The battle between opposition (change-seeking forces) is getting ugly each day that goes by. And the latest is a fight for office between the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), whose founder is Dr Kizza Besigye, and the National Unity Platform (NUP) of Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine.
There was drama in Jinja City on June 02 after it emerged that Bobi Wine’s NUP officials had forcefully taken over an office that the FDC have occupied since 2006.
Trouble is said to have started after the landlord, who has been a staunch supporter of Besigye and FDC, reportedly changed his mind and crossed to the NUP after he failed as an independent in the 2021 general elections.
For 15 years, a storied building situated along Nizam Road West in Jinja City’s South Division has been home to FDC. The building’s owner is Mubarak Kirunda, a man who wrote to the party in 2006 informing them of his decision to allow officials house their office on the building for free.
Kirunda was happy that he had been elected as the LCIII Chairman of Jinja Central Division on the FDC ticket. Since then, the party ticket for this office was reserved for Kirunda until in 2021 when the FDC ditched their landlord and chose William Ebusa as flagbearer. Kirunda stood as an independent and lost his seat. Both Kirunda and Ebusa lost to Nasser Ashraf of President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
It is this political embarrassment that is said to have made Kirunda decide to cross to Bobi Wine’s NUP and to kick the FDC out of his building. The landlord is said to have informed the FDC to remove their belongings from his building, saying he had a new tenant who was willing and ready to pay for the office space. The new tenant, it has emerged, was Bobi Wine’s NUP.
The Kamwokya-based party has already painted the building red, which is the NUP color. NUP is expected to unveil Kirunda, their Jinja landlord, as a big fish captured from the opposition FDC to the opposition NUP.
The move comes two days after NUP Vice President and Leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga told Ugandans to stop bothering Principal Bobi Wine by telling him to join Besigye’s protests. Mpuuga said NUP has done its part by issuing statements to Museveni regarding commodity prices, suggesting that Ugandans are now on their own. (Read Story Here).
Meanwhile, right from Luzira Prison where he remanded over protests against commodity prices and the rumored Museveni-Muhoozi succession plot, Besigye has sent a message to Bobi Wine, warning him not to betray the struggle. (Read Story Here).
MUSEVENI MINISTER ‘REVEALS’: Bobi Wine Has Accepted to Work With Museveni
