Turmoil in FDC: A sign of Nandala Mafabi’s waning powers?

Ssemujju, who is the Kira Municipality Member of Parliament (MP), had defined the standoff as an accountability issue.

“FDC is a public institution, when people are asked to account then it’s internal. How can issues of accountability be an internal matter? How can issues of elections in a political party be an internal matter? These issues are public,” Ssemujju says.

ICYMI: State money claims split top FDC bosses

Nandala Mafabi, on the other hand, has chosen to define the fight as an effort of saving FDC from the National Unity Platform (NUP), which is now the biggest Opposition party going by its numbers in Parliament.

Mafabi claims that Ssemujju and Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago during the last general election abandoned FDC candidates and vouched for those of NUP.

Rising star
Though issues of accountability for funds are being raised, if you wind back to 2001, Mafabi’s star was rising and his niche was holding public officials accountable.

Mafabi’s grip on tax and financial issues made him stand out early on and earned him the position of chair of the significant Committee on the National Economy. 

During this time, the committee was known for producing exhaustive statistics on the performance of the economy, on the quarterly level and for putting pressure on the government to find means of reducing its national debt, then standing at Shs3 trillion. 

But his star shone perkiest when he chaired the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), during the 8th Parliament. Appearing before PAC became one of the most feared responsibilities for many public servants.

Private individuals who got questionable deals from government weren’t spared as the case was for the propriety of J&M hotel and Avemar Shopping Centre, Joseph Behakanira, who died in 2010 a few days after being questioned by Mafabi-led PAC over the Shs2.6 billion he got from the national coffers two days before the November 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm). Behakanira was diagnosed with high blood pressure before he met his death at Case Clinic.

While heading PAC, Nandala Mafabi cut an image of a daring interrogator. 
He made famous the practice of locking away officials who declined to reveal some information or to produce vital documents. He would soon acquire demi-god status in the Bugisu sub-region, not for his politics or attachment to FDC, but for his work as chairman of the powerful Bugisu Cooperative Union (BCU), a position that earned him the nickname, ‘Mr Coffee’.

In Uganda, Bugisu is home to Arabica Coffee and BCU is the biggest trade partner. When Mafabi took over as chairman in 2008, the union was on its knees and had not made profits in many years. Many of its assets had been attached over failure to pay debts and it could only offer farmers Shs800 for a kilogramme of coffee.

READ: Farmers accuse Nandala-led BCU of stifling coffee farming  

Mafabi, together with a new management team, resuscitated the union. By the time he was controversially suspended in 2010, farmers were paid Shs6,200 per kilogramme. It, consequently, came as no surprise when he was appointed Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LoP) in June 2011 ahead of equally experienced politicians like Abdu Katuntu.

Mafabi had not only beaten NRM’s Beatrice Wabudeya, who was also backed by the State apparatus, but also ensured the Budadiri East constituency and all local council positions in his home district of Sironko were in the blue column.

Mafabi’s influence had grew beyond Sironko. He was influential in the Mbale District and this translated into FDC being a force to reckon with.

As LoP, Nandala Mafabi’s relationship with FDC MPs did not last long, after he introduced tough measures to assess their performance. Besides attending an obligatory weekly meeting, each of the shadow ministers was required to write a monthly report detailing what he had done in his/her sector.

Many welcomed his leadership style, saying the central government ought to learn something from it. Others believed it was the source of his trouble because MPs were not used to this kind of scrutiny.

With growing discontent within the ranks of party MPs, there came the FDC presidential campaigns of 2012 that pitted the rasping Mafabi against the laidback Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu. 

The campaigns turned ugly, with Maj Rubaramira Ruranga, who was heading the Mafabi campaign effort but has since decamped to the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), to suggesting that electing Gen Muntu, a former army commander, would be identical to fulfilling the wishes of some people in the NRM.

“I want to warn you, since we opened up to democracy in FDC, some people in NRM have been advising us to choose Muntu because he has access to Museveni and the [UPDF] generals. Are you prepared to follow the advice of people in NRM?” Rubaramira asked, to which the crowd, which had gathered in Kasangati Ssaza Grounds, Dr Kizza Besigye’s home township, replied in unison: “No.” 

In another veiled barb directed at Muntu, Rubaramira said FDC needed to elect someone willing to inject money into the party, “unlike some people who sit in the office waiting to be given money to mobilise support”.

Nevertheless, when the ballot counting ended in Namboole stadium, Gen Muntu edged out Mafabi, 393 votes to 361. 

In the aftermath of the Namboole showdown, the new Muntu FDC leadership, which had dumped Mafabi as LoP and given it to his ally Wafula Oguttu, tried to convince him to accept the position of chair of PAC but the legislator, known for sporting his signature white short-sleeved shirts, rejected the offer.

Mafabi meanwhile toyed with the idea of forming his own political party with a section of supporters of FDC in Bukedi and Elgon sub-region. Though Mafabi traversed the country saying he was consulting delegates who had voted for him, he didn’t follow through with his threat to form the political.  

