Amuriat and Nandala must step down – Ssemujju 

The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) is in turmoil after a large section of the party leadership came out last week to accuse party president Patrick Oboi Amuriat and secretary general Nathan Nandala-Mafabi of working hand in glove with President Museveni.

Led by Kira Municipality MP IBRAHIM SSEMUJJU NGANDA, the group also opposes holding of internal elections until the issues surrounding the money that was allegedly given to the two top party leaders is resolved. In an interview with Muhammad Kakembo, Ssemujju said there is no way FDC can move forward harmoniously without Amuriat and Nandala stepping down from leadership.

What is the problem with FDC?

FDC has four organs; it has the Delegates’ Conference, which is overall; it has the National Council, which is second in importance; it has a National Executive Committee (NEC), which is the executive; and it also has a cabinet called the Working Committee. I sit on all of them.

So, when the working committee sat on June 16, we asked Amuriat to postpone the forthcoming party elections in order to first sort out serious issues within the party. However, he insisted on going ahead and predicted that the party was headed for a split. We pleaded with him: “Why don’t you sort out the issues that are going to cause the split?”

NEC stayed elections for one month; these elections were supposed to have started in June. They were pushed forward to allow these things to happen: first, to allow the committee of elders that is investigating Museveni’s money that came into our party to conclude their report; and second, for NEC itself to go on a retreat and try to find a solution.

But before that could happen, Amuriat and Nandala are moving forward with elections.

But Nandala and Amuriat say you people fear elections; that’s why you want to postpone them.

Nandala and Amuriat can no longer be FDC leaders and you think the FDC is still involved in the struggle to remove Museveni. If they were gentlemen, they would step aside; if they think that Ssemujju is a bad man, I would also step aside, and then the party would identify some other leaders who are not party to the storm.

For me, I’m willing because I don’t have to be a leader in FDC. But the Amuriats, in all the internal meetings, have made sure that this matter is not resolved. The very first meetings were attended by Dr Besigye, Nandala, Amuriat, Jack Sabiiti, Geoffrey Ekanya and Wafula Oguttu. That particular group continued to meet to discuss the matters.

They were joined in the last meeting by Ambassador Wasswa Biriggwa in Busaabala. It was in that meeting that Nandala wanted to box Besigye, and Besigye gave up. Nandala had realized that because Besigye had more information about the money than any other person, that to survive this, you must find a way of eliminating Besigye from FDC politics completely.

So, they went on a countrywide tour, and in all meetings, they were playing victim. Amuriat says Besigye didn’t campaign for me; they don’t like me because I am an Itesot, but he came to be a leader of the FDC on Besigye’s back; even Nandala, Besigye appointed him as leader of the opposition when he was junior.

So, they have been on a smear campaign against Besigye. They continued plotting how to finish him and then they continued doing their business with Museveni without any disturbance. There is absolutely no doubt that they got Museveni’s money.

We have not said everything that happened during that process when the money was coming and what happened, including when they went to fight over it. All those things we have left because we want to be decent.

So, the reason that meeting on Monday [July 17] was very important is because it’s the day they had called the elections to start on July 21. That’s why I said no, these fellows are taking us on a blind date; let people know what sort of elections they are going in for.

I called the FDC leaders, the members of the National Council, the chairpersons of districts, and some MPs who came, and I told them: “You guys, as you proceed in these elections, please know the following:…..”

But it turned out that everybody knew because I’m not the only one who spoke, but, in their [the Amuriats] calculation, I have been their trouble for a very long time. Can you imagine that in a meeting with MPs, Amuriat said: “Ssemujju is painting you badly in the public because he talks a lot in parliament and you are not talking.” This was inciting MPs against me for what crime…I’m talking too much in parliament?

I know this matter has been around for three years; one would ask, why come out now?

The first attempt was at a National Council meeting in December, 2022, when Dr Besigye brought it up. Nandala jumped and grabbed the microphone but was restrained by National Council members, especially Odo Tayebwa, former MP Bushenyi-Ishaka, and they are the ones who said this matter should go to an elders’ committee.

