MP Muhammad Ssegirinya dies

Kawempe North MP, Muhammad Ssegirinya is dead, family sources have confirmed.

Mr Ssegirinya who has been in and out of hospitals since his release from prison died this morning at Rubaga Hospital, Kampala where he had been admitted.
He was aged 37.
Mr Ssegirinya was elected to the 11th Parliament in the 2021 general election on the National Unity Platform (NUP) led by former presidential contender, Robert Kyagulanyi.

"We were called this morning by his mother that he passed on. He has been in ICU for days. It is very unfortunate that he has lost his life after such a long struggle. He has been a fighter. He has been one of those who speak the truth. We shall communicate to the country officially," NUP Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya old our sister station, NTV.

In 2006, Mr Ssegirinya started calling into live radio political talk shows. Then a Senior Three student at Pimba Secondary in Kyebando, Kawempe North constituency, Ssegirinya would refer to himself as “eddoboozi lye Kyebando” or the voice of Kyebando. Later, when his ambitions grew, he would sign in and sign off as “MP to be, Kawempe North.”

In truth, few people took Ssegirinya seriously for the most part because he struggled to articulate himself in English. Yet after beating Suleiman Kidandala to the NUP flag in the primary for Kawempe North race, during the 2021 General Election, he would go on to poll 41,197 votes against the latter’s 7,512 votes. Kidandala had, contrary to NUP’s counsel, chosen to stand as an independent.

Yet barely months after his dominant win at the ballot, Ssegirinya and Allan Ssewanyana, a fellow NUP member and lawmaker for Makindye West, were arrested after being connected to the machete killings in greater Masaka districts. The two were granted bail on September 21, 2021 only to be rearrested shortly after at the outskirts of Kigo prison. Fresh murder charges were preferred against them, stemming from the Lwengo District machete killings where more than 20 people were killed.