Bugweri NUP leaders contest dismissal of party registrar Waiswa Kusairu

Bugweri, (UG):- A section of National Unity Platform (NUP) leaders in eastern Uganda’s Bugweri District have contested the move by the National Registrar Hon. Mercy Walukamba to dismiss the district Registrar Mr Waiswa Kusairu and succeeding him with Mr Kibesi Musa.

Speaking at a press conference held in Idudi town council on Tuesday, the leaders accused Hon. Walukamba of disrespecting them and crippling party activities in the district and called upon the NUP principal Mr Kyagulanyi Ssentamu Robert alias Bobi Wine to intervene. 

Mr. Obbo Ziraba Paul, the NUP district coordinator in Bugweri said they have built the party in the district together with their registrar Mr Waiswa and that they haven’t yet officially introduced to them any new registrar and he called upon the top leadership of NUP to intervene before they can storm the party headquarters. 

“As a district, we have not officially received another registrar and it’s very unfortunate that the person we have worked with to build NUP in the district is being treated like this. We call upon top authorities in NUP to urgently intervene at most in one week before we storm the party headquarters and meet President Kyagulanyi and our secretary general,” Mr Obbo said.

The dismissed Registrar, Mr Waiswa Kusairu who spoke to DailyExpress on the afternoon revealed how he was invited to Makerere Kavule on April 28, 2024, only to learn about his dismissal by Hon. Walukamba, who accused him of allegedly conducting purported undesignated meetings in the district. 

“I was invited to the party headquarters in Makerere Kavule to receive training and execute NUP activities of building structures in the district but I found orders that Hon. Walukamba had directed not to allow me inside the gate. I was later informed that someone else had been appointed to serve in my position and she was accusing me of conducting meetings,” Mr. Waiswa said. 

DailyExpress understood that Hon. Walukamba was the NUP flag bearer for the 2021 Woman MP parliamentary elections and she lost to the incumbent Hon. Racheal Magoola. She was later appointed the National registrar for NUP, a position she has served for close to two years.

Bugweri district NUP leaders continue to struggle to have solid party leadership in the area after having the LC3 chairperson and a district councillor as the top positions occupied by the National Unity Platform in the district.

One of the female NUP leaders in the district Ms Joyce Muwanga accused Ms Walukamba of recruiting strange people into the party, some of whom were accused of dining with the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) government. She beseeched Hon. Kyagulanyi to intervene in this matter to save the party members from conflicting with one another.

The coordinator for NUP in Makuutu Sub County Mr. Kakaire Kigoma Jalilu says the national registrar Ms. Walukamba has since failed to call for meetings after the 2021 general elections and that they opted to conduct their meetings to cover the district and elected their structures.

“She has not called for any meeting ever since we finished the 2021 general elections and we decided to make our meetings. She is now seeing these messages to be conducted against her favour and it is the reason why she’s behaving in this way, so I call upon top leaders of NUP from the party headquarters to come and intervene in this matter before it worsens,” Mr Kakaire said.

However, speaking to Ms Walukamba on the phone, she refuted all the allegations raised against her in the press conference and told DailyExpress that changes were made in a number of positions across the country based on among others academic documents of office bearers and that these did not affect Bugweri district alone.

She said that the party is bigger than everyone and the secretary general of the party can handle such issues once lodged in his office.

“The changes were made across the country and it was based on academic papers and other key requirements and this was not only in Bugweri district. But they can still raise their grievances to the party secretary general,” Ms Walukamba said before promising that the party will sort all grievances resulting from the changes, after the ongoing party exercise of membership registration in the red book.