In subsequent meetings of NEC, Amuriat said that there are no elders in the FDC, and that those there have taken sides.

I volunteered myself to lead the committee; he said I’m junior, and I told him, but you took me to meetings that decided your fate as a candidate; so, do I become a junior when I’m going to probe you and a senior when you want my support to be a presidential candidate?

For me as a person, my motivation is not Besigye or any other person, but nobody can quietly walk me into a relationship with Museveni. If I kept quiet, we would have walked into a relationship like you see with DP MPs. Until Mao signed a memorandum with Museveni, they [DP MPs] didn’t know.

You said Amuriat said proceeding with elections would split the party; why then are you going ahead with them?

I asked him: “Is it the split that you want or do you want elections?” He said: “We are a party for democratic change; we need those elections now, but you people are fearing elections.”

We asked them: “Why don’t we first resolve these issues now before we speak about elections?” They have been sitting in their houses and recording some videos, saying elections are taking place. I don’t know if Uganda has seen any FDC elections, but that doesn’t bother them.

What is bothering them and on which they are working is a list of delegates. I said this is going to be the first election in the history of man that is conducted without electoral officials, but they have gone ahead. I can assure you they have already doctored a list of delegates. There is no shame remaining in the heads of those fellows. They are on the loose. Please take cover when you see them.

Elections were held, so what’s next for your group now?

It’s easy to deal with Nandala and Amuriat; even if they ask me to go and disperse them, I can. Even my people in Kira were saying: “Why don’t you allow us to go and evict them?” I told them that I don’t want you to be involved in violence; we will continue battling.

There are still FDC leaders who want to rescue their party; we are involved in many meetings whose outcome I don’t know. We are like a sick person on the sickbed: you continue swallowing medicine in the hope of surviving; you may not survive, but you live with hope.

If these two fellows take charge of FDC, I can tell you this party will end up where UPC and DP have ended. In that case, I don’t want to be naive; if they have taken the party, I cannot claim that I’m still FDC. If I were a DP MP, I would not claim that I’m still DP. These are formal institutions; if they have been taken, then continue battling, and maybe one day you will recover them.

Why didn’t you mobilize massively so that you could defeat the Amuriat group democratically?

You mobilise for elections if the elections are going to take place. You need to remember what happened with UPC when Obote died. There was a UPC delegates’ conference at Christ the King that installed Obote’s wife Miria as UPC president.

Senior UPC people who were well-known were all chased; Dr Okullo Epak, Omara Atubo, Ben Wacha, Cecilia Ogwal and many more were chased because they were deemed not UPC [enough]. If they cannot allow party chairman Wasswa Biriggwa to address the media and instead hold him hostage at FDC offices and he has to jump on a ladder for survival, do you see any other processes taking place in FDC?

The kifeesi thugs are now the ones manning the party headquarters. I am a realist; either I go to fight them or I leave them, and I don’t want to spend my time fighting with Nandala. Ask yourself, who is paying kifeesi Shs 30,000 daily? So, my main focus is Museveni, even when I fight for FDC.

FDC is just a platform for fighting for peaceful transfer of power in Uganda. For example, if my journey is going to Masaka and the bus leaves me, then I take a taxi or I jump on a boda boda. It can take longer to reach, but there is no way I’m going to remain on the road crying for a vehicle that has left me.

If people grab it, I use other means. My colleagues who were in DP are now in NUP and tomorrow they can be in something else.

Speaking about NUP, you have been accused of trying to take FDC to NUP…

I think the reason Museveni gave them money was realistically, to fight NUP, the same way UPC and DP were fighting Besigye. They didn’t work with Besigye; they kept calling him all sorts of names. When Kyagulanyi and his party became
his main competitors, Museveni’s target was to mobilize the rest of the parties in Uganda to fight NUP.

Because it was a common enemy to the survival of the FDC and to the survival of everybody else, including Museveni, he found it very easy to share resources because they had now identified the common enemy.

