The last things a Muganda who prides so much in their culture would want to see or hear is suggestions that Bulange Mengo was being disparaged, and that their own can turn into coffin dancers. Yet the events in Lwengo last weekend went beyond coffin dancing as estranged National Unity Platform (NUP) leaders tackled themselves at the funeral of a prominent businessman and one of their own.
Kimanya Kabonera MP Abed Bwanika unsheathed his sword first as he accused NUP principal Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, of orchestrating attacks on Buganda Kingdom Prime Minister Charles Peter Mayiga and Nyendo Mukungwe MP Mathias Mpuuga, among others.
These allegations had been simmering on social media since March when revelations that Mr Mpuuga had solicited and received Shs500 million in service award split NUP party. When the smoke in the NUP kitchen became unbearable, Mpuuga ran to Bulange Mengo. It is here that his political collar had been starched and ironed stiff when, at 22, the Kabaka appointed him a youth representative in the Lukiiko. The youngest member in the Lukiiko history would impress the king, leading to his appointment as minister for the youth affairs in 2006.
At Bulange Mengo and in the Catholic Church enclave, Mpuuga has always found solace and reassurance. But things look different this time and having crossed the Rubicon when he opened war on NUP after the party announced that he had admitted to wrongdoing by receiving the service award and apologised, Mpuuga must realise his battle is one of all-or-nothing. Katikkiro Mayiga appeared to mediate a truce between Kyagulanyi and Mpuuga but following the party’s suspension of the latter from his position as deputy president for Buganda, the train left too.
Unfortunately for Buganda, the two are its most prominent politicians currently and politics is a game of pigs and mud – Buganda looks like the pigsty in the wrestling that is setting up. In the 2021 general elections, NUP got 53 of its 56 total legislators in Buganda. Added to local elections, the Opposition party can rightly claim to have swept the central region where NRM won 31 parliamentary seats and a handful of local councils.
A week after the January 2021 polls, Mpuuga, speaking on UBC TV, said NUP had a very popular candidate and that it was that popularity that had helped them pick low hanging fruits in very many areas of Buganda. The popular candidate Mpuuga meant was not himself but Kyagulanyi. Yet the animal called politics can be so unforgiving in dragging its preys down the sty that just three years down the road, Mpuuga now believes it was all thanks to his own political shrewdness and Dr Bwanika’s loud yelps and barks that NUP got the votes and Kyagulanyi the popularity.
“No one brought us into this struggle and they should know that we’re the ones who taught them this game of politics,” Mpuuga said hours after the infamous coffin dance in Lwengo.
“How bad is Mpuuga you are accusing? Are you the one who brought me to Parliament? Who is he working for? Any leader who despises his subjects is a bad leader – never allow such leaders to undermine others.
“What I will not accept are learners to teach us what to do and we have given them time to listen, understand, and we shall teach them what to do if they want to understand and the good thing you all know that I don’t drink,” Mpuuga added. However, Kyagulanyi’s measured response in Lwengo must have left those who attempted to draw him into the sty a little awkward. Even to his worst enemies, he came off too polished to fault.
“Bwanika, I am not sure whether you love Mpuuga more than I do; it was I who appointed him as my vice president, it was I who appointed him as the Leader of the Opposition, it was I who appointed him a the Commissioner of Parliament and you it was I who made you an MP,” he said.
“I am not doing these because of hatred, I can disagree with you but let us look at the bigger picture. People have hope in us and whatever we are doing now, these young children are looking and it is what they are going to do in future because people do not listen on what you told them but they follow what you are doing.”