NUP’s Kibalama breaks silence on ‘founders’ who petitioned EC to throw Bobi Wine from party leadership

Moses Nkonge Kibalama, the founder and former president of the National Unity, Reconciliation and Development Party (NURDP), has spoken out on ‘founders’ who recently petitioned the Electoral Commission (EC) to throw out Bobi Wine as president of the political organisation.

In July 2020, Kibalama announced that his NURDP had re-branded and morphed into NUP and that he had ceded the party’s leadership to Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine.

But days ago, people claiming to be NURDP founders petitioned the EC seeking for the nullification of the party’s name change process and the appointment of Bobi Wine as president and 2021 flag bearer.

The petitioners are Lillian Odinga and Edward Seremba. Through their lawyer James Byamukama, the group says the change of the party’s name, color and symbol was illegal and contravened its constitution and national laws.

In their petition to the EC chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama, the ‘founders’ further claim that Bobi Wine got the party’s nomination as presidential candidate in 2017, years before the nomination process even started.

This, they argue, was illegal, and contrary to NURDP’s constitution and the laws of the land.

They also punched holes in the July 14 delegates conference that “rubber stamped” Bobi Wine’s appointment as party president, saying only 51 of the 400 delegates were in attendance.

According to their lawyer, the founders say they want “restore control of the party to its rightful founders and members.”

However, Kibalama has denied knowledge of these ‘co-founders,’ saying their names “do not appear anywhere on the register of the party.”

“We don’t know if they actually exist but if they ever came up, we will sue them for impersonation; we will certainly go for them,” Kibalama threatened.

He is also convinced that the disputes surrounding the NUP color and founders claims are all meant at ‘persecuting’ Bobi Wine, emphasizing that they had followed all the rules.

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