Sociopathic Lies: Ex-LoP Mpuuga Exposes NUP On Botched Bwanika, Bagaala Sackings
The former Leader of Opposition (LoP) Mathias Mpuuga, finally spoke out against the lies perpetuated by the leadership of the National Unity Platform (NUP) regarding their botched sacking of Abed Bwanika and Joyce Bagaala from parliament’s committee leadership positions.
According to Mpuuga who was appearing on NTV Uganda’s Ebigambo Tebitta local dialect show, Saturday, said that the NUP leadership has become sociopathic liars who prioritize blackmailing others out of politics over being truthful to Ugandans.
Whenever they failed to sail their desired changes in parliament, the NUP leadership had claimed that survivors of their target were now allies of the ruling party as a tactic to incite constituents against their MPs at a party urging.
“This indicates protection from the NRM and the Speaker. They no longer represent our interests,” Lop Joel Ssenyonyi, for example, said after failure to remove Bwanika and Mpuuga from their respective positions.
However, Mpuuga dismissed this as a baseless assertion and “hypocritical” on the part of the youngest party chiefs.
“In leadership, there is self-introspection and not every time you get angry, you make changes. Sometimes, you need to sit and agree on certain things other than coming every time to hoodwink people yet you have hidden agendas,” he said, “otherwise, you are either unfair or hypocritical because you know what you are saying is not true, but semantics.”
Mpuuga explained that the sacking of the two MPs as chairperson and deputy chairperson of the Parliament’s Committee on Government Assurances and Implementation in June 2024 was blocked by Parliament in a plenary sitting because the party failed to follow “parliamentary procedures.”
“Everyone who follows goings-on is expected to know that you don’t just wake up and announce that I have removed this person without following the due processes. If you want to change the chairperson of the committee, there are known processes, you don’t wake up in the morning to say, I am the party, I have announced when you know there is a process.” Mpuuga said.
He criticized Ssenyonyi and the NUP president Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine, for making misleading allegations despite being aware of the parliamentary rules of procedure, LoP being a member and Kyagulanyi having been an MP for 3 years.
“If you tell lies to the nation, then you are deliberately confusing the nation like what was done recently when my party removed Dr. Bwanika and Hon. Joyce Bagaala,” Mpuuga said.
To enlighten people, Mpuuga said, “Parliament asked them [NUP], don’t you know parliamentary [rules of] procedures? They [MPs] told them [NUP] that if they wanted to remove them [Bwanika and Bagaala], go through the right process.”
The Nyendo-Mukungwe MP noted that the party leaders peddled similar lies when they failed to remove him from his current position as a Commissioner of Parliament, early this year after he fell out with Kyagulanyi over what many others have come out to describe as “largely political witch hunt.”
To merit credence to the causes of the blockage of sackings of MPs over disagreements with political party leaders, Mpuuga said that the framers of both the constitution and the parliamentary rules of procedures sought to tame unwarranted “disturbances from political parties” with reactionary leaders, like what Kyagulanyi, allegedly is.
“One of the reasons why the laws governing Parliament operationalized the Political Parties and Organizations Act as [amended], [2020] was because the law cannot work without an operationalization law,” he explained.
He added, “the political parties were given responsibility in the Constitution to nominate MPs [on different committees of parliament. But because parliament also has needs to act independently without being disturbed on a daily, prescribed certain processes parties go through if they want to remove a commissioner of parliament.”
“It’s human for someone to anger [political] party leaders and they respond by removing you,” exclaimed, “what if you [a leader] get angered every day, and whenever you get angry, you remove people from committees? Won’t parliament be turned into a bar?”
He emphasized that although the parties, may change committee leadership midway, their role is often to assist parliament in choosing MPs to chair committees and that the committees are not about “appeasing individuals” in their political parties.
“Committee changes cannot depend on individuals’ emotions which is not allowed because you are interfering with Parliamentary work which transcends party to be national duties,” he said.
“Sectoral committees are changed at the end of every financial year, but the [standing] committees chaired by [opposition], change every after two-and-half years, by law,” Mpuuga said, “However, we can change them mid-way, provided that you follow all due processes.”
Precedents
In the 10th Parliament when Rebecca Kadaga was the speaker, cited Parliamentary rules of procedure to block the sacking of Bugweri’s Abdu Kantuntu and his deputy Anita Among from COSASE reasoning that they could only vacate their positions after the expiry of their two-half-year term.
In the 11th parliament, Speaker Among blocked NUP from removing Bardege-Layibi Division MP Martin Mapenduzi from his position as chairperson of the PAC-Local Government over the same reasoning.