How Shs150,000 Made Bobi Wine Sister Lose Election Petition

National Unity Platform (NUP) President Robert Kyagulanyi’s sister Betty Ssentamu has sworn she will not rest until she has ejected Gomba District Woman MP Sylivia Nayebale of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) from Parliament even after the opposition politician lost an election petition she had filed.

Ssentamu challenged NRM’s Nayebale’s election victory in the January 14 election which she lost by a margin of thousands of votes, claiming that several acts of electoral malpractice had rendered the poll not free and fair.

According to results released by Justice Simon Mugenyi’s Electoral Commission (EC), Nayebale won the Gomba District Woman parliamentary poll after garnering 30,253 votes against Ssentamu’s 22,657 votes and Nakato Kyabangi’s 1,716 votes.

Ssentamu was not the only member of her family that lost in 2021 elections: her brother Kayagulanyi aka Bobi Wine lost the presidential election to Museveni while her other brother Fred Nyanzi lost to independent candidate Muhammad Nsereko in the Kampala Central Parliamentary race. Bobi Wine withdrew his petition from the Supreme Court while the ruling in Nyanzi vs Nsereko case is expected soon.

Mpigi High Court judge Anthony Wabwire dismissed Ssentamu’s petition against Nayebale on a technicality.

Justice Wabwire agreed with lawyers representing NRM’s Nayebale that Bobi Wine’s sister Ssentamu had failed to pay Shs150,000 in court fees.

Wabwire ruled that available court records indicate that the NUP parliamentary candidate deposited Shs100,000 only, and that since Ssentamu had  “failed to meet the financial demands of the court as required” and because “the petitioner did not also present satisfactory witnesses before court,” her petition would not stand.

Justice Wabwire further directed that all parties in the case should meet their own costs.

But Bobi Wine’s sister swore she cleared the required Shs250,000 in court fees.

“I paid all the money including the security fees of Shs100,000 and the Shs150, 000 as petition fees. Everything has been changed,” she claimed, before announcing that she would appeal Wabwire’s ruling in the Court of Appeal.