Members who sit on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of National Unity Platform (NUP) party were surprised to be informed that their party had bought land that was going to house the new party headquarters in Makerere Kavule, a Kampala city suburb.
Multiple credible sources revealed to theGrapevine that in the evening of Sunday 10th July, 2022, David Lewis Rubongoya, NUP’s Secretary General summoned NEC members for an emergency meeting at the home of the party president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine in Magere, Wakiso district.
Sources revealed that during the meeting, which lasted for about one hour, Bobi Wine surprised the members by telling them that, “We are sorry to call you at this time for an emergency meeting, but God is good and I wish to inform you that we have got new party headquarters.”
After the announcement, one by one, the members started asking Bobi Wine what had happened to their Kamwokya home.
He informed them that Kamwokya will remain their home but they had to get a bigger place as the party headquarters.
Bobi Wine told the members who included the leader of Opposition in Parliament, Mathias Mpuuga Nsamba that their new headquarters were going to be publicly revealed on Tuesday (last week).
Joel Ssenyonyi and Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro, NUP’s spokesperson and deputy respectively were directed to mobilize the media for an emergency press conference which was done without revealing the place where the press conference was going to take place.
The press also got to know about the new place when they reached Kamwokya.
Sources disclosed that the idea of buying land for new party headquarters was brought by Bobi Wine.
He strategized with his deep state who included; his close friend Ali Buken alias Nubian Li, his wife Barbra Kyagulanyi, Mityana Municipality legislator Francis Butebi Zaake, Joel Ssenyonyi, Alex Mufumbiro, his brother Fred Nyanzi Ssentamu, his lawyer Benjamin Katana, the NUP Treasurer and the Secretary General Lewis Rubongoya.
“By the time he traveled abroad this last time, the deal was almost done and the few things that were remaining were finalised by Rubongoya and Katana,” a source in NUP said.
However, during one of the meetings to select the area where they had to search for land to house the new party headquarters, there was a heated debate on the suitable place with some NUP deep state members suggesting to buy land in elite places of Kololo, Bugolobi, Naguru, Ntinda and Nakasero.
They argued that when their headquarter is built in such places they will attract the elite class.
They further argued that many elites and international people have been finding it hard to cooperate with them and visit them in Kamwokya because they consider it to be a ghetto.
However, they were over ruled by Bobi Wine and Mufumbiro who insisted that the new party base should be established in a ghetto place like Kamwokya, and that’s when they started looking for land in places of Kamwokya, Bwaise, Katwe, Mengo, Lubaga, Makerere, Kyebando and Kyanja.
“You know our president is very connected with ghetto people, he wanted to be closer to them because they have been with him all this time. Many have even lost their loved ones because of him, so he cannot forget them,” a source said.
When we asked some NUP insiders about the source of the money used to buy the land for the new party headquarter, one of them revealed that they toped up on the balance which their supporters contributed during Bobi Wine’s 2021 presidential campaign.
He explained that this money was contributed by supporters in the diaspora and those in Uganda.
When we asked about the actual cost of the land, another insider revealed that the land was bought between Shs.1.2 – 5bn.
When we looked for a member close to Bobi Wine to substantiate on the scanty details of the new party headquarters, Julius Katongole, one of Bobi Wine’s assistants disclosed, “Our people should trust our principal, let them leave the issues of building NUP’s new home to him.”
Sources said that Bobi Wine doesn’t trust some of his top party leaders with his secrets because he knows very well that many of them were infiltrated by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s intelligence system.
One source added that Bobi Wine lost even the little trust he still had in a few party legislators when they rubbished his orders to return the Shs.40m alleged bribe.
“Even on that day when he briefed NEC concerning the new headquarter, Bobi Wine was very bitter with LOP Mpuuga because he assigned him a task of rallying his people to return the Shs.40m but they refused. Mpuuga even tried to explain to the meeting but the principal seemed not to be satisfied with his explanation,” a source said.
Another source added that Bobi Wine is set to tour the country and he is going to rally the electorate to deal with legislators took what NUP termed as a bribe from President Museveni’s government.
Commenting on the matter of Shs40m, Mpuuga said that his party legislators are mature people who have free will to decide on what to do, and when they decided to pick the alleged Shs.40m cash, and refused to return it, it was their decision, so he was not ready to force them.
