Nyendo-Mukungwe MP, Mathias Mpuuga addresses journalists in Kampala on May 7, 2025. PHOTO/ IBRAHIM KAVUMA
At the National Unity Platform (NUP) Buganda meeting, Mr Muhammad Muwanga-Kivumbi, the party’s deputy president in the region, made two confusing statements. He first declared vacant all seats of lawmakers who came to Parliament on an NUP ticket but have since fallen out with the party.
There have been a number of those, including two who have crossed to the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) and its offshoot, the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), headed by President Museveni’s son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba. These are Mr Jimmy Lwanga (Njeru Municipality) and Mr Twaha Kagabo (Bukoto South).
Another group that has been red-flagged includes Mr Medard Lubega Sseggona (Busiro East), Ms Joyce Bagala (Mityana Woman District MP), Mr Hilary Kiyaga (Mawokota North) and Mr Michael Kakembo Mbwatekamwa (Entebbe Municipality). The main charge against these is being in bed with Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi’s predecessor, Mr Mathias Mpuuga (Nyendo- Mukungwe).
Mr Mpuuga, who is also the immediate past Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP), fell out with the party and started a pressure group christened Democratic Alliance (DA).
This was after he took Shs500m in a so-called service award. In what looked to be an afterthought, Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi, who has been representing Butambala County for three terms, moved to give the NUP renegades some reprieve when he gave them days to apologise lest the party come down on them hard.
What Mr Muwanga-Kivumbi didn’t disclose is that internally, NUP has already decided on the people set to replace the red-flagged lawmakers. This includes Nyendo-Mukungwe.
Following the bitter fallout between the party’s top brass and Mr Mpuuga, Masaka-based politicians aligned with the party have shown interest in replacing the veteran leader.
Two of these include Ms Alice Nannungi, a woman councillor who represents Nyendo-Mukungwe at Masaka City Council, and Mr Gyaviira Lubowa Ssebina, a deputy bursar at Makerere University.
Moving in on Mpuuga
Because NUP possibly banked on Mr Mpuuga’s nous to sweep Masaka City at all levels during the 2021 polls, sources within the party say the influence of the former LoP isn’t being taken for granted. NUP leadership, we understand, recognises that people in urban Masaka have historically voted not just for the Opposition but for elites to represent them in Parliament.
This tradition of voting can be traced to the 1980 elections in which the constituency then known as Masaka East voted for a Democratic Party (DP) politician, John Baptist Kawanga.
Aged just 34 years, Mr Kawanga had joined hands with Mr Remmy Kasule Kyoononeka, a future Court of Appeal judge, to start a law firm—Kawanga & Kasule—in Masaka town.
Mr Kawanga, who had crossed paths with Yoweri Museveni at Ntare School in Mbarara and the University of Dar es Salaam, would again represent Masaka in the National Resistance Council (the legislature put in place by Museveni’s victorious rebels in 1989).
While Mr Kawanga didn’t make it to the sixth Parliament, he bounced back in 2001 and represented Masaka for the next two terms.
Just like many Masaka-based Opposition politicians, Mr Kawanga's loyalty belonged to Buganda Kingdom, where he once headed the Ebyaffe board, whose role was to demand that Buganda property, which for years had been taken over by the Central government, be returned.
It was in the 2006 elections when Mr Kawanga stood for the umpteenth time to continue representing Masaka that President Museveni made public his frustration with him.
“The food is right before him, but the man is looking in a different direction. I went to his chambers before I went to the bush and asked him to join me out there, but he refused, claiming that he had a family to take care of. When we won five years later, I asked him to join me on my side, but up to now he hasn’t done so,” said Mr Museveni, whose candidate, Mr Francis Xavier Kizza, would still lose to Mr Kawanga.
Mr Kawanga’s downfall was in fact precipitated by a fellow Opposition member —Mr Mpuuga—who struck a telling blow in 2011. The standoff between Mr Mpuuga and Mr Kawanga was fascinating because the two had much more in common than differences.
They were both grounded in the Catholic Church, had both served the Buganda Kingdom (Mr Mpuuga as a Youth minister), and were both DP members. The tiebreaker, it seems, was the feeling in Masaka that it was about time the ageing Mr Kawanga handed over the torch to youthful Mr Mpuuga, who was backed by a pressure group known as Ssuubi 2011.
The group unapologetically advocated for Buganda Kingdom’s interests. Mr Mpuuga would use his first term to buttress himself in Opposition politics when he spearheaded the Activists for Change (A4C), a pressure group that spearheaded the 2011 Walk-to-Work protest.
Mr Mpuuga never took to the streets, like Dr Kizza Besigye or Mr Erias Lukwago, but always charted the group’s next steps.
