The battle for Kawempe North MP seat is two-fold: there is a battle going on at the Court of Appeal between National Unity Platform (NUP) Elias Luyimbazi Nalukoola and National Resistance Movement (NRM) party’s Faridah Nambi, just a few months to the next election. Nalukoola defeated Nambi earlier this year in a by-election that was organised after the death of NUP’s Muhammad Sseggirinya, who had been elected in 2021.
Nalukoola’s victory, which came after security personnel battered voters both before and on the election day, was challenged in the court. The High Court cancelled Nalukoola’s victory because ‘illegal campaigns had been conducted on polling day, and more than 16,000 registered voters were disenfranchised when ballots at 14 polling stations were not tallied.’
The polling stations whose votes were never tallied, Nalukoola insisted, had been ransacked by NRM goons, but still the High Court’s Justice Bernard Namanya nullified the election, saying Nalukoola was the beneficiary. Instead of going back for another by-election, Nalukoola played hardball when he appealed, a process that’s still ongoing, with the Court of Appeal asking him to file necessary documents so that the case is heard by a panel of three justices.
‘The ruling undermined basic tenets of electoral justice. The judge chose to ignore established legal precedents and instead built the case on assumptions,’ Nalukoola said.
While they are locked in a court battle, both Nalukoola and Nambi have started campaigning ahead of the 2026 poll. Unlike other NUP members who have been waiting for the parties’ Election Management Committee (EMC) to give them a green light as NUP’s official candidates for different constituencies, Nalukoola has been under no sure pressure since no person bothered to contest against him within NUP. Umar Magala, who had put up a serious contest in the first primaries, had focused on being the Kawempe Division mayor before he eventually settled for being a councillor at City Hall. Besides the court battle, during the short period he has been in Parliament, Nalukoola has been battling with the legacy of Sseggirinya, who had a god-like status in Kawempe North.
As soon as he was voted into the House, Sseggirinya set up a medical facility that he claimed was free of charge for all constituents. It’s not clear if at all the medical facility indeed provided the health services that Sseggirinya had claimed, but it folded as soon as he was incarcerated. To make sure his constituents don’t see him as a mismatch to Ssegirinya’s legacy, Nalukoola, on setting foot in Parliament, opened up a health facility of his own called ESKEL Medical Services (EMS).
‘The High Court ruling didn’t scare me. The people legitimately elected me. Even if the fresh elections are ordered, we will return with a knockout,’ Nalukoola said, adding that delivering on the promise of the health centre was the clearest indication that NUP would deliver on its promises once it’s entrusted with power.
Another challenge that Nalukoola has to face is that as a former Democratic Party (DP) member, he was always seen with suspicion due to his loyalty to NUP or its principal, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, being questioned. To end any doubts, when Nalukoola was launching his medical centre, he ensured that Kyagulanyi was the chief guest.
‘This is what servant leadership looks like. Healthcare shouldn’t be a campaign promise but a public right. This centre shows what we can do if we are entrusted with national resources,’ Kyagulanyi said.
NRM on the back foot?
For Nambi, who is the daughter of NRM’s eternal vice chairperson Moses Kigongo, there was the usual drama in the NRM primaries. Nambi defeated her perennial arch-rival, Hanifah Karadi, but even before the votes were counted, Karadi was already complaining. She claimed that the process was tilted in favour of Nambi.
‘We need a levelled ground where everyone votes. We need to look for votes and then people decide such that if you lose, you know it’s as a result of a fair process,’ Karadi said before petitioning, in vain, the NRM’s legal committee that handled election grievances.
Despite Karadi’s grievances in which she claimed that, among others, declaration forms were fabricated, Nambi has moved on with her campaign. She, however, faces a history of NRM losing in Kawempe North since 2001 when Latif Ssengondo Ssebaggala toppled Jamad Luzinda, the father of socialite Desiree Luzinda. Ssebaggala would represent Kawempe North from 2001 to 2021 before being ousted by Sseggirinya.
In 2021, Sseggirinya won the constituency by a landslide when he garnered 41,197 votes. His closest rival, Suleiman Kidandala, who defied NUP and stood as an Independent, polled 7,512 votes. Sseggirinya’s victory soon turned into a nightmare after he spent most of the term either in prison or in hospital. Arriving in Parliament in 2021 was a dream come true for Ssegirinya, who had started his political career back in 2006, when he started making the phone calls discussing the political events of the day.
Still a student at Pimba Secondary in Kyebando, Kawempe North constituency, Sseggirinya often shredded the ruling NRM party. At first, whenever he would make a phone call, Sseggirinya would introduce himself as the ‘eddoboozi ly’e Kyebando’, loosely translated as ‘voice of Kyebando.’ Later, when his ambition grew, he started signing in and off the radio calls by describing himself as the ‘MP to be for Kawempe North.’
Sseggirinya legacy
Sseggirinya would go on to beat the odds by making it to the House before being arrested alongside fellow lawmaker Allan Ssewanyana (Makindye West) in connection with the machete killings in the Greater Masaka districts. The two were granted bail on September 21, 2021, but were immediately re-arrested from the outskirts of Kigo prisons on fresh murder charges preferred against them stemming from the Lwengo District machete killings, where more than 20 people were killed. For the one-and-a-half years Sseggirinya and Ssewanyana spent on remand, rumours circulated that their imprisonment had nothing to do with the crimes they had allegedly committed but rather with their dealings with powerful people within the NRM party. Even after their release, rumours persisted that the shackles were broken after they reportedly struck a deal with President Museveni.
Then Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP) Mathias Mpuuga, who was at the forefront of having the MPs released, denied participating in any such deal. But by the time the two MPs were released, sources say they had been ostracised by the Kamwokya/Kavule leadership.
In fact, anybody from NUP who associated with them was seen as a pariah. The situation was made worse when both Sseggirinya and Ssewanyana were unusually mute after their release. When Sseggirinya died this year, NUP apportioned blame to the NRM regime, saying it quickened his demise through incarceration.
In the Kawempe North elections, Nambi, as the NRM candidate, will have to carry the cross of Sseggirinya’s death.