Last Updated on: 13th November 2023, 12:44 pm
Kampala I Kawempe North MP, Muhammad Ssegirinya is bedridden for another time. Widely known as “Mr Update”, the National Unity Platform (NUP) member is having “a remarkable recovery” according to Parliament Speaker Annet Anita Among who visited him last week.
Years after being held in custody for criminal charges, on April 4, 2023, both Ssegirinya and Allan Ssewanyana (Makindye Division West, MP) made their first Parliamentary appearances. The two MPs were welcomed by the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thomas Tayebwa.
Since then, Mr Update has been on and off Parliament due to poor health conditions. In August 2023, he was flown to the Netherlands for specialized treatment and management. While there, he said Doctors told him “he has been poisoned”.
As of now, he has visibly lost weight and looks to be in pain. Known as a philanthropist and for his decision to build a modern hospital to serve the country, what Ssegirinya is going through at the moment is hurting some of his admirers.
“I have looked at Ssegirinya and I am short on what to say. Why would anyone destroy the voice of ordinary citizens? Ssegirinya is not a politician but a populist who won the loyalty of people under constant flooding, people from the gutters of Kawempe. Did he take the wrong path?” James William Mugeni, one of his admirers asserts.
In 2020, in his Oped, he (Mugeni) wrote: “If Ssegirinya Muhammed can offer an ambulance and triage system as an individual, I am confident we can do better than Ssegirinya with our numbers and training.”
“We like it or not, Ssegirinya Muhammad is our modern-day hero. I have personally sent him help through his rescue operations. You might write him off as a clown, you might write him off as a comedian, but Ssegirinya Muhammad has done rescue operations worth national and international attention,” he added.
Discussions on Ssegirinya’s health condition turn political.
On X, formerly Twitter, one Dr Walter Oriada posted, “Ugandan politics is a rostrum of witchcraft, selfishness and death. It will spare none, even those who claim to have it within them to manipulate it will eventually taste from the same plate that poisons..”
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The retired idiot posted, “We blame this on Idd Amin. Our gd government is doing what it can to save Hon Ssegirinya.”
Inno: “His only crime was having good intentions. That is a great taboo during the current administration.”