By KT Reporter
FDC president Patrick Amuriat Oboi also known as POA was recently forced to flee FDC headquarters at Najjanankumbi after members became angry and bombarded him with accountability questions.
Some stakeholders were asking why he gets 30% of the party’s expenditure budget yet he doesn’t do any mobilisation activity. All he does is to attend burials in Kumi where he is campaigning for the MP seat.
Others were asking why evaluation meetings Mawokota MP and deputy president Yusuf Nsibambi was facilitated to conduct across the country to find out why FDC candidates were rejected and did so poorly in 2021 weren’t conducted yet money was released. Some are broke members coming to him asking for something or to be helped to meet M7 at state house.
Other members have never stopped asking for explanation about the dirty money that is supposed to have come from state house. There are also questions as to why POA a whole party president is being greedy and wants to become an MP unlike his past party leaders like Besigye and Muntu who were comfortable leading just FDC. 
Some concerned elders would visit Najjanankumbi and task POA to explain why former close allies of his like Wafula Ogutu and Salaam Musumba, who are fellow easterners, fell out with him if its indeed true that Besigye and others hated him because he is from the east. All these questions proved too hard for POA to keep answering.
Some members were demanding to know why he sidelined real fighters like Saul Matte, Lukwago and Semujju and brought in Muntu traitors like Centernary of Kasese. He was also being questioned about absence of political activities in the field and also about his failure to be a charismatic leader.
A stressed POA was also asked about why FDC headquarters was being closed all the time instead of allowing members free access to their party offices as was the case under Besigye and Muntu. He was also being asked to explain why many big people had left FDC since he took charge. He wasn’t able to give satisfactory answers.
He resorted to absenting himself from the headquarters while leaving deputy secretary general Paga Gloria and the CAO to steer the ship.
“He left everything to Margaret Wokuri who is also not very experienced because she has just become deputy president for eastern region. He rarely comes to chair NEC or management committee meetings. He doesn’t take phone calls and many times meetings have to be callled off because even Wokuri sometimes fails to make it to Najjanankumbi,” says a source adding that even POA’s boss Nandala Mafabi isn’t easy to get because he doesn’t take phone calls.
“The secretary general is even harder to get because he fears phone calls because he thinks people are calling to beg him for money.”
Sources further say that POA and Nandala also got demoralised when Nsibambi who they had trusted a lot failed to have impact and market FDC on Kampala radio stations. “Even as whip in parliament, they thought he would excel and be vibrant but he failed miserably. They realised the man isn’t connected in Buganda as they thought and has also been too timid to make a good whip in parliament,’ says a source.
Sources add that POA made it clear early enough that he wasn’t prepared to be a presidential candidate again because its not easy to cover the whole country.
He added he was fearful that following their fallout with Kizza Besigye, things were going to be even harder moving around the population trying to market a post-Besigye FDC. He made it clear that the party should concentrate on other races and leave the presidency.
He made it clear FDC’s appeal had declined and was vindicated when EC boss Toterebuka Bamwenda called for interested FDC 2026 flag bearers to express interest and less than 200 responded in the whole country for all those months. POA’s conclusion was that Ugandans aren’t prepared to buy FDC in 2026 compared to all past elections.
A group led by Mzee Jack Sabiiti opposed this and they argued it would be shameful for FDC not to field a presidential candidate. Sabiiti pleaded with POA to stand again and he assured him he wouldn’t. Then Sabiiti turned to his ‘son’ Nandala Mafabi and pleaded with him to stand over similar reasons.
Sabiiti says its better for the FDC presidential candidate to be the last one than not having a candidate at all. He has threatened to quit and denounce FDC as its national chairman should they fail to produce a presidential candidate.
Nandala is reluctant and keeps saying he prefers to stay on as Budadiri west MP but he is planning to stand for president fearing to lose Jack Sabiiti the national chairman for Najjanankumbi. Sources say standing for president is going to expose the fact that Nandala Mafabi isn’t the most popular politician with all Bugisu votes as it has always been thought.
“He will end up not winning even his own Sironko district and that will be the end of him because it will show that he doesn’t command Bugisu,” says a concerned insider at Najjanankumbi.
Another source talked about the disorganisation that the POA camp faced in Kawempe campaigns where the candidate was singer Kalifa Aganaga. There was no meeting called to select him. Even Robert Kavuma, a butcher who is the FDC Najjanankumbi chairman for Kawempe north, wasn’t involved.
He doesn’t know how Kalifa was selected and he was totally excluded. When it came to money, a lot of it was released through Wilberforce Kyambadde who refused to invest it in Kalifa’s campaigns. This also angered and humiliated POA. In the end Kalifa got less than 1000 votes.
Nsibambi didn’t step there and there are fears he will be abandoning Najjanankumbi to go and plead with Kyagulanyi for support.
Already Nandala and POA see him as a traitor who doesn’t want to be seen anywhere near to them because its election time and the disredited Najjanankumbi doesn’t sell well in Mawokota and other parts of Buganda.
POA is said to be unhappy to see Nsibambi failing to hold together the FDC caucus in parliament to the extent that many MPs have left to go and work with Museveni directly.
POA is also scared that once Katonga’s PFF party gets cleared and registered by the EC the few remaining elected leaders in FDC with national positions will defect to go to Katonga to once again work with Semujju Nganda, Erias Lukwago, Kizza Besigye and others. This will leave Najjanankumbi as a shell and shadow of its former self. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
