On Wednesday, Joel Ssenyonyi the Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LOP) was announced unopposed on the position of the National Unity Platform (NUP) spokesperson which means that he is automatically going to sit on the party’s top organ.
However, this investigative website can exclusively report that he didn’t attain the position on a silver plate.
Even though onlookers thought that Makindye West legislator Allan Ssewanyana who withdraw from the race at the last moment and announced that he decided to do it for Ssenyonyi who is his boss in parliament and that it would be embarrassing for him to defeat him, there was a lot of compromise to save the man from Nakasongola.
Highly placed sources in NUP’s electoral committee revealed to this website that when they announced that people should pick interest to contest for executive committee slots, Mufumbiro shocked them when he picked the papers to contest against his boss Ssenyonyi and he did it without consulting his boss Bobi Wine.
More Read
Immediately after learning of the development, Bobi Wine summoned a meeting which was attended by Mufumbiro, Ssenyonyi, Benjamin Katana the party’s treasurer and David Lewis Rubongoya the party Secretary General to discuss the matter.
Ssenyonyi assured the meeting that he was still interested in the said office and that he was going to pick the papers also.
Bobi Wine looked to be concerned because he realized that if these two compete for one office, it was going to divide the inner circle (NUP Deep State) which runs his party.
He explained to Mufumbiro that he should not take contest against his boss when they are faced with a sensitive situation where their political enemies especially those who dragged their party to court are still vowing not to back down.
The Principal told Mufumbiro that him competing against Ssenyonyi was going to divide the party.
He thus advised him to wait for another time.
“A lot of compromises were made including Ssenyonyi promising to financially help Mufumbiro in his quest to become Nakawa East Member of Pparliament and also support him in the coming elections if still he was still interested in the same seat,” a source said.
NUP sources added that Ssenyonyi was very sure that the only position that kept him on the top party decision making table was him being the spokesperson of the party.
His calculation was that if Bobi Wine does not renew his contract as the Leader Of Opposition, yet he also lost the position of the spokesperson, he was going to remain a casual legislator of the party which he doesn’t want at this time.
Sources divulged that even though Mufumbiro accepted Bobi Wine’s prayers, given that he has a lot of respect for him and he always tries not to annoy him and his struck the demeanour of a silent man who was lost of words during the delegates conference.
Another NUP source disclosed that when Bobi Wine appointed Ssenyonyi as the Leader of Opposition in 2023 replacing Mathias Mpuuga, the NUP boss assured Mufumbiro while they were on a flight from abroad that he was going to support him to replace Ssenyonyi even though there was another scare of Patrick Kanyomozi the former sports journalist who also wanted to take over the job.
Sources said that Bobi Wine frequently met Kanyomozi who had just resigned from his job at the Nation media Uganda, but he was saved when Kanyomozi went abroad for greener pastures.
Even though Bobi Wine didn’t fulfil the promise he made to Mufumbiro this time, he assigned him more powers and control in the office of the spokesperson because Ssenyonyi has a lot of work to do. Sensitive matters especially on choosing journalists to be facilitated by the party and on media houses where the party has to buy space for political mobilization, Ssenyonyi have to approve.
Even though Mufumbiro recently admitted that Ssenyonyi is a good boss who gave him space to do his work, sources said that the man from Busoga also wanted to control the entire department which would guarantee him a place on the high table where crucial and final party decisions are made
Bobi Wine confirmed that there were talks between people who were competing for same slots. Those who refused to agree had to compete and the delegates decided their fate.
