We have received several inquiries and complaints about a press release that is circulating on the Internet and announcing that the mother of Buganda, Nnabagereka Sylvia Nnagginda, will be the key note speaker at the 2010 UNAA convention in Washington DC, USA. The press release came from the email of Moses Wilson the president of UNAA.
To honor the Nnabagereka institution, Buganda Post shall not publish any of the very strong opinions that Baganda may express about Mr. Wilson’s press release. However, we can report that some Baganda in USA are extremely concerned that, after failing to compromise Kabaka Mutebi, the NRM is using the UNAA to set up his wife for a major embarrassment. The NRM is the UNAA’s biggest funder and Perez Kamunanirwe, NRM’s ambassador in the USA and Kabaka’s representatives in the USA engineered the deal for UNAA.
If Nnabagereka Sylvia Nnagginda goes to the UNAA convention in Washington DC, she could land in the middle of the increasingly controversial politics of Uganda American community, which is fast breaking apart. During the 2009 UNAA convention in Chicago, there was strong evidence of NRM style vote manipulation. Besides vote theft, the NRM government flew over 300 operatives to the USA to vote for Moses Wilson. Besides the election problems at UNAA Chicago, Baganda made Mrs. Museveni extremely and visibly angry when they told her that her she and her husband were the most corrupt presidential family they had ever seen.
Wilson’s win split the UNAA organization into camps of Frank Musisi and Flex Kabuye supporters. Later, new organizations to compete with UNAA were created, including UADA and UDII. Many other Baganda simply woke up and totally abandoned UNAA/NRM style politics and joined the movement to liberate Buganda (“Buli mbuzi ku nkondo yaayo”). Recently UADA announced that they would hold their own convention in Boston on the same dates as UNAA. And most Baganda fed up with UNAA/NRM are expected to go Ttabamiruka ’10 because it focuses on Buganda issues.
Mr. Moses Wilson’s press release is reproduced below (photos were removed):
— On Fri, 4/16/10, WILTEC10@aol.com <WILTEC10@aol.com> wrote:
From: WILTEC10@aol.com WILTEC10@aol.com
Subject: [UNAANET] PRESS RELEASE – Nnabagereka to give Key Note Speech at UNAA Convention
To: unaanet@yahoogroups.com, ucoca@yahoogroups.com, ugacali@yahoogroups.com, ugandan_community@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, April 16, 2010, 5:55 PM
PRESS RELEASE
HRH Sylvia Nagginda, Nnabagereka of Buganda, to give Key Note Speech at
2010 UNAA Convention in Washington, DC
The Ugandan North American Association (UNAA) is pleased to announce that the Key Note Speaker at its upcoming 22nd Annual Convention in Washington DC will be Her Royal Highness Sylvia Nagginda, Nnabagereka of Buganda.
The Nnabagereka is the Patron of the Uganda Cancer Research Foundation and will be leading a delegation from this organization that will host a forum on its work at the UNAA Convention on Saturday September 4th, 2010.
HRH Sylvia Nagginda, The Nnabagereka of Buganda
The restoration of the Kabakaship in 1993 heralded the genesis of a new Buganda. It gave the Baganda a new sense of purpose and a vision towards a common future. The Nnabagereka (Her Royal Highness, the Queen), who is the wife of the Kabaka (King of Buganda), is considered the mother of the Kingdom and a symbol of unity for the Baganda.
There is a new and significant role HRH Sylvia Nagginda, as the wife of the Kabaka, has to play in the Kingdom. Since there had never been an office of the Nnabagereka, its inception in September 1999 was a new and very crucial phenomenon. The Nnabagereka has a mission to lead a meaningful resuscitation of human, family and traditional values and sustained improvement in the social and economic welfare of the people. As a “mother” of the Baganda, the Nnabagereka spearheads the task of encouraging, sensitizing and mobilizing the general population.
HRH Sylvia Nagginda belongs to the Musu clan (Wild Rat) and comes from the Sebugwawo family in Nkumba-Entebbe. She was born in the United Kingdom and studied in both Uganda and the United States of America where she lived for more than 18 years before returning to Uganda to become wife to the Kabaka in 1999
HRH Sylvia Nagginda is the first Nnabagereka (Queen) in the history of the Buganda Kingdom to set up a fully-fledged Office, a very crucial phenomenon that has greatly complimented the ongoing development work in the Kingdom and Uganda at large. Her main focus areas are early childhood care and development; education for the girl child; vocational training and employment for the youth; empowerment of women, health issues particularly regarding the prevention and cure of childhood diseases, nutrition, and sexual reproductive health including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. Touched by the expanding impact of cancer on the people in Uganda, especially among children and women, HRH is shining new light on the fight against this disease.
A pillar of development, Her Royal Highness established the Nnabagereka Development Foundation (NDF) in 2000. The Foundation is a charitable Non-Governmental Organization whose mission is to restore the vitality of Buganda and Uganda at large by marshaling community and household human resources for social and economic development. The Nnabagereka is a Patron of several organizations including the Christian Children’s Fund (CCF) Uganda, Special Olympics Uganda, Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), and the Uganda Cancer Research Foundation (UCRF), for which she is also a Founder Member and Patron. She is also a Good Will Ambassador for the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).
Held in high esteem and commanding a lot of respect among Ugandans, the Nnabagereka has worked passionately to fulfill her vision of uplifting the people’s standards of living. She has played a major role in sensitizing and mobilizing the general population on issues of education, health, poverty eradication, culture preservation, and has graciously supported and empowered marginalized groups as the youth, women and persons with disabilities.
More information at www.nabagereka.org
Please visit the UCRF website at www.ucrfcares.org
Register today for the UNAA DC 2010 convention at www.unaa.org
