Alhaj Nasser Ntege Sebaggala, the former Kampala city Mayor, popularly known as ‘Seeya’ is dead.
He was 73 years old.
The death has been confirmed in a tweet by his son, Yusuf Sebaggala Bakuuba.
“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un we belong to Allah, and truly to Him shall we return! My beloved father Alhaji Nasser Ntege, has passed! Let’s all pray for him!” the junior Sebaggala tweeted from a twitter account we understand belonged to his now-deceased father.
We also understand the businessman and politician has been admitted at IHK International Hospital in Kampala.
1947-2020: Sebaggala the man, politician, and businessman
Sebaggala, who was twice the Mayor of Kampala and an independent presidential candidate in the 2006 general election before dropping out, was born in Kampala, on 15 November 1947.
Sebaggala who had been a thriving businessman, first came into bigtime limelight in 1998, when he ran for the position of Mayor of Kampala under the Democratic Party, a race he won, beating two government-leaning candidates. Two months later, he would be arrested in the United States, in June 1998, on eight counts of fraud and lying to U.S. customs officials. In February 1999, he was sentenced to 15 months in jail but was paroled in December 1999 and returned to Kampala in February 2000.
He would later stand for president in the 2001 elections but dropped out.
He was the first directly elected mayor of Kampala and the first one to lose office as Kampala mayor because of a court conviction. He was replaced by his deputy Sarah Nkonge who served as acting mayor until June 1999 when His worship Sebaana Kizito (RIP) was elected as the second directly elected Mayor of Kampala.
In mid-December 2005, he broke with the Democratic Party (DP), after he came third in the party presidential primaries, which was won by Ssebaana Kizito, and registered himself as an independent. A week later, he reversed himself, withdrew his candidacy, and announced his support for Kizito.
He instead stood for Mayorship and got elected for a 5-year term- 2006-2011. In 2010 when he lost the Democratic Party nominations for Presidential candidate to Norbert Mao he quit the DP and formed his own party- Liberal Democratic Party.
However, there is nothing much to be written about the new party as he would later be seen hobnobbing with the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
In 2011 he was designated by President Yoweri Museveni as the Minister without Portfolio in the President’s Office, but his appointment was unanimously rejected by the Parliament Appointments Committee on grounds of past criminal record and wanting academic qualifications.
He would later be appointed a Presidential Advisor but politically went into oblivion.
He recently resurfaced and picked nominations forms for the post of Kampala Mayor. He also registered himself as a member of the National Unity Platform (NUP), a political party headed by Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi.
May his soul rest in eternal peace.