The Butambala County Member of Parliament (MP) Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi, who is also a member of the National Unity Platform (NUP), has furiously lashed at his party president, Robert Kyagulanyi, for blackmailing members who do not agree with him on certain issues.
Kivumbi, who was speaking to journalists at Parliament on March 20, 2024, expressed anger towards his party leadership for the ongoing witch-hunt of DP bloc members who joined NUP in 2020 to push the struggle for regime change, which has however turned into a power struggle in Uganda’s leading opposition political party.
Kivumbi, who was speaking about his deliberate refusal to attend the NUP Parliamentary caucus, which was summoned by Kyagulanyi to hatch a way of removing Mathias Mpuuga from the parliamentary commissioner post over corruption, vowed not to be intimidated by dismissal from NUP, saying that he’s not in Parliament because of NUP and he can do without it.
He added that he had been in parliament for two terms before joining the NUP, and if the Makerere-Kavule-based party decides to fire him and his cohort, it will not be their end. Kivumbi wonders why Kyagulanyi thinks that being a member of NUP is a privilege, yet the people he is harassing were already established politicians before joining NUP, and they are the ones who have made the party what it is today.
Kivumbi’s sentiments are shared with the other half of the NUP, who refused to attend the caucus and have pledged allegiance to the Mpuuga-led faction, which is on the verge of breaking away due to harassment from the People Power faction, which is led by Kyagulanyi and his brothers.
According to political analysts, the looming breakaway will see NUP shrink into a struggling party like the Uganda People’s Congress, among others struggling to have 10 members of parliament.