the problem is it’s those guys challenging me who never understood what I studied,” Lubwama said, “I studied music; I studied stagecraft, those are things that aren’t easily understood by many people.”

Buoyed up by the energy that youth injected into the People Power movement that later morphed into the National Unity Platform (NUP), there was optimism in certain circles that Museveni’s rule was about to end, but Lubwama didn’t buy this. 

“Why would we lie to Ugandans?” Lubwama said when asked if NUP was going to oust Museveni from power. “The Electoral Commission is his [Museveni]. He prints the ballot papers, he organises the entire electoral process and you think you are going to defeat him?”

Though he was confident of returning to Parliament in 2021, having told voters that he wants to go back to Parliament such that they “eat together” Lubwama, who died aged 52, was ousted by NUP’s Aloysius Mukasa who rode on the so-called ‘umbrella wave’ that swept Buganda region, leaving the actor bitter.  

“The voters humiliated me, but nothing good will come out of NUP and their leader Bobi Wine,” he said referring to NUP president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu.