Who was MP Muhammad Ssegirinya, the poor guy with a golden dramatic heart

He was born in 1988 in Butale, Kadugala, Masaka District, Uganda. In a family of Catholics together with four other siblings as the firstborn. While at NTV’s ‘Tuwaye’ show, Ssegirinya narrated his childhood as one that was full of poverty which even forced him to sell sugarcane from his peasant father who he described as a feeble peasant man. ^{At birth, he was named Richard Ssegirinya but later adopted the name Muhammad after switching religion from Roman Catholicism to Islam. In contrast, on a local TV show ‘omuntu wabantu’ Ssegirinya said that he studied his primary at Kadugala P/S and scored 13 Aggregates. He also attended Kaddugala Secondary School and Pimba Secondary School in Kyebando for secondary school education. According to official documents that Ssegirinya used to contest for the parliamentary seat for Kawempe North, he holds a certificate in Urban food experience from the Netherlands based on that Ugandan newspaper The observer in a story that discussed the education levels of Uganda’s Members of Parliament reported that he is one of the least educated members of the August house since that certificate is an equivalent to a Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education which is the bare minimum qualification for the role.}

Muhammad Ssegirinya started getting known among Ugandans when he started making regular calls on Kampala-based radio talk shows referring to himself as ‘ssegirinya eddoboozi lye kyebando.‘ ^{He later transformed into a social media sensation under the name ‘Mr. Update‘. He served as the lord councilor for Kampala Capital City representing the people of Kawempe North from 2016 to 2021. He later triumphed in the quest to become the area MP after defeating 9 other contestants including then-incumbent Abdulatif Ssebagala Ssengendo and former Deputy Lord Mayor Sulaiman Kidandala.}

In 2011 Ssegirinya contested for the Kawempe North parliamentary seat but lost the vote. He contested in the 2016 Forum for Democratic Change party primaries for Kawempe north parliamentary seat, but he lost. He contested for a position of councilor representing Kawempe North at city hall in Kampala the seat of Kampala Capital City Authority and won the election.

In 2021, Ssegirinya contested for the Kawempe north constituency on the National Unity Platform (NUP) political party ticket, he won. ^{His victory was challenged in court by one of his contenders(Sulaiman Kidandala) but the case was dismissed and court declared him winner.}

Source: wikipedia.org

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