The leadership of the National Unity Platform (NUP) has dropped Mathias Mpuuga as the Leader of Opposition (LOP), and his replacement is to be unveiled tomorrow with Joel Ssenyonyi in the lead of the favoured persons ahead of Francis Zaake and Muwanga Kivumbi.
Mpuuga, whose term of office expired early this week, served as LOP for a period of two and a half years. During his tenure, he faced a lot of backlash from NUP supporters and some of the top leaders in NUP, including Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, who accused Mpuuga of a number of failures.
Kyagulanyi accused Mpuuga, along with other Members of Parliament, of supporting and passing the anti-homosexuality bill, which, according to Bobi Wine, violates the human rights of gay persons.
Recently, the NUP president, during a press brief, alleged that MPS had been bribed with Ugx100 million to pass the supplementary budget under Mpuuga’s watchful eye as LOP.
Several NUP supporters and leaders have on numerous occasions alleged that Mpuuga is a government mole. They claim that Mpuuga is “red during the day and yellow at night” and that NUP should have never trusted him with the position of LOP.
Kyagulanyi, while on the BBC during an interview, stated, “In my party, I have people working with Museveni.”
According to analysts, Bobi Wine was referring to Mpuuga, whom he has long believed to be an NRM mole.
The NUP camp also believes that Mpuuga worked with security operatives to foil the one-million-match for Bobi Wine from the airport to Kampala while he was returning from South Africa. Mpuuga is also accused of aiding security to whisk Bobi Wine from the airport to his home.
However, analysts believe that it is due to Mpuuga’s intellectual prowess and obvious intelligence over Kyagulanyi that he has been sidelined.
Sources stated that unlike Mpuuga, Ssenyonyi has been groomed by Besigye to take on the mantel as the new LoP, as he has been trained to follow Kyagulanyi’s orders without question.
It is against this background that Kyagulanyi, under the advice of Dr. Besigye and other NUP leadership, has dropped Mpuuga and is set to replace him with Bobi Wine’s blue-eyed boy, Ssenyonyi.