Africa-Press – Uganda. The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party president, Mr Patrick Amuriat Oboi, has said he will today expose corrupt colleagues, two days after a section of party executives accused him of espionage and bribe-taking.
Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju and allied compatriots, on Monday publicly claimed that Mr Amuriat and FDC secretary general Nandala Mafabi were in the pocket of the State.
Without offering any iota of evidence, the spokesperson of what until the 2021 elections was Uganda’s largest Opposition party, said Mr Amuriat and Mr Mafabi received unspecified amounts of money from State House to bankroll campaigns and mortgage the party.
“The real sum and source is a subject of investigation by the elders’ committee. Because this money didn’t come into the party the usual way, accounting for it has become very difficult,” Mr Ssemujju said.
Spokespersons for State House were, by press time, unavailable to comment for this story.
At Plot 10 Kyadondo Road, the headquarters of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Kampala, spokesperson Rogers Mulindwa asked the Opposition party not to scapegoat others for its internal meltdown, and with glee suggested that the door of NRM is open to those seeking new political homes.
“… we cannot bribe anybody, including FDC members, to come to our party,” he said, adding, “we have a saying that when your house is on fire, you look for an alternative hut that can accommodate you. So, at NRM, we have that hut that can accommodate them.”
In an interview yesterday, Mr Amuriat said the integrity question raised about him and Mr Mafabi at a forum Mr Ssemujju convened without FDC authorisation remained unsubstantiated and he, like the secretary general did on Monday, dared his accusers to tender any incriminating evidence.
“They have continued to make wild allegations and they even don’t know how much they are talking about. The first time, they said Shs130b was brought in, then they changed to Shs17b, then Shs7b and the other time they said Shs26b,” he said.
He added: “I challenge them to produce credible evidence on the table, which will be studied so that we can settle this issue once and for all.”
Mr Amuriat was FDC’s presidential candidate in the 2021 poll and garnered slightly over 337,000 out of 10.4 million valid votes cast, and the party’s majority in Parliament was also whittled out, paling in comparison with electoral fortunes under four-time presidential challenger, Dr Kizza Besigye, who posted millions of votes.
Some officials have blamed the party president for FDC’s dismal showing at the ballot, while his backers argue that he was picked late, after three preferred flagbearers, including Dr Besigye, opted out, and set up to fail when deprived of adequate resourcing and deserted on the campaign trail by ideologues.
The four-time presidential challenger for whom FDC reportedly always leveraged its clout, resources and grass root networks, only appeared by Mr Amuriat’s side during vote-canvassing once, at the manifesto launch in Bunyoro.
These claims have widened the gulf among senior leaders, with Kampala Lord Mayor Erais Lukwago revealing at their Monday convention in Nsambya, a Kampala outskirt, that some sittings of FDC executive meetings have stopped short of members going physical.
Since the long-simmering intra-party feuding erupted in public this week, Dr Besigye has been named by the accused multiple times in unfavourable light, allegations that an aide said the founding FDC leader will apply himself to during today’s press conference.
In yesterday’s interview, Mr Amuriat said Dr Besigye originated the bribery claims during one of the party’s National Council sittings, informing members that he did not actively canvass support for the party flag bearer because he had received information that money from questionable sources had exchanged hands.
According to sources familiar with the stormy discussions, Mr Mafabi refuted the allegations and the ensuing abrasive exchanges prompted members to defer a decision pending the outcome of inquiries by the Special Elders’ Committee.
Mr Amuriat appointed the committee chaired by Dr Frank Nabwiso to investigate this and a litany of other claims, including of suspect clandestine grassroot mobilisation by the party president and secretary general that detractors allege is aimed at upending results of FDC’s upcoming local, regional and national elections.
The committee, one of whose members from Mbarara has already resigned citing the danger of their team being scapegoated to fuel animosity in the party, is expected to share its report and findings at the party’s National Council meeting planned for July 28.
But before the awaited result is out, MP Ssemujju decided to conduct a preemptive political strike by publicly accusing his principals of being compromised and plotting to hand FDC over to the ruling party after pocketing State House cash.
Mr Amuriat said he will provide accountability for his money he spent on campaigns today at an 11am press conference at FDC’s Najjanankumbi headquarters on Entebbe highway.
In a scheduling clash, an aide said Dr Besigye plans at the same time today to brief the media about the unsavoury goings-on in the party he co-founded and led from December 2004.
Ambassador Wasswa Birigwa, the FDC national chairman, yesterday stepped in to calm the turbulent waters, announcing that he had called the party’s National Council to meet on Friday, next week, with the hope of finding ways to amicably resolve the differences.
“Yes, we have these issues, but as the chairperson who calls meetings of the Council, I called this meeting so that members can decide and have a final say. What I can tell you is that I am concerned with the harmony in the party and I will make sure we reach a peaceful consensus during the council meeting,” he said.
Fissures emerging within FDC about election spending, particularly well-oiled presidential candidates and financially starved parliamentary contenders, is nothing new, according to veteran politician and party member Cecilia Ogwal.
She told this newspaper yesterday that questions have been asked “after every election year we got involved in [on] who funded the presidential elections, why [was] it that the presidential elections [were] better funded and the other lower elections not properly funded?”
“There have always been these questions coming over and over; so, we need to look at it right from the start, how have they been managing the money, why is it not always balancing?” she said.
Mr Mafabi in an interview on Monday raised similar concerns, arguing that since a section of the national leaders had opened him and Mr Amuriat for scrutiny, Dr Besigye must also account for the sources of Shs16b that he said the four-time presidential flag bearer spent on every poll.
We could not independently verify this figure, and an aide said Dr Besigye would respond to the claims today.
That notwithstanding, Mr Amuriat said he and his team will use today’s media briefing “to lay bare the evidence [on his election spending]”.
He said the source of the money that Mr Ssemujju, who was unavailable last evening to provide a rejoinder to the counter-accusations, used to organise the so-called national consultations on Monday should also be explained.
“We have always had shortage of money and have cried to these people. Apart from some minimal contribution, they have never contributed to the welfare of the party financially or otherwise. Therefore, it makes someone to begin to raise eyebrows about the source of funding for that meeting,” he said.
He added: “So, why isn’t this money being brought to the party? In the same meeting [in Nsambya] we even saw non-members of FDC, people who are affiliated to groups that have always been hostile to FDC, and so you can read between the lines.”
The holding of the Nsambya event on Monday, a day the secretariat had scheduled to elect its village and parish leaders, which ballot has now been deferred to an undisclosed date, was a “gross indiscipline by the senior party members,” the FDC president charged.
According to the party’s electoral calendar, its national delegates’ conference to elect national leaders is planned for November and the fact that this should be preceded by local, district and regional elections means organisers are now time-pressed.
Dissenters argue that there is no need to rush the polls when the house is on fire.
In yesterday’s interview, Ms Ogwal said the party is choking because “people are not being presented opportunities to freely make choices”.
She said members must be given freedom to choose what they want and where they want to belong.
“The party must be in such a form and have such characters that allow freedom of fresh air coming from all sides, and there should not be any particular identity that dictates the state of affairs of the party,” she said.
She added: “The moment you see that [suffocation], then there is something in that party that must be dealt with and the moment you don’t deal with, the party will run with it forever.”
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