By JONATHAN KAMOGA

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Ugandans may debate who the next president will be after Yoweri Museveni, who has been in charge for 40 years. But one thing the veteran leader has perfected in the past four decades is inviting his opponents to implode.

And so it seems a divided opposition is easier to conquer, at least in Uganda where leaders of the country’s once biggest opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), this week shredded each other in public, exposing deep mistrust, lack of campaign support in the previous General Election and dubious sources of money which some claim came from the state.

The events point to President Museveni accused of using his financial muscle to undermine opposition political parties and buying off some of their leaders.

On Monday, FDC spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda and a section of other members, including the party’s deputy president for central region and Mayor of Kampala Erias Lukwago, convened a public meeting and scathingly attacked the top party leadership which has now divided the party into two warring camps as it prepares for internal polls taking place this month.

Read: OBBO: Why thieving Ugandan politicians remain loyal to NRM and Museveni

Mr Ssemujju, without tabling evidence, accused party president Patrick Amuriat Oboi and secretary-general Nandala Mafabi of secretly working with the state.

The officials claimed these two received an undisclosed amount of money from President Museveni to undermine party activities, some of which was used during the 2021 presidential campaigns, in which the party performed dismally and lost its slot as the biggest opposition party to the National Unity Platform (NUP).

The FDC has 32 legislators in the 11th Parliament, while NUP has 56.

Money, money, money

“The real sum and source of this money is a subject of investigation by the elders committee. This money didn’t come into the party the usual way, and accounting for it has become very difficult for the leadership,” Mr Ssemujju said.

He also accused the party leadership of having sinister plans to “hand over our party to Mr Yoweri Museveni,” just like some other opposition parties have done recently.

The accused leaders dismissed the charges.

FDC’s internal woes must be very sweet music to Museveni. He hatched a plan, and did not hide it, to kill off political parties in the country.

From his National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s broad-based government introduced in 1986 to a ban on political party activities for two decades until a government-sponsored referendum released them in 2005, he has often yielded and blockaded changes to ensure his path is secure.

At times he has resorted to harassing opponents such as Kizza Besigye, his longtime rival and Uganda’s most arrested politician. In other times, NRM has simply poached or rewarded co-operating political actors from rival parties.

Celebrating his 2016 election win, the President said he would ensure Uganda has no opposition political parties because the leaders are “useless, ideologically bankrupt and unserious”.

Feast on spoils

Museveni has since been on a charm offensive, signing cooperation agreements with friendly opposition parties like the Democratic Party, Uganda People’s Congress, and Federal Alliance Party, whose leaders are either given ministerial posts or other jobs in government in return for shelving their fierce criticism of the Museveni regime.

Read: Museveni clears 'barrier' to 2026 polls win

Museveni has also, over time, randomly poached vocal artistes, and bloggers in the country to his NRM, many of them enticed with cash.
Within the opposition and sections of the public, opposition leaders joining Museveni are regarded as self-seeking sell-outs, and many have been shunned by voters.

“We are not going to allow Mr Amuriat and Mr Nandala to hand over our party to Museveni that simply. That is why after a long time of mostly internal discussions, we have come out to talk about this publicly,” Mr Ssemujju said this week.

The two accused leaders threatened to drag their accusers to the party disciplinary committee for failure to respect party authority.

“Our spokesperson has misused his office as a platform to attack the party. Since he has failed to keep the image of the party, he deserves disciplinary action. This is our party, in which we have invested our youthful energies, and we will never sell it to anyone at any cost,” Mr Amuriat said on Wednesday.

He said that the party had several reasons to keep the source of the controversial funds confidential, one being to protect the funder’s identity.

“We are not going to the marketplaces to betray people who have supported us financially. Some of them are in business, some of them work in government but do not believe in the government of the day,” he said.

Besingye’’s hand

Both Amuriat and Nandala accused the party’s founding president, four-time presidential contender Kizza Besigye of being behind these accusations.

FDC now has two power centres, one being the official party structure, and the other being Dr Besigye, whose office is on Katonga Road in Kampala, about 10km from the party headquarters.

Read: Uganda opposition unites to counter ruling NRM

Dr Besigye opened a parallel office after leaving the party leadership more than a decade ago.

Mr Amuriat, once a Besigye loyalist, accused his former boss of wielding power over the party, causing some members to undermine official party leadership.

“Today, the FDC finds itself having two centres of power, one residing in Katonga and the other in Najjanankumbi,” Mr Amuriat said.
“Both these centres of power are fighting for the same political space. Unless we narrow the gap between the two, we will not work in harmony.”

Indeed, as the FDC was holding the press conference in one part of town, Dr Besigye was holding his own in another, accompanied by several FDC leaders and legislators.

Alleged state capture

In 2012, Dr Besigye resigned from this position as party president and set up his own offices after disagreeing with party members on the fact that election could not settle Uganda’s political problems because of state capture of institutions.

“I went back to my party and suggested that we make adjustments to this new reality. I proposed some of the adjustments they needed to do, telling them that if we continued to be organised the way we were, we could be crushed,” Dr Besigye said.

In 2021 General Election, Besigye did not run for presidency; Amuriat ran on the FDC ticket, coming third behind Bobi Wine and Museveni with 337,589 (3.2 percent) votes.

Read: Bobi Wine dismisses bloc as ‘a club of the ruling elite’

Currently, Besigye holds no leadership position in the party but continues to wield influence over it. He denied allegations that he is behind the current tensions in the party and called on the two warring factions to talk out their differences.

The party has scheduled a National Council meeting in the coming days to discuss the way forward and iron out their differences.

Dr Besigye, however, lent credence to allegations of large amounts of suspicious money coming to the party, noting that it is what is fuelling wrangles and will tear it apart.

“Large sums of money have been coming into our party at every election, both internal and external. Delegates from upcountry are always accommodated in expensive hotels, not by the party but by the candidates. And when I questioned the source of this money, I was told I had no locus standi to ask,” Dr Besigye said.