The protests, triggered by the runway inflation that followed the 2011 General Election, worried President Museveni, if anything, because of their potential to cut off food and fuel supplies to urban areas. Mr Mpuuga, however, never buckled. “We were not waiting for President Museveni’s permission,” Mr Mpuuga said. “It has never been part of our programme to seek his permission and consent for us to protest.”
Nyendo-Mukungwe Member of Parliament Mathias Mpuuga (centre) arrives at Malibu Gardens in Namirembe-Bakuli, Kampala, to launch a new political alliance on December 6, 2024. PHOTO/ DAVID LUBOWA
The right fit…
With Mr Mpuuga having such a storied past, NUP has been studious about the people interested in unseating him. The first candidate to show serious interest in replacing Mr Mpuuga was Ms Nannungi. She has been talking up her connections with the downtrodden.
“I’m well connected with those poor people in the markets, the youth and other less privileged people,” Ms Nannungi said.
She faces stiff competition from Mr Samuel Mulindwa Muyizzi, a lawyer who, for a long time, has toyed with the idea of vying for a political seat in Masaka.
Mr Muyizzi, it seems, fits in the profile of the type of person NUP thinks can be marketed to Nyendo-Mukungwe voters as an able replacement for Mr Mpuuga. Besides being Catholic, Mr Muyizzi is anchored in Buganda by the virtue of the fact that his departed father, Mr Frederick Mulindwa, was the Buddu County chief or pookino.
Mr Muyizzi, who, just like Mr Mpuuga, has roots in the Democratic Party (DP) where he served as its chief legal advisor, has for a long time represented most of the Opposition leaders in courts.
He was among the lawyers who defended Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago during his battles with the then Kampala chief executive director.
The lawyer has been key in defending NUP lawmakers Allan Ssewanyana (Makindye West) and Muhammad Ssegirinya, who has since died, after the State opted to prefer terrorism and murder charges against them.
The highlight of his legal career, so far, at least politically speaking, has been the Supreme Court’s judgement that annulled the trial of civilians in the court martial.
“That has been a key moment in my career because for many years we have been going to court martial to defend opposition activists, well knowing that there is no justice there,” Mr Muyizzi, who is a partner at Alaka & Company Advocates, said.
Decent campaign?
In 2013, Mr Muyizzi crafted a criminal case against former Chief of Defence Forces (GDF), Gen Aronda Nyakairima, after he said the army would carry out a coup d’état if politicians did not reform.
The case, which Ms Brenda Nabukenya, the Luweero Woman District MP, filed at Nakawa Chief Magistrate’s court, claimed that Gen Nyakairima, who was at the time a representative of the armed forces in Parliament, made statements that the House is not serious and that if it does not change course, “the military is going to take charge of the affairs of government.”
Ms Nabukenya, now of the National Unity Party (NUP) but then a member of DP, said Gen Nyakairima’s statements inflamed the army to commit a crime, explicitly treason, against the State. She added that Gen Nyakairima’s remarks amounted to the criminal offence of concealment of treason, terrorism and aiding or inducing soldiers into acts of mutiny.
Gen Nyakairima’s blushes were saved when Ms Joyce Kabaje, then the Nakawa Court Chief Magistrate, rejected Ms Nabukenya’s application in which she wanted criminal summons to be issued to Gen Nyakairima over comments he made about the possibility of a coup. Ms Kabaje refused to sanction the charges, reasoning that the application was incompetent because private criminal proceedings must be accompanied by a letter from the local authorities.
Ms Kabaje, much to Ms Nabukenya’s annoyance, ruled that her court had no jurisdiction to entertain the case because Gen Nyakairima was a resident of Buziga, which is in the jurisdiction of Makindye Magistrate’s court. The magistrate ended her ruling by advising Ms Nabukenya to channel her complaint through the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for better management. With all this history of defending Opposition interests in court, Mr Muyizzi thinks he is the right person to take on Mr Mpuuga.
“I was approached by leaders in Masaka because they believe the person who should succeed Hon Mpuuga should be a person of repute. A person of the region. A person who they believe would maintain the standards of leadership that the Masaka people want. We are talking about traditional leaders. We are talking about businessmen. We are talking about the Masaka community. There has been consensus that it’s about time for me to engage in elective politics,” Mr Muyizzi said.
While many expect the campaigns in Nyendo-Mukungwe to be nasty following the bad blood between Mpuuga and NUP leadership, Mr Muyizzi thinks otherwise.
“I have known Hon Mpuuga for a long time. I’m going to run a firm but decent campaign. I don’t believe in mudslinging people. We have differences with Hon Mpuuga, but I have known him for years,” Mr Muyizzi said.
