Friday November 3, 2023 is a day to remember for the opposition’s National Unity Platform (NUP) members following the official opening of their new party headquarters located at Makerere-Kavule in Kawempe Division, Kampala district.
The party president, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu has been joined by the former Forum Democratic Change (FDC) leader Dr Kizza Besigye and the Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago at the much anticipated function.
Kyagulanyi, wearing a navy blue suit and red tie, was also accompanied by his wife Barbie, their arrival received thunderous cheering by hundreds of their supporters.
The event happens exactly three years after Kyagulanyi was nominated to run for president in a race in which he eventually emerged second-best to incumbent President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM).
This function marks the relocation of NUP from its erstwhile headquarters in Kamwokya in Central division, with party secretary general David Rubongoya telling supporters that they had used the former office “free of charge” for four years.
Lubongoya added that the party leader Kyagulanyi “has allowed us to continue using that place for NUP, for People Power, and we have decided that in Kamwokya, we are going to establish the National Unity Platform School of Leadership.”
The Secretary General said further: “That is where we shall take our trainings so that comrade leaders can be educated in leadership and other aspects.”
He said their initial plan for a headquarters requires over sh4 billion, “which is a lot of money which we do not have right now, but we decided that we should be able to use what we have to create something beautiful out of it”.
At the time they unveiled the new location for their headquarters in 2022, “we only had two plots…..but from last year, we have been able to acquire four more plots in this very place.” One of the buildings houses the office of the party’s president.