Dr Keddi Eric Stephen Zuluba speaking to the press
By Luzinda Peter
City billionaire and philanthropist Dr Keddi Eric Stephen Zuluba, a former Presidential aspirant and hopeful, has joined the list of frustrated Ugandans who have faulted the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for locking them out of the just concluded Presidential nominations, citing fraud in the scheme and vowing to sue the election body and its chief, Justice Simon Byabakama, over the same.
Dr Keddi who is the party president for the recently formulated Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) party was speaking to the Media in a Press briefing held outside the Electoral Commission (EC) offices in Kampala yesterday, shortly after the closure of the presidential nominations for candidates intending to stand for President in the next year’s general elections.
According to Keddi, the EC acted fraudulently by closing them out of the race deliberately faulting them for failure to raise the required 98% equivalent signatures from the various districts in Uganda whilst not. He said by the peak of Monday evening they had already raised 93% of the district required signatures, and were only left wth 5 more districts as per the EC requirements.
He said as of yesterday (Tuesday) morning, they had also managed to raise another 24 more district signatures even by-passing the EC required Number and also carried the signatories to the EC offices in person hence fulfilling all the EC requirements all through to the the period of closure of nominations.
“We are deeply frustrated by the move by the Electoral commission for deliberately locking us out of the Presidential race due to lack of signatures yet we fulfilled all their requirements in time,Dr Keddi cried out to members of the Press and public.
“This whole process was flawed and up to now we are still wondering what sort of excuse the Electoral Boss Simon Byabakama is going to come up with to have our party Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM) not represented in the race.This is not only a loss for us as UPM but also a total loss for Ugandans who believe in Democracy and who were waiting for their next President in the form of Dr Keddi Steven Eric Zuluba”, Keddi noted boldly.
Asked what he’s next chapter would be, and he said they were contemplating suing the commission separately. However, he said, “Together with all the other affected parties, they would seek a way forward.”
“We are going to engage our lawyers on this very crucial matter and chapter in our political party direction,we are going to take on them with the full force of the law and trust me it will be a roller coaster ride”,the phylanthropist vowed.
Who is Dr Keddi Steven Eric Zuluba?
Dr Keddi Steven Eric Zuluba is a billionaire phylanthropist, the founder of Keddi Foundation, a local Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) dedicated to helping humanity and the less privileged society members.
The organisation which he founded in 2019 has been hugely engaged in various humanitarian projects and causes across the country among which include providing support to bududa landslide victims,sponsoring heart related transplants,aid to schools inform of building classroom blocks for rural schools affected by heavy rains,roofing and providing scholastic materials to pupils,and many forms of humanitarian aid since it’s inception.
Dr Keddi was also a parliamentary aspirant in the previous elections where he stood for MP and lost in the Butebo District Constitutuency.
He is also a big businessman with interests in gold and cargo transportation, freight handling, and also man of God/pastor.
