MP Muhammad Ssegirinya of Kawempe North and Allan Ssewanyana of Makindye West are reportedly not satisfied with the manner in which their National Unity Plataform (NUP) colleagues in Parliament have handled the matter of their continued detention.
Ssegirinya and Ssewanyana have remained on remand for many months since September 2021.
They face charges including murder, attempted murder and terrorism, related to a spate of killings in Greater Masaka Area.
Now, in a hand-written letter attributed the youthful legislators, Ssewanyana and Ssegirinya say that their NUP colleagues have forsaken them.
They complain that instead of piling pressure on the Museveni state to compel security agencies to release them, the main opposition party’s legislators have since moved on with their lives and forgotten them.
“It beats our understanding that since our arrests and subsequent continued incarceration, the National Unity Platform Members of Parliament made a protest once by walking outside parliament premises and moving a motion on the state of our arrest. This kind of solidarity and action have ceased with the more days we continue being under incarceration,” their letter reads in part.
“We are now less valued in the party and in your presence. There is no pressure mounted against the state by you honourable members from NUP party,” the two legislators say in the missive.”
Ssegirinya and Ssewanyana have also warned their NUP colleagues that they might soon find themselves in the same prisons when nobody is ready to fight for them.
“We may be the sacrifice today and then tomorrow someone else from the same party falls in the same trap, we want to confess to all of you once again that we didn’t commit any of these preferred charges,” they further wrote.
“We need your voices outside there for a remedy. We need mounted pressure for justice to prevail.”
But leader of opposition in parliament (Nyendo-Mukungwe – NUP) seemed to downplay the gravity of the allegations of betrayal and dismissed the letters as a propaganda tool.
“They have not raised any matter in regards the allegations that NUP has neglected them. It is the NUP party that has been sending lawyers to represent the two MPs. It is also the party that has championed fair treatment for the two legislators,” said Mpuuga after visiting the two legislators in Kigo Prison.
“It is being circulated by a certain group of people who want the public to believe that NUP leadership is not caring about the two MPs. We are following the right path of the law to see the charges are dropped by the state.”
After the visit, Mpuuga also said Ssegirinya and Ssewanyana had “expressed gratitude to the leadership of NUP for doing everything feasible under the circumstances to fight for their freedom.”
