Lulume Bayiga: The MP who wants Mao out

For Buikwe South MP, Dr Michael Lulume Bayiga, the battle lines within the country’s oldest political party, the Democratic Party (DP), have been drawn.

He told me that time has come to wrest DP from the current party president, Norbert Mao, who is also the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

Lulume added that the appointment of Mao as minister last year marked the end of his era at the country’s oldest political party.

So, as Mao celebrated one year since he signed a cooperation agreement with President Yoweri Museveni and the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), last week in Gulu, Lulume gathered a few DP MPs for prayers at Christ the King Catholic Church in Kampala.

“The media has programmed itself to continue recognising a person who crossed from DP to the NRM as DP President. So, we have to educate the media and the public that once somebody takes an oath as a Minister that person swears to serve the sitting Government and to keep the secrets of that Government and to advise the President of the ruling Party,” Lulume said.

“It cannot be that person to head an opposition political party. The two are incongruous. You can’t eat your cake and have it, it can’t be but the media was knocked into that fallacy. So, the political statement that we have made and it has become clear is that the DP didn’t cross with Mao. Mao went with his shoes and suits together with other gullible individuals who needed jobs in the NRM,” he added.

Yet, according to Mao, signing a cooperation agreement, does not mean that someone has crossed. It means, he added, that there is a cooperation on certain agreed on matters.

However, Lulume said, this week, that battle lines have been drawn.

“I am not a party leader but I am a member of the party, and I detest what he did. It doesn’t, really, make sense,” he said.

“We want him to resign as DP president. We also want to sensitise him so that he can realise the plight and quagmire he has pushed us in,” he added.

For DP, he said, the matter has reached boiling point. Not even peace talks, he added, can cure the impasse.

However, some DP MPs, such as Tochi County lawmaker, Peter Okot, who is also the DP chief whip, one can’t completely rule out dialogue.

“We as MPs of the caucus, sat and made a proposal that we should meet the party president, and engage him on a number of things. We have already informed him, and he’s just waiting to hear from our side. Once we are ready, he’s ready to meet us,” Okot said.  

So, who is Lulume, the MP who is taking on Mao?

A Makerere University trained medical doctor, in 2015 when Lulume attempted to democratically wrest power from Mao, he was defeated.

From that time, the two have cut a political demeanor akin to co-wives living in a single-room household.

Mao and Lulume political differences were so deep to an extent that they could only be managed by the late DP strongman, Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere.

So, with the death of Ssemogerere, a politician that both Lulume and Mao held in high regard, it seems, analysts said, DP is left with no one to mediate between these two politicians.

However, what is clear is the fact that the 53-year-old Buikwe South MP, has given Mao a political ultimatum to leave DP.

Yet for Mao, the change of guards within DP is a prerogative of the delegates’ conference, and not a mere pronouncement by an MP.