Mufti Mubajje’s new term starts on shaky note as Muslims wrangle continue to bite

It’s not unusual for religious wrangles to find their way to the courts but there   is always something dramatic when Muslim wrangles go for adjudication in the court room.  It’s now 12 years ever since Hassan Basajjabalaba was hounded out as the chairperson of Uganda Muslim Supreme Council (UMS) – that’s dubbed as the mother organisation and governing body of all Muslims in Uganda. Basajjabalaba had been the right-hand man of Sheikh Shaban Mubajje, the mufti who is recognised by the central government. But in an indicator of how volatile Muslim wrangles can turn out to be, it was Mubajje’s group that orchestrated a plan to oust him on grounds that he had corruptly sold off Muslim property.  
   At one point it seemed like Basajjabalaba had given up on the fights but he has emerged to challenge last year’s UMSC elections which resulted into Mubajje controversially getting another term which could on paper last until 2025. 
READ: Mubajje case takes new twist, file now sent to High Court 

How Basajjabalaba came back to UMSC top leadership
The case has been before the magistrate court.  Then to the Principal Judges’ chambers before finding its way to the   High Court’s Civil Division.   In January, an interim order    stopping all activities done by Mubajje and UMSC issued by magistrate court in Mengo, suburb of Kampala, was dismissed by   Mubajje’s group on grounds that courts have no powers to halt the activities of a religious institution because the Constitution of Uganda provides freedom of worship to all Ugandans.   
   After years of being locked out of Muslims leadership last year Basajjabalaba  wanted to regain   his former seat in the election  organised  by Mubajje’s faction. Yet they sensed that the elections, in which Prof Muhamadi Lubega emerged as the chairperson of UMSC, would be unfair.   Basajjabalaba had secured a court order stopping the elections but it was again defied by Mubajje’s group on grounds that they hadn’t seen it.  
  

The dramatic scenes from recent days point to the fact that Mubajje, who has superintended over the Old Kampala faction for 23years, will have to contend with many suits in his new term but at the beginning of last year, at least on the face of it, things seemed to be rosy -prompting him to brag how he pulled off a coup. Mubajje, who has been accused of being an offshoot of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), visited President Museveni in State House and tabled an agreement he claimed he had brokered with the effect of uniting Muslim factions – Kibuli and Nakasero groups - under his leadership which is currently manning the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council (UMSC).   
 Museveni who has been in power since 1986 and has been accused of encouraging the fights under the so-called divide and rule strategy welcomed Mubajje’s deal saying it was opening a new chapter for peace but he also took credit for the deal.
  “I am happy because we as NRM discovered a long time ago that unity is strength. We have always preached against disunity. I want to thank you for reaching this unity,” the President said.  “The eight years I spent fighting Amin.

I was actually helped by Muslims like Abbas Kibazo of Kibuli, Zubair Bakali, among others. So, uniting with all groups including Muslims helped us win because unity is power.   To sell his deal as make up with the Kibuli faction, which in 2009 came up with a leader they call supreme mufti, mubajje had worked with Kibuli reneged Kibuli Sheikhs such as Silliman Kasule Ndirangwa, who resigned from his post as a Supreme Mufti in 2020, Mahmood Kibaate, Abdul Obeid Kamulegeya, a respected advisor in the Kibuli faction and Hamid Kateregga.  In fact, in the fall of last year Kamulegeya had signed an agreement with   Mubajje’s faction which passed off as a representative of the Kibuli faction and he was now recognising the UMSC as the singular Muslim body which manages the dealings of all Muslims in Uganda, and that all other Muslim factions should work under its direction and stewardship. Ndirwangwa resigned from the Supreme Muft position in the aftermath of the disputed 2021 general elections with sources saying this occured after he accepted a fleet of cars from Museveni which were to be distributed to various district Khadis but his undoing was that he never sought the blessings of the revered Prince Kassim Nakibinge Kakungulu -  who is seen as is the titular head of the Muslim community in the country- because his grandfather Prince Nuhu Mbogo and father Prince Badru Kakungulu also played vital roles in promoting Islam.     
“I would like to inform you, brothers and sisters, that I have effective today resigned from being the leader of Muslims. I have made this decision for the sake of the Islamic religion and to protect it because I as Silman Ndirangwa, am just a very small component of the Islamic religion. Islam is broad. 

For the sake of Islam, I cannot be engaged in friction with my bosses… that’s why I have decided to resign,” Ndirwangwa said in his resignation speech. 
Initially, the Kibuli faction had decided to ignore Mubajje and Kamulegeya’s deal but once they took it State House of sanctioning by the President the Kibuli faction reacted.    “We wish to categorically inform the general public that the Office of the Supreme Mufti is an independent legal entity with its own constitution based on the Quran and Sunnah to guide the actions and decisions associated with the provision of ethical leadership and governance of Muslim Affairs in Uganda,” said Muhammad Kiggundu Musoke, the director of communication, Research and International relations for the Kibuli faction said.   “…. We, therefore ,in the strongest terms possible refute the impression created that Sheikh Silliman Kasule Ndirangwa, Sheikh Mahmood Kibaate, Sheikh Abdul Obeid Kamulegeya and Sheikh Hamid Kateregga have the mandate to represent or speak for the Office of the Supreme Mufti and they are not part of the administration of the Office of the Supreme Mufti.” 

