Voters of Mawogola North have vowed never to forgive Godfrey Aine Kaguta alias Sodo for what they termed as “selling their support” to his rival Shartsi Musherure Kutesa.
The furious voters have been baying for Sodo’s blood who until now has never physically appeared before them to explain circumstances that forced him to quit the race hours to voting.
Sodo, for fear to be ripped apart by his supporters and bombarded with calls switched off his known phone. Until today, his known phone number remains unavailable.
Mawogola constituents accuse him of betrayal and using them for his personal commercial gain.
“We heard that he was promised shs 4bn and he was paid 2 billion in cash,” said a voter who angrily spoke to this website on Monday.
This voter who said he had injected in Sodo’s campaign his own resources however decried betrayal.
“How could he sell us?” he wondered.
This website put it to this voter who wished to remain unnamed because of his closeness with Mr Sodo, that the candidate had said that his elder brother President Yoweri Museveni forced him out of the race so that he paves way for his rival Ms Musherure.
“If he knows he is innocent why has he never bothered to explain this in the constituency. Some of us learnt the news of withdrawal from the contest on social media. I also heard that he was on TV,” the voter furiously said.
He added: “When he was seeking our support did he go to to TV or he came to us.”
“Sodo fears to face us because he knows he sold us.”
However, this website couldn’t independently establish whether Mr Sodo had received a single coin to pave way for Minister Sam Kutesa’s daughter whom he defeated in the NRM primary election.
This voter also couldn’t substantiate his claim on who and where Sodo received the colossal sums of cash.
Efforts to reach Mr Sodo for a comment were futile by press time.
Forced out
But in his own words on January 13, a few hours to polling, Mr Sodo said he had been asked by his elder brother Yoweri Museveni to leave the race as a means of creating harmony between Kutesa and Kaguta families.
Culturally, Sodo was competing with his daughter in-law considering that Musherure’s sister Charlotte Kainerugaba is married to Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a son to Museveni and a nephew to Sodo.
“I was forced out of the race by Mzei,” he said contrary to unconfirmed reports that he had received huge sums of money to relinquish the seat.
Sodo further said that Museveni instructed him to withdraw his candidature in favour of his rival Shartsi Musherure Kutesa.
“Museveni decided that I pull out because if we are fighting what are we going to do to the people of Mawogola,” he added.
But he maintains, “I was forced.”
Both Sodo and Musherure had contested as Independent candidates after NRM rejected to recognize anyone as the flagbearer although Sodo had won the election and duly declared winner by the NRM electoral commission.
Sodo lodged a case against NRM in Mbarara High Court which won.
On January 10, Museveni who is also the NRM chairman summoned Sodo to Entebbe State Lodge for a meeting which was also attended by Minister Sam Kutesa and his daughter Shartsi Kutesa.
In the meeting Museveni openly asked Sodo to step down from the race, to which Sodo complied but asked his brother to also meet his campaign taskforce that has greatly done a tremendous job to mobilize for him support.
Museveni again met Sodo in company of his campaign team to explain why he asked his younger brother to willingly quit the race.
