The National Unity Platform Party President Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, has in what seems like an unusual way fronted NUP councilors within the Kampala city Hall to undermine and discredit the leadership and management skills of the Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago to handle the current pressing issues within the capital city Kampala.
On Tuesday, September 17, 2024, the City Hall turned into a Wrestling stage when chaos erupted between the NUP and FDC councilors accusing each other of hiding the Waste Management Report and others suggested that the report was intentionally concealed to discredit the Lord Mayor.
According to one of the councilors leaning to the FDC party, the move by NUP leadership to use radical councilors to rebel against Lukwago is aimed at weakening and fronting Bobi Wine’s elder brother Fred Nyanzi for Lord Mayorship come 2026.
Sources within the NUP who preferred anonymity revealed that Bobi Wine met with all NUP councilors prior to the Council meeting to review the report on waste management and discussed with them at length what could be done to get Lukwago discredited as a Mayor in order to pave a way for his desired candidate (Nyanzi).
“The fights at city hall were preplanned; it was a strategy to challenge Lukwago’s leadership and question his effectiveness in managing the city’s waste crisis since the Kitezi incident,” the source stated.
The source suggests that the position of Lord Mayor is viewed by the NUP leadership as being strategic to their political interests within the Central region and Lukwago is the major obstacle to achieving their agenda.
It must be remembered that after the Kitezi incident, NUP leadership was quick to blame the Kampala leadership including Mayor Lukwago for failing to protect the residents from the rubbish collapse and called for his immediate resignation.
However, despite the calls for resignation, Lukwago chose to look for alternative means of managing waste in the City by spearheading a team to come up with a comprehensive report on waste management.
FDC councilors led by Deputy Lord Mayor Nyanjura Doreen have criticized NUP’s extremism and argued that such tactics could undermine public trust in the council and exacerbate the already significant waste management crisis facing Kampala.
This latest development highlights the ongoing power struggles within the opposition and raises questions about the future of Lukwago at the helm of Kampala City.
The NUP has yet to officially comment on the matter, but the party’s Councilors who participated in the fight have insisted on challenging the competence of the Central Executive Committee headed by Lord Mayor Lukwago.
