Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, the Kira Municipality Member of Parliament has revealed that President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni assured the National Resistance Movement (NRM) parliamentary caucus and the party’s top organ the Central Executive Committee (CEC) that he is going to do everything in his capacity to establish the cause of his party’s defeat in the recent Kawempe North by election.
Ssemujju claims that Museveni explained to MPs that if he doesn’t take serious action against all those who participated in helping the opposition to defeat his party’s candidate Faridah Nambi, Kampala and entire Buganda region in the coming 2026 elections is going to become a very dangerous area for NRM candidates and they might even fail to get candidates to front in different positions.
“Museveni was closely monitoring the Kawempe by election and he heavily invested a lot of money in it, I am told that he released more than Shs6bn to facilitate the NRM win. What I can assure you is that many people at the NRM secretariat, at the Electoral Commission and in security are going to be arrested or dismissed from their current positions,” Ssemujju says.
He claims that when Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama the EC chairperson announced the date for replacing Muhammad Ssegirinya’s position in Kawempe North, Museveni summoned Brig Gen Christopher Sserunjogi Ddamulira the commandant of police’s Crime Intelligence department and a one Maj Emma to strategise on how to win the said elections.
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He alleges that Museveni summoned both Brig Gen Ddamulira and Maj Emma since he had earlier assigned them to take control of all ghetto youths in Kampala.
He was very sure that they can use them to win the said elections since Kawempe North is one of those areas with a big number of ghetto youths.
Ssemujju upholds that Brig Gen Ddamulira and Maj Emma assured Museveni that in Kawempe North alone, they have more than 20,000 ghetto youths who are registered as voters in the said area and that explanation gave Museveni the assurance that his candidate was entering the elections with 20,000 votes.
“At least trust me as a senior journalist on what I am telling you. In the middle of the meeting with NRM MPs and members of CEC, Museveni made a phone call to Brig Gen Ddamulira, Maj Emma and the commandants he assigned to supervise each and every polling station to explain to him what happened and whatever they had been briefing him was shared by other people in the meeting,” Ssemujju said.
He confirms that there is a lot of panic among all people he assigned to deliver victory because they misled him which resulted into his party’s defeat.
He insists that Museveni was behind the delay to gazette National Unity Platform’s Erias Nalukoola Luyimbazi as the duly elected Kawempe North MP since he was still studying some evidence to guide him in his ongoing investigations.
Highly placed sources at the electoral commission revealed to this website that panic and pressure is high because Museveni has widened his investigations to the commission and a number of top officers are under investigations.
He said that detectives from Special Forces Command (SFC), police’s Criminal Investigation Departments, State House Anti-Corruption Unit and Internal Security organisation have grilled some EC officers who were assigned with supervising the said elections.
They wanted them to clarify on a number of issues which they think resulted into NRM’s defeat.
Among the issues they have to explain is the dropping of the polling electoral officers who were supposed to preside over the election exercise at the polling stations.
They replaced them with new ones and those who were dropped were not given the money they were promised and out of anger, they have recorded statements before the detectives pining their bosses of conniving with the opposition to cause NRM’s defeat.
Electoral officers are also accused of allegedly receiving bribes from Nalukoola who sold his piece of land in Garuga in Wakiso district to facilitate his final campaigns and part of the money was paid to EC officers to declare him the winner.
“When one of the bosses learnt that he was under investigation, he immediately fell sick and flew to India to receive medical attention but in actual sense he feared recording statements concerning what happened” a source said.
As Museveni is still widening his investigations, it is not clear whether Nambi will proceed to the High Court to challenge Nalukoola’s victory as she threatened.
