Justice Musa Ssekaana of the Civil Division of the High Court will today, October 5, 2023, hear an application seeking to block the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) national delegates conference.

The application was filed by 28 aggrieved Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) members including MPs seeking to stop the party’s chief electoral commissioner, Boniface Bamwenda Toterebuka from convening the conference and conducting elections of the party’s National Executive Committee.

The petitioners include the party’s national chairperson Ambassador Wasswa Birigwa, Kiira Municipality MP Ibrahim Nganda Ssemujju, Buhweju County MP Francis Mwijukye, Rubabo County MP Naboth Namanya, Bukonzo County East MP Harold Muhindo and Hoima district Woman MP Asinansi Nyakato.

Others are FDC vice-president for the eastern region Salaamu Musumba, Gulu Woman MP Betty Aol Ocan, Kitgum Municipality MP Denis Amere Onekalit, former Nakawa Municipality MP Michael Kabaziguruka, Kasese district woman MP Florence Kabugho, Dr. Dominic Wakabi, Amos Rubarema, and Susan Nanyonjo.

The group contends that the delegates conference slated for, (Friday) October 6, 2023, will whittle down or completely obliterate the role and authority of the Office of the Chairperson and NEC, thereby plunging the party into anarchy, disorder and chaos, to their detriment.   

“Unless the respondent is restrained by injunctive orders of court, he is hell bent to proceed with his nefarious actions which will inevitably lead to the disintegration and demise of the party, thereby causing irreparable damage or injury to the applicants,” Birigwa asserts in his affidavit.

The suit comes at a time when a faction led by the founding party president Kizza Besigye, Ssemujju and Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, held a delegates conference organised by Birigwa on September 19.

The conference, during which they announced Lukwago as the interim FDC president for six months, was organised despite a court order, stopping the same.   

FDC split

The FDC is split into two factions, with one faction led by Patrick Amuriat and Nandala Mafabi on one side, and another led by Besigye, Ssemujju and Lukwago.

Birigwa is believed to have sided with the group led by Besigye, which accuses the Mafabi-Amuriat faction of receiving what they call “dirty state money”. The dirty money is alleged to have been used by the party in the 2021 general election.

The two factions have been trading accusations as they now battle for supremacy in FDC, which will be 20 years old in December next year.