One political analyst joked that the chaotic council meeting at City Hall yesterday should have been held inside a boxing ring at Lugogo Indoor Stadium.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!There were ugly scenes of councillors throwing punches at themselves after they disagreed on how to proceed regarding the Kiteezi landfill saga which left more than 30 people dead. Security intervened to cool the tempers.
The disagreement put into sharp focus the power struggle between councillors that belong to the National Unity Platform (NUP) and those that hail from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC).
NUP has 41 out of the 44 elective seats at City Hall while FDC has only three. So on the basis of numerical strength, there is no contest.
Yet two of the highest ranking members of the council, Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and his deputy, Doreen Nyanjura belong to FDC. This means they will try to have control or influence the decisions made by the council.
Some NUP councillors accused Lukwago and Nyanjura of shepherding them like sheep.
“They think we are little children. They think we have no personal opinions,” said James Mubiru, a NUP councillor from Rubaga.
He accused the duo of trying to frustrate the council from doing its work.
“Why don’t they want us to debate the report on Kiteezi? We hear they take these matters to the IGG and to COSASE but they dont want them tabled here,” Mubiru said.
But Nyanjura shot back that some NUP councillors want to be treated like small gods, soemthing they will not yeild to.
“Some councillors at City Hall want to be worshipped simply because they belong to a political party with majority councillors! How did we get here?” she wrote on X.
We have been told that the executive team led by Lukwago enjoys a warm work relationship with Dorothy Kisaka, the executive director at KCCA.
This is a departure from the past when the team openly conflicted with technocrats especially Jenniffer Musisi over the direction of KCCA.
There are claims that because of this, the executive team sometimes shields the technocrats from scrutiny like it happened yesterday.
The councillors wanted the report tabled but the executive members like Nyanjura urged for more time. When the two sides could not reach an agreement, a fist fight broke out.
2026 on the horizon
The next elections are slightly over a year away and already some councillor have set their sights on re-election.
By 2026, there could be another big political force in Kampala besides NUP. Lukwago and Nyanjura are one of the promoters of a new political party whose formal registration kicked off.
Going forward, this dymanic could shape the nature of the relationship between the executive team and some NUP councillors who may not be assured of the party ticket.