Three months after Mubajje had taken advantage of apparent divisions in Kibuli to cement himself as the leader of Muslims tables had turned when some of his former allies tried to carry out a coup, accusing him of abusing the constitution and fraud with the help of Ramathan Mugalu, the UMSC secretary general and former minister without portfolio   Abdul Nadduli, who is now the UMSC chairman.  The motion suffered stillbirth after its masterminders at the last minutes developed a cold foot with corruption allegations being peddled around.  “Since the censure motion wasn’t on the agenda, one of the delegates, who initiated the motion, had to raise his hand at the beginning of the session to have it added [on the agenda], but no one bothered, confirming reports that they had already been compromised,” a source within UMSC, who preferred anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the press told Sunday Monitor. “A lot of money was given to delegates such that motion fails.”    Though the petition was defeated, the accusations against Mubajje, Mugalu and Nadduli were pretty instructive: selling off   Muslim property, embezzling funds, and causing financial loss to the council.  When Mubajje took over the reins at Old Kampala in 2002  having defeated   Sheikh Hussein Rajab Kakooza for the first time in the era of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) there was a lull in fighting among Muslim factions but his honeymoon didn’t last long.  

In 2006 a group of Muslims that would later form the Kabuli faction, accused Mubajje of illegally selling Muslim property in collaboration Basajjabalaba, then chairperson of UMSC, and Idris Kasenene.   Mubajje’s opponents dragged him to the court but much to their disappointment   Margaret Tibulya, then a magistrate at Buganda Road Court threw out the case on grounds that the trio had acted right in their capacity as trustees of UMSC property but she interestingly noted that Mubajje had continuously lied to court under oath that the properties hadn’t been sold.  Tibulya, who is now a High Court, judge at the Anti-Corruption Division of the High Court added that it wasn’t in the court’s jurisdiction to judge the moral values that Mubajje had brought under disrepute.  This was the final nail in the coffin of sheikhs from the Buganda region; namely, Zubair Kayongo, who has since passed on, Nuhu Mazaata Batte, who since passed on, Anasi Kalisa, who has since passed on, Kakooza, Rashid Ssemuddu, Badrudin Ssajjabi and Muhammad Waiswa formed a splinter group with the backing of Nakibinge, with its headquarters at Kibuli.  Fighting among Muslim factions predates NRM but in 1972 president Idi Amin ordered all the factions to unite under the UMSC.   

In his typical style capricious style Amin fired Sheikh Abdulrazak Matovu, the first chief kadhi, and his successor Sheikh Silman Matovu, and UMSC leadership ended in the hands of Amin’s secretary for defence, Col Emilio Mondo, a non-Muslim.   When Sheikh Kassim Mulumba was appointed as interim Mufti during Paul Muwanga’s short-lived government, he was supposed to serve for six months. But he exceeded his term, which led to a parallel UMSC administration in 1980, which elected Kamulegeya as the rival mufti and Prince Badru Kakungulu, the father of Prince Nakibinge, as chairperson. Prince Kakungulu would later unite the muftis and Sheikh Kamulegeya agreed to become Sheikh Mulumba’s deputy. But the ceasefire didn’t last as Sheikh Mulumba threw in the towel, purportedly under pressure from Kamulegeya, and the latter became mufti at Old Kampala. Mulumba, though, shortly after, recharged his battery and renewed his claim to muftiship and pitched camp at Masjid Noor on William Street but   Kamulegeya solicited police support to drive Mulumba from William Street and confined him to a small mosque at Rubaga Road, popularly known as Kabalaza.  

 Mulumba didn’t give up and his efforts bore fruits in 1985 when he unseated Kamulegeya from Old Kampala. In came the so-called Mecca Agreement of 1986 that convinced Kamulegeya and Mulumba to step down, paving way for Kakooza as chief kadhi, and Sheikh Ibrahim Saad Luwemba as his deputy. The earlier fights were largely civil but civility was abandoned in the late 1980s following the emergence of the Salaf group – which implies, those who follow the right path of Prophet Muhammad’s true Sunnah (practice) – but they are commonly known as the Tabliq – which is an Arabic word for – the religious crusaders.  

They were mainly youthful men who had returned from Saudi Arabia and observed certain practices, including wearing short trousers,  maintaining long unkept beards and had banned certain traditional practices they believed were unlawful in Islam and had been invented by the Sheikhs of long ago and fused into Islam.  In 1991, the Tabliqs stormed the Old Kampala mosque to halt Luwemba’s promotion as Mufti triggering a response from the military the result was bloodshed: deaths, imprisonments and more separations. 

The Mbarara Proclamation of 1993 spearheaded by Prof George Wilson Kanyeihamba, who would go on to become a Supreme Court Judge, resolved to drop the warring Luwemba and Kakooza to replace them with Sheikh Ahmad Mukasa as mufti, and Sheikh Zubair Kayongo as his deputy. Both belonged to the Kibuli faction. 
President Museveni rejected the elections, which left Sheikh Luwemba as mufti.  Later Kanyeihamba accused Museveni of being the cause of the unending conflict when he preferred Luwemba to remain as mufti because of being pro Movement  as opposed to Kakooza who was an elite and pro-Buganda Kingdom sympathizer.  Luwemba died in 1997, but his deputy, Sheikh Muhammad Ssemakula, was too old to succeed him. And in the 2000 elections, sheikh Mubajje became mufti, beating sheikh Kakooza to the seat. 

However, Kayongo and Kamulegeya led other Sheikhs from Kibuli to denounce Sheikh Mubajje’s victory and vowed never to be loyal to him. At 66 years old Mubajje was supposed to retire in 2026 when he turns 70 but the constitution has now been amended allowing Mubajje to rule until he is 75 years having won last year’s elections. 
Whilst Mubajje has rationalised the amendments contending they are “urgently needed because they will cure the perennial conflicts within the Muslim community,” the Kibuli faction through Kiggundu has insisted  “The office of the Supreme Mufti   Muhammad Galabuzi is not part of those filthy [constitutional] games and we shall continue to serve the Ummah with respect and due diligence to develop Islam… the truth will always prevail.’’