Police closes Masaka NUP offices as supporters clash 

Uganda police has ordered the indefinite closure of the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) offices in Masaka following a Monday chaos that broke out between the party supporters.

NUP supporters were involved in a bitter dispute regarding the party’s mobilization campaigns, known as Kunga. A group of local leaders, led by Masaka city mayor Florence Namayanja, who also serves as the NUP chairperson in the area, called for a meeting to address various issues, including pronouncing themselves on party members who had defected to the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), a political pressure group led by President Yoweri Museveni’s son Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

However, the meeting convened at the NUP party offices on Hobert Street was disrupted by a group of angry youths who accused the conveners of having selfish intentions and issuing uncoordinated statements.

A scuffle then erupted when Steven Lukyamuzi, Kimanya-Kabonera division chairperson, began reading a press statement asserting the support of all party members in Masaka for the Kunga mobilization campaign and their allegiance to decisions made by the party headquarters in Kampala.

However, the situation escalated when several youths from the audience grabbed the statement from Lukyamuzi and tore it apart, alleging misrepresentation of their views and causing misunderstandings among the party’s top leadership.

In the ensuing chaos, NUP supporters surrounded the meeting conveners, and Masaka mayor Namayanja was hit with a plastic chair thrown at her forehead, prompting the antiriot police intervention to restore order.

Ibrahim Mutesaasira, a NUP party mobilizer in Masaka, blames the scuffle on top NUP leaders, accusing them of undermining local party structures and targeting elected leaders for personal gain. He specifically cited Nyendo-Mukungwe MP Mathias Mpuuga Nsamba, whom the party intends to recall from the parliamentary commission over a service award controversy.

Mpuuga is accused of seeking and taking over Shs 500 million cash ‘service award’ for himself just six months into his parliamentary commission tenure. Last year, NUP sacked Mpuuga as the leader of the opposition in parliament (LoP). He was replaced with NUP party spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi.

Mutesaasira asserts that the defectors to the PLU, including some NUP councillors, are part of the disputed Kunga mobilization campaign, alleging that their actions were orchestrated by certain party leaders now acting hypocritically.