When people power mouthpiece Joel Ssenyonyi led lethal media combatant Andrew Mwenda through the Kamwokya gates the other week, many must have wondered what the former NTV scribe was thinking.
Many went ahead to even prophesy the end of young National Unity Platform-NUP party and castigated the youthful budding politician for being politically too naive to fall into Mwenda’s unscrupulous trap blindly.
Our intelligence has however gathered the circumstances that accrued pre and post Mwenda visit to Kamwokya which will strongly send any reader in awe of Ssenyonyi’s impeccable intelligence!
According to a source closer to the epitome of power at the NUP Secretariat , Ssenyonyi already had a plan by the time he arrived with his visitor straight from the talk show where Mwenda had popped up with the challenge for a visit.
Although the source contends that Ssenyonyi was ambushed at first, he started hatching the plan as soon as they set off for Kamwokya and by the time they arrived, he knew precisely what to do.
“That young man is smarter than many think. Don’t think he brought in Mwenda without a plan. Everyone of us was angry with him but when he sat down to explain his plan, we are all shocked. He is a genius! ” Explained a very powerful NUP official who preferred anonymity.
“By the time he was coming in with Mwenda who thinks he is very smart, Joel had already messaged the occupants at the premises not to harass whoever he was coming with lest he gets an excuse to demonize us the more, ” he continued.
At the back of his mind, Ssenyonyi clearly knew Mwenda was plotting something sinister. Whatever it was, all he was bent on is to milk something for NUP out of the situation.
For Ssenyonyi who couldn’t afford time to brief his mates at the Secretariat, all he needed from his pals was patience and trust.
Although he had all planned on how things were going to progress, Ssenyonyi didn’t foresee Mwenda asking to participate in the race for the party Presidency.
Ambushed with no prior preparation, Ssenyonyi seemed lost for a while as his other technocrats pleaded with Mwenda to give them time to come up with a decision on the matter. Mwenda strongly protested the call insisting he was already a member of the party and seeking it’s leadership was his right.
” That man is not easy. The way he was shouting and threatening all those people you could think the roof tops would blow off, ” narrated our source.
To the surprise of all those present, Ssenyonyi, who had all along been as silent as a tombstone asked Executive Secretary Lewis Lubongoya to go ahead and hand the nomination forms to Mwenda who was by now fiercely threatening them.
All the members stared in shock! They firstly knew there was no way they would allow anybody challenge “the President” as Bobi Wine is famously reffered to at Kamwokya.
Secondly, there were no such forms for the Presidential candidates since the official position was that Bobi Wine wouldn’t be challenged for the Presidency. So what was Ssenyonyi trying to mean!
Seeing the serious look at Ssenyonyi’s face, Lubongoya knew he had a plan and then gave the available forms to Mwenda after a signal from his spokesperson.
In excitement, Mwenda posed with the wrong forms for a photo and immediately announced to the media he would be standing for the Presidency, both for the party and the country.
It’s funny to mention that up until early today, Mwenda had not yet found out that the forms he had kept in the house since last week were actually not the ones he wanted.
He only realised it after it was mentioned at the weekly pressure where Mr Ssenyonyi asked him to come for the right forms so as to allow him take part in the contest.
After Mwenda had left, a crisis meeting was instantly convinced to discuss the matter extensively with members cursing and swearing at Ssenyonyi for what looked like real betrayal.
In response, he said he knew it all but since there was no way out for him after being ambushed on a national TV all he had to do was to bulge or else the party would suffer an eternal embarrassment.
Besides, the negative publicity of branding Kamwokya “a den of violent drug addicts” was much pain to him and this was an opportunity to shame all those that spread it.
And now that Mwenda was among them, he took them through how best they would use him to NUP’s advantage without making him realise it.
Details of Ssenyonyi’s excellent plan to milk Mwenda into State House will follow in part two tomorrow…
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