Prime
Ex-journo keen to send Kivumbi into retirement
Journalist Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi and NUP deputy president Muhammad Muwanga-Kivumbi. PHOTOS/ FILE
What you need to know:
- NUP deputy president Muhammad Muwanga-Kivumbi has vowed to move heaven and earth to defend his party’s grip on Buganda.
- Yet, as Derrick Kiyonga writes, former journalist Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi is posing questions for the MP in his Butambala backyard.
On polling day in 2026, voters in Butambala County will be presented with, mainly, two candidates holding out contrasting approaches and visions. On one hand, the National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi is seeking a fourth term anchored on the removal of President Museveni and his National Resistance Movement (NRM) party from power.
On the other hand, former journalist Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjongi's campaign has been driven by a central message that regime change should be tagged with improving household incomes and general community welfare. For Mr Sserunjongi, there’s general agreement in Butambala that there should be a regime change in Kampala. But as that struggle takes its course, political leaders should actively engage in trying to mobilise communities to eradicate poverty.
“Butambala is an agricultural district, but look, we have few subsistence farmers who are engaged in growing ginger and nothing more. What are the leaders doing?” Mr Sserunjongi, who once edited this newspaper’s weekend titles, rhetorically asked. “We need leaders who are going to engage people such that they fight poverty. ”
If one wants to see things through the lenses Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi prefers, they have to look at the speech he gave earlier this year when Mr Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, alias Bobi Wine—the NUP principal—appointed him the party’s deputy-in-charge of Buganda. Consequently, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi replaced the out-of-favour Nyendo-Mukungwe MP, Mr Mathias Mpuuga. To rally NUP youth or foot soldiers as they prefer to be called, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi christened himself “foot soldier number one”.
What the veteran politician was alluding to was the early 2000s when he spent many days in jail after he formed a pressure group christened Popular Resistance Against Life Presidency. The pressure group’s aim was to rally people against Mr Museveni’s idea that he could rule until his death.
With police crushing his rallies, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi ran to the Constitutional Court and challenged Section 32 (2) of the Police Act, which the police invoked to stop the Opposition from holding rallies. Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi, through his lawyer, Mr Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi, insisted that the Constitution permits peaceful and unarmed demonstrations.
What this means, the duo argued, is that it is the duty of the police to see that there is no breach of peace committed. The Constitutional Court duly agreed and struck down the draconian provision. “The justification for freedom of assembly in countries which are considered free and democratically governed, in my view, is to enable citizens to come together and express their views without government restrictions.
The government must maintain proper channels and structures to ensure that legitimate protests, whether political or otherwise, can find a voice. Maintaining the freedom to assemble and express dissent remains a powerful indicator of the democratic and political health of a country,” Justice Constance Byamugisha said in her lead judgement.
Conclusively, she ruled that the powers given to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to prohibit the convening of an assembly or procession were an unjustified limitation on the enjoyment of the fundamental right. The judge also held that such a limitation is not demonstrably justified in a free and democratic country like Uganda. From that context, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi told NUP’s foot soldiers that he understood what they were going through.
“I’m foot soldier number one. I know what you are going through. That’s where I was, and I know tomorrow you will be where Muwanga-Kivumbi is,” he said.
Whilst Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi sees himself now as a point of reference for NUP’s foot soldiers, before he won the Butambala County seat via a by-election, he had for many years struggled to win an elective seat. See, in the 1990s, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi lost a bid to become Makerere University guild president, and then he tried in 2006 to wrest Butambala County from the firm grip of the ruling NRM party. But he couldn’t even come second.
In 2011, under the banner of the Suubi pressure group and the Democratic Party (DP), Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi placed second behind NRM’s Faisal Kikulukunyu. It wasn’t the first time Kikulukunyu was being declared victor. In 2001, he defeated Mr Ibrahim Kaddunabi Lubega, who had since 1996 represented the predominantly Muslim constituency. Mr Kaddunabi didn’t give up; he bounced back in 2006, but four years later, Mr Kikulukunyu ensured that he retired from elective politics into the insurance industry when he defeated him in the NRM primaries. This set off a showdown with Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi.
When the Electoral Commission (EC) declared Mr Kikulukunyu winner, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi filed a petition on grounds that Mr Kikulukunyu had bribed voters. In one of the affidavits, a witness accused Mr Kikulukunyu of giving Shs100,000 to voters at a mosque around Christmas time in 2010. Another witness corroborated the claim, saying she was present at the mosque at Gombe when Mr Kikulukunyu gave the money and that she was a beneficiary.
She said Mr Kikulukunyu told them that he was giving them the money as a Christmas gift so that they would vote for him. In defence of Mr Kikulukunyu, a witness claimed that Mr Kikulukunyu never donated the alleged Shs100,000 and that he never stepped into the Gombe Ward in December 2010. To Justice Musoke-Kibuuka, that was enough ground to annul the election.
And annul it he did. The Court of Appeal confirmed the judgement, ordering a by-election which Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi won with a difference of 1,962 votes. Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi has since represented the constituency. In 2016, he defeated Mr Kikulukunyu with a difference of 4,597. Mr Muwanga–Kivumbi won the race after facing a backlash from Opposition supporters who weren’t happy with his decision to support the presidential campaign of former premier Amama Mbabazi instead of their favourite Dr Kizza Besigye.
By the time the 2021 General Elections had come around, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi had, for the first time, officially dumped his childhood party DP for the newly formed NUP. Many observers say Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi’s support had been waning, but joining NUP saved him.
As a matter of fact, the umbrella wave catapulted him to victory as he defeated NRM’s Godfrey Buvekuno Kyeswa, who had been the Butambala District chairperson. Now, Mr Sserunjogi says the Muwanga-Kivumbi winning streak will end in 2026.
“We have been telling our people that the idea that the incumbent MP shows up when his term is ending should be stopped. We have been doing a lot of mobilisation from the grassroot and our support is visible. We are going to continue to do what we have been doing—telling people the regime has to change, but we have to also work on development programmes,” he said.
For Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi, being both head of the Buganda parliamentary caucus and NUP’s deputy president for Buganda comes with several implications. First, it could be interpreted as Mr Kyagulanyi entrusting him to deputise him in the region where NUP has concrete support. Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi has proven to be loyal to Mr Kyagulanyi when he sided with him after the revelation that his former ally Mr Mpuuga, had pocketed Shs500m as a service award during his term as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP).
This revelation reportedly allowed Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi to challenge Mr Mpuuga’s political standing. During a contentious meeting at NUP headquarters last year, a source that was privy to NUP’s internal deliberations said Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi demanded that Mr Mpuuga return the money and resign as Commissioner of Parliament.
With Mr Mpuuga—who has since formed a pressure group dubbed the Democratic Alliance—refusing to resign, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi and Mukono Municipality legislator, Ms Betty Nambooze Bakireke, who were deemed to have bond with the Nyendo-Mukungwe MP, came out to publicly criticise Mr Mpuuga. They accused him of corruption and betrayal. When Mr Kyagulanyi eventually appointed Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi, he was quick to tell the public that this was a vote of confidence.
“I’m going to move the entire Buganda looking for votes. Wherever the president [Kyagulanyi] can’t reach, I will reach there. When you don’t see the president, you will see me,” Muwanga-Kivumbi said. Though Muwanga-Kivumbi is expected to lead NUP’s hunt for votes in Buganda and replicate what they did in 2021, Mr Sserujongi has different ideas.
“He has been in Parliament for three terms. When you look at the record here, no MP has represented our constituency for more than two terms. But he is now in the third term. It’s about time he retires and that’s the message he will receive in 2026,” Mr Sserunjogi said.
