Teso defections: Ssemujju says Mukula parading ‘ghost FDC defectors’ to get Museveni cash

Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda claims that Capt Mike Mukula prints fake party cards and parades ghost defectors to get money from President Yoweri Museveni.

On July 20, Ssemujju addressed the issue of FDC defections, lashing at the media for exaggerated and biased reporting.

The Kira Municipality MP also called out Capt Mike Mukula for parading ‘ghost FDC defectors’ so that he can receive money from Museveni, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) chairman.

Ssemujju was responding to reports that about 500 FDC supporters in the Teso sub region district of Kumi had defected to the NRM.

Kumu is the home district of FDC president Patrick Oboi Amuriat. Some reports claimed that an entire LC One committee had defected from the main opposition party to NRM.

In response to the defections, Ssemujju alleged that Mukula, a former health minister remembered for involvement in the GAVI fund embezzlement scandal, was parading ‘non-existent’ party members.

Also opposition chief whip, Ssemujju further noted that the FDC had not printed new membership cards nor had it given out new t-shirts.

He then claimed that Mukula was printing fake FDC cards at Nkrumah Road, and making the t-shirts from Industrial Area in Kampala.

“He has turned these defections into a lucrative enterprise,” Ssemujju told reporters at the FDC headquarters at Najjanankumbi in Kampala.

“Every day, there are cameras recording him receiving people purportedly from the FDC, and then he goes and get money from Museveni.”

He added that Mukula also ferried random people from Soroti and paraded them as defectors in Kumi.

Questioning Mukula’s integrity, Ssemujju said the FDC will not take Mukula to court but will keep exposing him.

Mukula recently invited Kampala Woman MP Nabilah Naggayi of the FDC to join NRM after the party rejected her nomination papers for the Kampala mayoral race.

The NRM vice chairperson for eastern Uganda, Mukula has not only fished from FDC, but also from nascent political party Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) of Mugisha Muntu.

ANT Buganda coordinator Pauline Namagembe recently defected.

But Muntu said that wouldn’t deter the party’s agenda.