The decade-long fierce political wrangle between the incumbent Kayunga District Woman MP Idah Nantaba and her longtime political rival, Mr Moses Karangwa, has been reignited ahead of next year’s polls.
Mr Karangwa is a prominent businessman and also the Kayunga District National Resistance Movement (NRM) chairperson.
Mr Karangwa and Ms Nantaba were once close friends. But they broke ranks in 2012, with both politicians attacking each other in public.
The breakup resulted in the creation of pro-Karangwa and pro-Nantaba camps, which have been re-awakened and are active in the vote-hunting campaign for the 2026 General Election.
Residents in each of the two camps usually hurl insults at each other and often don’t see eye to eye. In 2021, Mr Karangwa fronted his daughter, Ms Jacklyn Birungi to contest for the Kayunga District woman MP seat against Ms Nantaba, but she lost.
Ms Birungi, the former Buvuma resident district commissioner (RDC) and five other candidates want to unseat Ms Nantaba next year. Ms Birungi’s re-entry into the race has sparked competition between supporters of the two rival camps.
Ms Nantaba accuses Mr Karangwa of being a land grabber and also being behind her political woos, among them her being dropped as a minister.
On the other hand, Mr Karangwa accuses Ms Nantaba of undermining other leaders and spreading falsehood against him.
Early this year, Ms Nantaba surprised residents when, at the last minute, she declared her intention to contest for the NRM Kayunga chairperson seat. However, Mr Karangwa, the incumbent district NRM chairperson, trounced her by a big margin.
‘By electing Karangwa as NRM chairman, you have sold your district to land grabbers, and one day you will regret your actions,’ Ms Nantaba told residents after Mr Karangwa emerged victorious.
She added: ‘My loss is partly because I entered the race very late.’ Her loss to a political rival she claims to be ‘unpopular among voters’, seemed to have intensify their rivalry. Things took a turn for the worse on Thursday, November 13, during a campaign rally organised by Ms Nantaba in Twegalire Village in Kitimbwa Sub-county.
Several youth she claimed were Mr Karangwa’s agents attending her rally with an intention of causing havoc, were beaten.
Sources said Ms Nantaba’s army guards beat up the youth and later bundled them onto a pick-up truck and took them to a health centre and then Kayunga Central Police Station.
Although Ms Nantaba did not comment on the incident, one of her political agents claimed that the youth had been sent by ‘political opponents’ to create havoc.
The fracas at the campaign rally is said to have been caused by some residents who protested Ms Nantaba’s persistent claims that they should re-elect her so that she can fight land grabbers.
‘You are using land wrangles to hoodwink us into re-electing you. You have never resolved any land wrangle,’ a youth reportedly told Ms Nantaba, who is seeking her fourth term as Kayunga Woman MP.
The queries reportedly angered Ms Nantaba, prompting her bodyguards to search for those responsible, culminating in them rounding up and beating some youth.
‘Tell us who has sent you to destabilise our rally? Is it Karangwa?’ one of Ms Nantaba’s bodyguards asked as he approached a youth. The soldiers reportedly used electric wires to beat up the residents.
Ms Nantaba, who was dropped as the State minister for ICT in late 2019, was assigned Special Forces Command soldiers to guard her shortly after she was appointed State minister for Lands in 2012.
Despite being dropped as minister, she has continued to have the soldiers from the elite unit who also protect the President and members of the First Family.
As the soldiers pounced on those questioning Nantaba, a stampede occurred as residents fled the scene last Thursday.
Four people, among them a 27-year-old Tonny Okiria, a barber in Nkokonjeru Village, Mr Bernard Etyawo, and two other unidentified women, were beaten and later rushed to Kitimbwa Health Centre by the MP’s bodyguards.
Mr Okiria sustained big cuts on the head and chest, which necessitated stitching. The soldiers removed the four people from the health centre after they had received treatment and took them to Kayunga Central Police Station.
‘We had gone to attend her [Nantaba] rally and also ask her questions, but we were surprised when her soldiers instead beat us,’ Mr Okiria said.
‘I am requesting the President’s intervention because our MP is not using the soldiers correctly. Why beat a person who wants clarification from you?’ Mr Etyawo said. The assaulted residents reported the case at Kayunga Central Police Station.
Ms Hellen Butoto, the Sezibwa Region Police spokesperson, in a statement issued last Friday, explained that during the campaign rally a group of youth allegedly threw stones at Ms Nantaba’s bodyguards before they fled the scene.
But Mr Okiria denied any involvement in the alleged stone-throwing incident, saying that he supports Ms Nantaba.
‘In response, two of Hon Nantaba’s guards, who are known to the victims by appearance, reportedly assaulted a victim identified as Tonny Okiria using sticks before taking him into custody,’ Ms Butoto said in a statement.
She added: ‘Another identified as Musa Odele who had brought drinking water to Okiria was also assaulted under suspicion of being involved in the stone-throwing incident.’
Ms Butoto said the victims-turned suspects have been released on police bond. She added that investigations are ongoing into the incident. Ms Nantaba is said to have gone to Kayunga Central Police Station last Thursday night to record a statement on the incident.
Mr Karangwa has also rejected claims made by Ms Nantaba that he was responsible for the havoc at her rally. Last Thursday’s incident followed an earlier one on Tuesday during the same week in Kayonza Sub-county where former Kitimbwa Sub-county speaker, Francis Ntambi was beaten at Ms Nantaba’s campaign rally.
The cause for his assault was not readily established. Ms Mariam Seguya, the Kayunga RDC, has cautioned residents and politicians against engaging in acts of violence. Efforts to reconcile Mr Karangwa and Ms Nantaba since 2013 have not yielded much fruit, sources said.