My view then and even today is that we can work with NUP. There are people in NUP who have no discipline, but that does not stop me from working with them the same way. Museveni went to Luweero to fight with people like Drago, who was a known car robber, because at that time he needed manpower to fight Obote.

I’m not going to distance myself from NUP because their boys are very abusive; at least they can abuse Museveni, but there are people who don’t want to associate with NUP, some legitimately, but others don’t want to do so because they will have no business transacting with Museveni once they are with NUP.

Museveni identified NUP as an enemy and he must crush it. Of course, FDC felt bad that we were relegated in the last elections, but I was happy that at least for the opposition overall, there was a tangible benefit; Museveni was swept out of Buganda and Busoga.

If we can work together and build on that, we need just one more region or two, and Museveni is no more. So, if it is in my interest to fight Museveni, why should I have a problem with NUP?

I have been involved in meetings with them and I see no problem if they are the ones who are leading. I have no problem with them leading because I’m not the one who makes that decision; it is made by the public. I would have wanted FDC to continue being the main platform, but the public said: “Thank you very much, but the main platform is for someone else.”

Why did the group choose you as the leader against the Amuriat axis?

I have led many things; I joined politics in 2010, and in 2012 I was appointed to be the spokesperson of all the parties under the IPC. In FDC, I sit on all the committees; I’m also the leader of FDC in parliament and I’ve done fairly well. So, the public can believe me more than many other people.

I’m not the leader of a faction. I’m not the leader of any breakaway; I only convened the meeting. I don’t know if that’s a position that people feel bad about because the fallout came from my meeting and Nandala, Amuriat, and other groups identified me as the main target.

At first, they were afraid of my credibility and that if I went to contest with them, especially Nandala, I would defeat him.
There have been a lot of calls for me to contest as secretary general but I am still reluctant because I don’t want to be involved in domestic conflicts when I have an international war to execute with Museveni.

Even at Nsambya, I told people who came that I had not come there to launch myself as a candidate; I had only summoned them here to share information. I’m a Muslim; I maintain the same position. I don’t have to have any position in FDC, even as a spokesperson. Go and ask Hon Alaso, they are the ones who filled out the forms and said: “Ssemujju, come and be our spokesperson.”

Because parliament is a full-time job, why should I go to divide my energy?

You lead the FDC parliamentary group; where are they on this matter? The majority of MPs don’t support Nandala and Amuriat; some are terrified because Nandala is very violent and he has accumulated a lot of money.

He is also a bully; so, some people are not willing to take the risk. I don’t care that I’m a Muslim; I’m going to die anytime.
If a risk is worth undertaking for me, I will take it, but there are many MPs because that meeting in Nsambya was funded by MPs. The only person who was not an MP is the Lord Mayor, but all the money, about Shs 14 million, was provided by MPs. So, really, I’m just the face, but behind me are many people.

Amuriat is accusing you of being a protégé of Besigye…

Amuriat is dishonest; I was serving in the same position under Muntu, and Amuriat was at Katonga with Besigye. You remember the group of Odonga Otto and Ekanya who came to lift Besigye from a hotel meeting of TDA? Amuriat was part of that group.

Besigye carried him on his back and brought him to lead FDC, and I think if the money had not come, he would still be at Katonga, but now he has to choose between two masters: the master of Besigye, who wants to struggle, and Museveni through Nandala, who is his agent, who is now actually giving him handouts because he is a man who lives on handouts.

So, what do you do to survive?

Do you go to Besigye and continue battling, or do you continue saluting Nandala and continue getting money from Museveni?

That’s the decision Amuriat has had to make and I think he has already made it, but he’s more Katonga than me. I disagree with Besigye, by the way, because I’m not a blind follower. If you have issues, whether you are Besigye or Muntu, I will tell you. I don’t know why people think this is the first disagreement.

I disagreed with Besigye and went and supported Muntu. If I have genuine reasons to disagree with you, I will, and I am putting everybody on notice.

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