Is Ssegirinya that easy to forget?

The rise and rise of Kawempe North Member of Parliament Mohammed has been mostly for his comic albeit worthy exploits for the big opposition parties.

He started his trade, footing with a herbal-medicine-like speaker, announcing his different engagements against the tired government practices and policies, and he baptized himself the “voice of Kyebando” a suburb from where he cultivated his political ambitions.

Known to the public as Mr. Updates, Ssegirinya studied journalism and has been able to combine both his raw journalism skills and his ability to provide comic relief and turned them into a political tool, strong enough to propel him to the parliament of Uganda.

Indeed, he was massively voted, beating the elites in Latif Ssebagala whose ping-ponging between positions did a lot to cement his defeat, as well as Suleiman Kidandala whose position at the helm of newly birthed National Unity Platform (NUP) could not secure him the flag.

Mr. Updates, was already on the ground running (literally) and he spent no minute campaigning in his constituency, rather he chose to trail Bobi Wine from one end of the country to another, insisting that the votes of Bobi Wine were quite enough to satisfy his own political ego.

Ironically, once the polls came to his constituency, Ssegirinya swept it clean, and he was a member of parliament by midday.

The legislator would then take a short stint reportedly to acquire further medical treatment abroad, while we were later told that was his master plan to evade being served summonses to court for a petition filed against his victory in the elections.

True to the plan if one could say, Ssegirinya emerged victorious in court after the decision was reached that he was not served.

He now embarked on what he called serving the people, many times seen posing with highly valued expensive hospital equipment, and declaring he was putting together a structure at the level of a health centre III for his people in Kawempe, there has not been enough proof to this date regarding this project.

However, Ssegirinya was later arrested in connection with the panga attacks in Masaka and was locked in jail at the beginning of September and that was it. He is yet to see what his constituency looks like.

He has since been in and out of cars outside the prison, being switched from one into another like a passenger plying a distant route in an uncertain commuter taxi.

While in the beginning, members of the opposition tried to put up a resistance regarding what they regarded as “unfair’ treatment towards him, Ssegirinya has since been left to himself and of course, his lawyer and fellow legislator Shamim Malende who was only recently bragging about her pro-bono CV.

On September 29, 2021, a section of Opposition Members of Parliament agreed on a move to abandon plenary in protest against Ssegirinya’s and (Allan) Ssewanyana’s arrest.

The walk out was further infuriated by the comments made by Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka who said the MPs would be in and out of jail “as many times as the offences they commit.”

Indeed, it has been four months now, the two legislators have been incarcerated, and well (for) Ssegirinya granted bail on one account but later locked in for other cases.

It has been quite a journey that started with deafening shouts of “Free Ssegirinya” to energised visits at the prisons and later to trickling visits by different political players, and then there was none, but Ssegirinya and his mother.

For a man who gave too much hype to the opposition, who walked the soles off for the opposition, a pure comic, but ideologically aligned to the opposition, could we have forgotten Ssegirinya so easily?