Mathias Mpuuga, the Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in Parliament and a member of the National Unity Platform (NUP), continues to be an outcast in a party that believes in disorder, which contradicts his diplomatic character.
Mpuuga, who believes in diplomacy and rule of law, has always found himself on the wrong side of his party’s agenda and has been accused of being a mole working for Museveni, following his refusal to condone violence and chaotic acts that most of his party members consider the only way of pushing their’ struggle’ to capture power.
In 2020, Mpuuga, who had been a member of the Democratic Party (DP), joined the NUP, which was newly formed by a group of violent youth led by Kyagulanyi Robert, aka Bobi Wine, under a political pressure group called People Power.
The party’s core group thought it could seize power through civil disobedience, as happened in Sudan and other Arab Spring nations. However, Mpuuga and the DP bloc introduced diplomacy to the party, which the founding members have since rejected.
Additionally, Mpuuga’s intellectuality threatens the party leader, whom the elites have deemed intellectually lacking. This has made Mpuuga the target of NUP’s mudslinging campaign as the party’s radicals call for his dismissal from the LOP position as well as the party.
The sentiments of dismissal have also been fueled by Bobi Wine’s recent remarks on the BBC, where he openly accused him and other NUP Members of Parliament of working with Museveni to pass the anti-homosexuality law. The NUP diaspora team, mostly from the LGBTQ community, argued that this clearly shows that Mpuuga takes orders from Museveni instead of Bobi Wine, and they launched a media campaign calling for his immediate dismissal.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves emotional catharsis, but it also necessitates a sense of futility.” Mpuuga knows this; however, the party he joined does not seem to understand it, which makes him an outcast and a target for those less learned and informed than him.