After the elections, a tribunal that had been instituted to investigate the 2012 elections concluded that the once quiet and well-suppressed post-election row between FDC politicians Nandala Mafabi and Alice Alaso, then FDC’s secretary general, had turned out to be a big threat to the cohesion of the party. 

Former party president Kizza Besigye and then deputy secretary general Augustine Ruzindana said the upheaval had its origin in the post-election “bad blood” between Mafabi and Alaso. The 23-page report said Besigye traced the split back to the selection of Mafabi as LoP. 

“He [Besigye] thinks that Alaso believed that she would naturally be Leader of Opposition since she was senior in Parliament. But the rules of choosing the Leader of Opposition were changed by NEC (national executive committee) when he [Besigye] was abroad,” said the report that was authored by a team led by human rights lawyer Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi.

“So he (Besigye) thinks that Alaso feels that she lost unfairly to Mafabi. He believes that this could be the cause of conflict between Alaso and Mafabi. This problem may have spilled into the November 2012 elections resulting in suspicion.”

There were cessation of hostilities, three years after Mafabi lost his FDC presidential bid. He replaced Alaso as FDC’s secretary general after trouncing Kassiano Wadri a with difference of 648 votes.

“I ask forgiveness from those I have wronged. I forgive those who have wronged me, let us put the past behind us and move forward,” Mafabi said after being elected secretary general.

Yet the lull in fighting didn’t last long as the 2017 FDC elections beckoned, with Mafabi choosing to support Patrick Oboi Amuriat, who had the support of Besigye, while Alaso supported Muntu.

Amuriat won, prompting Muntu, Alaso, Winifred Kiiza, and a number of their backers to break away, forming the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT). But Mafabi was unmoved. 

“FDC is not a prison; it is free exit and free entry. ANT would be better if it recruited from NRM,” Mafabi said adding, “Many people want FDC to die, but it won’t. We are still in the struggle. When you are making laws, you should do it blindly, but some people do it wanting to use it tomorrow.”

Waning powers
But the greatest sign of Mafabi’s waning powers came during the 2021 general election.
With the emergence of the National Unity Platform (NUP), which had morphed from the People Power Movement, FDC had it rough in Buganda sub-region. The calculation was that with Mafabi still influential, the party would get more MPs from Bugisu sub-region.

There were opportunities that FDC could take advantage of to make up for their shortcomings in Buganda. Because after the creation of Mbale City, two parliamentary slots were created and FDC, which had dominated the city’s politics with Jack Wamai Wamanga representing then Mbale Municipality, was expected to reap big.

Yet by 2021 Mafabi, who had played a critical role in the election of Wamanga in 2010, had fallen out with him.

In Wamanga’s last term, the two former allies exchanged bitter words over the de-gazetting of Mbale Forest. Wamanga accused Mafabi of grabbing the forest, an accusation the Budadiri West MP vehemently denied.

Not known for going down without a fight, Mafabi shot back, accusing Wamanga of absconding from parliamentary proceedings.

Wamanga’s final accusation against Mafabi was that he was engaging in what he termed as “petty fights instead of mobilising for the party in a bid to take over from Museveni‘s NRM.” 

In light of such fights, it didn’t come as a surprise that FDC lost all parliamentary positions in Mbale, including in Bungokho North which had been represented in the 10th Parliament by Gershom Sizomu.

Though FDC‘s Cassim Namugali won the inaugural Mbale City mayoral seat, the losses FDC suffered in Mbale, party members said, were indicative of Mafabi’s powers had waned.

Yet it wasn’t all gloom for the abrasive lawmaker, he not only retained his Budadiri West seat but also ensured that FDC won the Budadiri East MP slot. 

He also showed how powerful his mobilisation skills were when he ensured that Amuriat, who stood for the presidency, won in Budadiri.

Prior to the 2021 elections, FDC, due to the fact that Covid-19 had taken a foothold in the country, didn’t organise a general assembly to elect new leaders, but a recent roadmap outed by Mafabi has become another point of contention.

His opponents like Ssemujju are accused him of trying to rig them out through imposition of the so-called “blue book”.  

“They are denying FDC members’ cards and instead saying that those in the blue book, whose idea is Mafabi’s, would be in the ones to vote in FDC’s grassroots election,” an FDC member, who preferred anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the press, said. 

Nandala Mafabi, on his part, has dismissed these claims saying that the measures being deployed are to ensure that FDC’s electoral processes aren’t infiltrated.

Analysis victories 
Yet it wasn’t all gloom for the abrasive lawmaker, he not only retained his Budadiri West seat but also ensured that FDC won the Budadiri East MP slot. 

He also showed how powerful his mobilisation skills were when he ensured that Amuriat, who stood for the presidency, won in Budadiri.

Analysis...Rising star
Though issues of accoun-tability for funds are being raised, if you wind back to 2001, Mafabi’s star was rising and his niche was holding public officials accountable.

Mafabi’s grip on tax and financial issues made him stand out early on and earned him the position of chair of the significant Committee on the National Economy.