OLD GUARD Vs YOUNG TURKS! City Businessman Umoja stings Ex-Mayor Tumwine over controversial utterances against young politicians
A montage of Tumwiine and Kenneth Ndyabigwamu Umoja, former Aspiring Mayor for Mbarara City South
Amos Tayebwa
Mbarara
The tension for elections among the political candidates in Mbarara City keep rising day after day as new kids on the block continue to take over the ground from the incumbents and this has left the political legends worried and have started discouraging the new entrants to know their level and step aside.
Recently, NRM bosses from Mbarara City organized an event in Booma at NRM City head headquarters purposely to train the candidates about the NRM Roadmap. Wilson Tumwine, the Mbarara City NRM Chairman and former Mbarara Municipality Mayor while addressing the journalists after the meeting urged the new political entrants to always weigh themselves and reconsider their capacity towards the positions they are going to contest for. He mentioned that some people just come up from nowhere and decide to contest for positions knowing that they are not going to win, something that sometimes results in confusion and violence in the NRM elections.
“I want to urge my people who want to contest in NRM whether on the post of LC1, LC2, LC3, LC5, Mayor, or parliamentary seat or even on the president that when you weigh yourself and you realize that you can’t manage that position, please don’t dare contest. You are the same people who end up coming as independents after the NRM polls, but that’s a betrayal and disappointment to our party. Please weigh yourself first and know your level. Does it make sense to have more than ten people contesting on one post in our NRM elections? If you are poor and without the people, why don’t you always look at yourself and compare the people you are going to contest with so that you get to know your grade. You people, start evaluating yourselves. You find someone who doesn’t even have a single room house in a certain area they live in, but they also want to be chairman of LC1. One is not married, he doesn’t own land or a house in an area but he wants to lead, what if your landlord chases you from his houses, will you remain the chairman of that area? Stop engaging ourselves in things that are not made for you, Politics have their own, not for everyone. As long as I am the Chairman NRM in Mbarara City this nonsense and violence will not be allowed here,” said Tumwine, NRM Chairman Mbarara City.
Reflecting on Tumwine’s statements, Kenneth Nryabigwamu Umoja, a City Businessman and former Mbarara City South Aspiring Mayor warned Tumwine to stop discouraging the young generation from participating in politics. He said that every Ugandan in this generation is capable and has a right to contest on any post regardless of other factors like financial instability or influence.
He further mentioned that NRM has laid guidelines that stipulate what every candidate interested to contest must have—the guidelines do not terminate or stop any Ugandan from standing as long as one qualifies.
“Basing on the Tumwine’s statement, to me I think this man is running berserk, he is still in ancient. he thinks ancient ideology because we all know that there are guidelines that guide anyone who wants to contest for any post in NRM, and based on the guidelines I don’t think there is any component indicating that no one should contest when is financially poor, when we are voting we don’t look at someone’s financial status or age, but we look at what one is capable of doing for his community. I want to correct Mr. Tumwinine that as long as one has the qualifications he is liable to contest on any post. Tumwine must stop misleading people,” said Umoja.
Umoja is a young politician in Mbarara City who has declared and threatened to oust Tumwine from the seat of NRM Chairman Mbarara City through the coming election. He said that from the time Tumwine assumed that seat, there is nothing much he has performed to make the NRM Party powerful in Mbarara. He said that for all the messes that occurred in the last election, Tumwine and his team are responsible for them due to their weaknesses.
“Personally I am a victim of the last elections’ messes where I lost the Division Mayoral seat, it was a good experience about what I went through, our election had a lot of confusion and mess due to poor organization and arrangement by the the Chairpersons of NRM and the NRM electoral commission.. The City NRM leadership did not do much to criticize the bad experiences that occurred in the last elections. This has therefore forced me to come and stand on the City NRM Chairperson seat to ensure we correct the past mistakes and to make our NRM party greater than how it is now in Mbarara City,” said Umoja.
“When you look at the recent Universities’ elections in Mbarara, NRM Party was kicked off, no NRM Candidate won for guild president. Go to Mbarara University of Science and Technology NUP won, go to Bishop Stuart University FDC won and this comes as a result of the big gap between our NRM leadership in Mbarara and the Youths. So Tumwine must be blamed because he is just sitting watching as we are losing support from the youths, and if we continue like this, in the years to come you will find this Mbarara already dominated by the opposition. Let’s wake up and revive the support of our party. Usually after elections, the party chairman is supposed to call the winners and the losers for harmony so that we do not see more independents, but our chairman here rarely does that. We need peaceful elections in the NRM party,” he added.
Mbarara City is one of the areas in Uganda that has not voted for more opposition leaders for over years, however opposition is slightly dominating some parts of the City due to weakness of the NRM leadership in the City.
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